By Jeff Foust on 2008 February 29 at 8:50 am ET Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was in Houston yesterday to make a speech at the “Houston Presidential Energy Summit”, the only one of the three major candidates to speak at the event. According to a report at PoliGazette by someone who is clearly a supporter of, or at least sympathetic to, Clinton, the candidate did briefly mention human spaceflight in her speech:
Differentiating herself with Obama regarding space exploration, Clinton said that she would accelerate development of the space shuttle’s replacement to ensure that America continues to lead in space and does allow “a ten year period in which Americans will have to hitch a ride from Chinese or Russian-made vehicles”.
The “ten-year period” appears to be a calculation based on the current five-year gap between Shuttle and Constellation plus previous statements by Barack Obama that he would delay the Constellation program by five years to help fund his education initiative, although later statements have made it unclear exactly what parts of Constellation Obama would postpone.
Update 1:30 pm: Clinton also addressed space policy at a rally later Thursday evening, as reported by a Huffington Post blogger:
A few minutes later, she moves on to the space program. “And let’s continue to look toward the stars. Houston is the center of space exploration. We need a president who wants to keep sending Americans into space. . . . That’s one difference between me and my opponent. I want Houston to remain the capital of the space program. I don’t want to be sending Americans into space on a Chinese or a Russian manned vehicle.” If her supporters think this is an odd remark, they clap and ululate nevertheless.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 February 28 at 8:05 pm ET Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was interviewed Thursday by report Tom Beres of Cleveland’s WKYC-TV on a number of topics, including NASA—of topic of some interest there given the presence of the Glenn Research Center. In the interview, Obama says the space program has been “stuck” for a number of years with the shuttle. He called for “broadening our horizons”, including a mix of both unmanned missions (the reference to the “Jupiter launch” is unclear, but appears to be the candidate stumbling to come up with an example of a robotic mission extemporaneously) and “planning for potential manned flights”. Asked if he would continue the current national space exploration policy, he said he would, as president, do a “thorough review” of NASA programs so that the agency’s spending “is a little more coherent than it has been”, although he didn’t go into any greater specifics.
A rough transcript of the NASA portion of the Obama interview is below:
Beres: Another subject. Here in northeast Ohio the role of NASA space program [is] very important. We have a NASA Glenn Research Center here that was on the ropes for a while and has now been given an awful lot of work to take part in the lets’ go back into space, let’s go back to the Moon, let’s go back to Mars projects outlined by President Bush. What is your view towards the space program? Would you have the same priorities?
Obama: Well, I’ve got a strong belief in NASA and the process of space exploration. I do think that our program has been stuck for a while, that the space shuttle mission did not inspire the imaginations of the public, that much of the experimentation that was done could have been conducted not necessarily with manned flights. I think that broadening our horizons and looking at a combination of both unmanned satellites of the sort that we saw with the Jupiter launch, but also looking at where we can start planning for potential manned flights. I think that is all something that I’m excited about and could be part of a broader strategy for science and technology investment–
Beres: So you would continue–
Obama: The only thing I want to say is that I want to do a thorough review because some of these programs may not be moving in the right direction and I want to make sure that NASA spending is a little more coherent than it has been over the last several years.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 February 28 at 6:44 am ET The Florida Legislature, following the lead of Virginia, is considering legislation to provide liability immunity for suborbital commercial vehicle operators. The legislation, HB 737, was introduced in the Florida House of Representatives in January by Rep. David Simmons, an Orlando-area Republican, and is currently working its way through various House committees. The legislation would make any “spaceflight entity” (any company or organization with an FAA launch, reentry, or spaceport license) “not liable for injury to or death of a participant resulting from the inherent risks of spaceflight launch activities”, except in those cases of gross negligence or intentional harm. The legislation would also require spaceflight participants to sign a statement that contains the following:
“WARNING: Under Florida law, there is no liability for an injury to or death of a participant in a spaceflight activity provided by a spaceflight entity if such injury or death results from the inherent risks of the spaceflight activity. Inherent risks of spaceflight activities include, among others, risks of injury to land, equipment, persons, and animals, as well as the potential for you to act in a negligent manner that may contribute to your injury or death. You are assuming the risk of participating in this spaceflight activity.”
The legislation, which is patterned after a similar bill that was signed into law in Virginia last year, attracted the attention of the Palm Beach Post, which published an editorial about the bill on Thursday. Or, rather, it mentions the bill in passing, trying to draw it into the discussion of the USA 193 intercept, and doing so poorly:
If Virginia isn’t going to hold such companies responsible for dropping a satellite on a condominium, the only way Florida can compete for that emerging industry is to give Buck Rogers entrepreneurs a pass if they happen to knock off a few Floridians. Hey, whose fault is it if gravity acting on spacecraft kills a hapless golfer or two?
If Jac Wilder VerSteeg, the deputy editor of the Post’s editorial page and the author of the editorial, had actually read the legislation, he would see it would have nothing to do with “dropping a satellite on a condominium”. But it would have then made the editorial that much less entertaining.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 February 28 at 6:16 am ET Former president Bill Clinton was in Houston yesterday stumping for his wife, and he briefly addressed the issue of human spaceflight, according to the Houston Chronicle:
Clinton pointed out that Hillary Clinton places more of an emphasis than Obama on human space travel.
“This is the center of American space travel,” he said of Houston and the Johnson Space Center. “Sixteen thousand (local) jobs — and a lot of America’s future — rely on this.”
(The AP, mentioning that statement in passing, ups the ante, claiming that “about 100,000 in the Houston area work for NASA’s Johnson Space Center or related industries,” which may be true for a particularly inclusive definition of “Houston area” and/or “related industries”.)
Some more from The Hotline’s blog:
“Hillary has always supported the manned space program just as I did when I was president,” he told a crowd of over 250 who gathered in a picturesque neighborhood park in a Houston suburb today. “Her opponent says we should downgrade man space travel and upgrade robotic travel.”
“There are 16,000 jobs and a lot of Americans’ futures riding on this centered here in Houston,” said Clinton today. “You have to make a decision whether you care about this.”
One suspects a few people, recalling the stagnant or declining NASA budgets through much of the Clinton era, may wonder just how strong of an endorsement this is…
By Jeff Foust on 2008 February 26 at 5:21 am ET I had not heard too much about the results of the recent “Space Blitz” by the Space Exploration Alliance (SEA) earlier this month, where members of the SEA’s organzations briefed Congressional offices about NASA funding and associated issues. The SEA, through the Mars Society, did issue a press release last week, which I’ve reprinted below (it doesn’t appear on the SEA or Mars Society sites), that summarizes their meetings.
A reminder that ProSpace is ramping up preparations for March Storm 2008 on March 9-12. This year’s agenda features two major themes, developing space resources and developing a commercial space infrastructure.
Continue reading Blitz results, Storm planning
By Jeff Foust on 2008 February 24 at 1:35 pm ET While Ron Paul is continuing his presidential campaign—a decision many may consider quixotic given John McCain’s virtual lock on the Republican nomination at this point—he does have a separate election looming: the Republican nomination for the 14th Congressional District in Texas, a seat Paul has held for over a decade. Paul is facing a strong challenger in the form of Chris Peden, and with no Democrat on the ballot, the March 4 primary could effectively be the general election for that seat.
Peden and some of his supporters are trying to use NASA as an issue to distinguish the two. Peden’s campaign web site notes his support for the agency:
As a Friendswood city councilman, Chris is a strong supporter of NASA and the space program. With the Johnson Space center less than 2 miles from CD [Congressional District] 14, many NASA workers and contractors live in CD 14. Recently retired astronaut Eileen Collins is a resident of CD 14, as are many of her colleagues in the elite astronaut corp [sic].
Chris regularly volunteers to travel to Washington, D.C as a member of Citizens for Space Exploration whose mission is to promote awareness of the benefits of human space exploration and support for NASA and the Vision for Space Exploration. Additionally, the cutting edge work in nanotechnology and bioengineering being done in CD 14 at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston depends on NASA innovations so a prosperous NASA leads to a prosperous CD 14.
Other have picked up on that argument. W. James Antle III in The American Spectator on Friday:
Yet Paul may be vulnerable for a different reason: The district isn’t that far from NASA’s headquarters and many of the space program’s employees are among his constituents. Paul has opposed firing taxpayer dollars into space on constitutional grounds. Peden promises to vote for “fully funding NASA’s budget and the Vision for Space Exploration.” A third candidate in the primary race, Andy Mann, is a NASA contractor.
Peden had this to say about Paul’s objections to funding NASA (among many other government programs) in an interview last week with Pajamas Media:
The second thing is that he constantly talks about things being unconstitutional that I don’t believe are unconstitutional. And, you know, he harps on NASA being unconstitutional, which Thomas Jefferson, one of the framers of the Constitution, funded Lewis and Clark’s expedition of the West. If – and I believe, you know, if in his day the moon had been within his reach, he would have funded that exploration as well. If you want to have a debate about whether NASA is a good expenditure for the federal government to make, that’s an intellectual debate that should happen in committee and should happen on the floor of Congress. But to say I’m voting against it because it’s unconstitutional is just felonious at best. And those are the types of things I reject.
Peden also recently won the endorsement of the Galveston Daily News in part because the paper believed that Peden would be better able to bring federal money of various flavors, including for NASA, into the district:
In the next two years, leaders in Galveston County will join those from other counties in District 14 in asking for a lot of federal funding. They’ll ask for help on projects such as research at the Galveston National Laboratory and on NASA’s mission to Mars.
Grassroots leaders should have an effective ally in their congressional representative. Peden is the better choice.
Will all this translate into more votes for Peden on March 4th? One thing to keep in mind in all this is that, should Peden win, he would be next year a freshman congressman associated most likely with the minority party (unless a massive shift in the 2008 elections returns the House to Republican control)—hardly a position of influence. Those thinking that Peden would be able to turn on the spigot for increased NASA funding should remember last year when Rep. Nick Lampson, a Democrat in the neighboring, high-profile 22nd District (home to JSC, as well as Tom DeLay’s former district) sought to win House support for the “Mikulski miracle”: an extra $1 billion for NASA in FY08 that had been approved by the Senate with bipartisan support. That bid ultimately failed, despite Lampson being in the majority and despite the benefit that increase could have provided Lampson in his reelection bid.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 February 24 at 12:54 pm ET Not wanting to get too far out on a limb, Sunday’s Florida Today features an article headlined “Election may affect NASA future”. The article doesn’t directly address what the next president might do to change space policy, but rather looks at the debate about whether the Ares 1 is the best vehicle to implement NASA’s exploration plans. This provided another opportunity for NASA administrator Mike Griffin to complain that the criticism about the vehicle is just sour grapes from United Launch Alliance:
“It’s just noise. It’s people who would like to sell Atlas 5 trying to use methods outside the market. They are trying to use political methods to get people to buy their product instead of another product,” Griffin said.
“This is not an argument between NASA and anyone else. This is an argument between a losing contractor and a winning contractor by a losing contractor that (thinks) the winner should be overturned,” he said. “Sorry.”
The article does reference a ULA statement that supports the current implementation of the Vision, er, Space Exploration Policy, “including the Ares launch vehicle element that is critical to its success.”
In a related note, a reader points out an AP article about a Hillary Clinton appearance in Houston Saturday night where she reiterated her previous position on NASA. “I believe we need to keep funding our next generation of spacecraft,” the article quoted Clinton as saying. (Interesting, the Houston Chronicle article about her speech made no mention of her statement, despite the obvious local interest in the topic.)
By Jeff Foust on 2008 February 21 at 7:13 am ET Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) paid a visit to the Space Coast on Wednesday, and touched upon both NASA as well as space policy in the presidential campaign during a speech there. On the election, Nelson said Florida’s role as a swing state in the general election could continue to make space an issue in the campaign. “It is going to be up to us to educate the two candidates about space,” he said. A skeptic might argue, though, that space did little, if anything, to influence the outcome of the Republican primary there; moreover, if John McCain picks Florida governor Charlie Crist as his running mate (a name that has popped up from time to time among a number of other potential choices) it might take the state out of play entirely.
Nelson also made comments about NASA’s selection of Orbital Sciences Corporation for a funded COTS agreement. The choice itself wasn’t necessarily surprising—the choice also ensures NASA will have an alternative to the Delta 2 for medium-class payloads, and Orbital won’t have the same financial issues that hobbled previous awardee Rocketplane Kistler—but what was a bit of a surprise was Orbital’s statement that it would conduct some or all of its COTS launches from Wallops instead of the Cape. That isn’t sitting well with the folks in Florida, or with Nelson, who said he “expects” those COTS launches to take place from the Cape. “He said that NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and 45th Space Wing commander Brig. Gen. Susan Helms assured him they would work to bring the launches to the Cape,” the Florida Today article reported. That might grab the attention of Virginia’s Congressional delegation…
By Jeff Foust on 2008 February 20 at 6:56 am ET Florida’s space industry will be trekking to the state capitol in Tallahassee next month to lobby for support as the industry approaches the post-shuttle era, Florida Today reported Wednesday. Space Day, on March 6, will feature meetings with over 100 state legislators as well as the governor and lieutenant governor. The article is scant on details about exactly what they will be asking for, though: “Recommendations will include a shuttle work force transition program and continued investment in university-based aerospace research and applied technology programs.”
By Jeff Foust on 2008 February 19 at 6:36 am ET For some reason, the Houston Chronicle article about the policy differences between Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, which include at least subtle differences on the issue of human spaceflight, got the attention of some high-profile members on the left side of the political blogosphere. Monday morning Matthew Yglesias of The Atlantic Online posted a quick note about the article, citing the passage from the Chronicle article that notes that “Clinton was more enthusiastic than Obama about human space travel and domestic oil production” when interviewed by the paper. “Advantage, Obama!” Yglesias wrote. “Though Clinton is clearly taking the more Texas-friendly line here.”
That post generated a response by Chris Bowers of Open Left, who sees Clinton’s apparent enthusiasm about human spaceflight as an advantage, not a disadvantage. Bowers is clearly a fan of space exploration, including human spaceflight, and concludes, “While I hope that whoever becomes the next President will be bullish on space exploration, that Clinton appears more bullish than Obama is a real point in her column as far as I am concerned.”
This, in turn, generated a response by Yglesias, who makes it clear that he’s a supporter of space exploration, just not necessarily human spaceflight. “Unmanned missions are, at the moment, the ones really pushing the frontiers of our knowledge and that’s going to continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. That’s where we ought to be focusing our energies.”
As these humans-versus-robots arguments unfold, I would recommend that they, and anyone else interested in the issue, check out a new book, Robots in Space: Technology, Evolution, and Interplanetary Travel, by Roger Launius and Howard McCurdy. You can read a full review of the book in The Space Review, but in short, the two offer a thorough examination of the rationales that have been put forward over the years for both human and robotic space exploration, and the shortfalls and conflicts.
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