By Jeff Foust on 2007 December 29 at 11:01 am ET [Second in a series.]
The conference report accompanying the FY2008 appropriations bill contains a number of provisions calling on studies, either by NASA or outside agencies, on various areas of concern to Congress:
The conference report states that the House and Senate appropriations committees are concerned that “NASA is not able to anticipate adequately technical problems and project overruns on existing programs, and are especially concerned that new programs, such as Project Constellation, will encounter similar problems.” They are also similarly concerned with the decisionmaking process within NASA to resolve such problems. Thus, the report directs NASA to “establish an ongoing relationship with the National Academy of Sciences for the purpose of providing an independent project review capability using ad hoc committees established under the purview of the Space Studies Board and/or the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board,” with $1 million set aside in the Cross-Agency Support Programs budget for such work. The report adds that the appropriations committees “do not intend to recommend approval of any major program changes unless an independent review by the National Academies concurs with NASA’s proposed course of action.”
The report also explicitly supports efforts to keep Arecibo Observatory in operation, directing NASA “to provide additional funding” for the radio telescope. Part of that interest in Arecibo is rooted in its space radar capability, used to study near Earth objects (NEOs); the report calls on NASA to call on the National Research Council (NRC) to study NEO survey and deflection strategies. An interim report, focused on survey programs, is due in 15 months, while the final report, with “recommendations regarding the optimal approach to developing a deflection capability”, is due in 21 months.
The report also states that NASA should ask the NRC to study the availability of radioisotope power systems, which are needed for planetary missions where solar power is infeasible. Both NASA and the Department of Energy have raised concerns about the availability of plutonium fuel used for such systems, but the report notes that “NASA has curtailed a major part of its technology development for advanced RPS devices.”
Yet another NASA-NRC study request involves a decadal study of life and physical science research in microgravity, to establish priorities for such research planned between 2010 and 2020. The report also calls on NASA to increase spending on “non-exploration” microgravity life and physical sciences research in FY08 by $13.5 million.
There has been a lot of discussion about COTS in the budget, including the cut in funding for the program and language which directs NASA to not make a new award until after the GAO reviews a current protest by Rocketplane Kistler. However, the report also directs the GAO to “perform a full review of COTS program expenditures and management,” although it appears that this study would not itself hold up the COTS program.
Congress is also asking the GAO to study NASA’s plans for the post-shuttle transition, noting the appropriations committees’ concerns “about this immense and unprecedented undertaking of transitioning assets and facilities to another NASA program, for external use, or for disposal, as well as the transitioning of the space shuttle workforce.”
Finally, the report specifically directs the NASA administrator to study “the possibility” of sending the Alpha Magnetic Spectometer (AMS) to the ISS. The report is due to Congress within 30 days “and should include the steps necessary to prepare for such a mission.” The report, though, doesn’t specify that such a mission be a shuttle mission.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 December 27 at 12:23 pm ET On Wednesday President Bush officially signed the omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 2008, which includes funding for a wide range of agencies, including NASA. Congress had passed the bill last week before recessing for the year. With the FY2008 appropriations process at an end (and it being an otherwise quiet time on the space policy front), it’s a good time to review how the NASA budget turned out. Below is a summary of the final appropriations bill as compared to the administration proposed back in February (all values in millions of dollars):
| Program |
Request |
Final |
| Science |
5,516.1 |
5,577.3 |
| Exploration Systems |
3,923.8 |
3,842.0 |
| Aeronautics |
554.0 |
625.3 |
| Cross-Agency Support Programs |
489.2 |
556.4 |
| Shuttle |
4,007.5 |
4,000.0 |
| ISS |
2,238.6 |
2,220.0 |
| Space and Flight Support |
545.7 |
545.7 |
| Inspector General |
34.6 |
32.6 |
| Reductions |
n/a |
-89.9 |
| TOTAL |
17,309.4 |
17,309.4 |
The “Reductions” line item above are from language in the bill that calls for reductions in “corporate and general administrative expenses”, totaling $57.9 million for the Science, Aeronautics, and Exploration account and $32.0 million for the Exploration Capabilities (Shuttle, ISS, and Space and Flight Support) account.
So, at first glance, over ten months after the appropriations process started, NASA ended up with almost exactly what the administration requested: a little less for exploration, a little more for science and aeronautics. As always, though, the devil is in the details, including the shifts in funding within accounts and the language in the conference report. (Not to mention whether those funding levels are sufficient for the agency to carry out everything on its plate, a whole other debate.) Those details will be discussed in later posts.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 December 21 at 1:11 pm ET An article in Thursday’s issue of CongressDailyAM (not freely availably online, unfortunately) suggests that the Bush Administration may be close to making some changes to the export control process that could benefit the aerospace industry. The changes are believed to be based on recommendations made earlier this year by the Coalition for Security and Competitiveness. Industry representatives told the publication that a “package of process improvements” could be announced any week now; these changes would affect how the export control regime is implemented but not involve anything that would require legislative action by Congress. Some of the coalition’s proposals back in March for items on the Munitions List include appointing a senior director on the National Security Council responsible for export policy, increasing the staff of the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, and implementing “more efficient, effective, and transparent licensing procedures and technology disclosure review processes”.
However, you shouldn’t necessarily hold your breath that these changes will be imminent: one person told CongressDailyAM, “This is the fifth week we’ve been told we will get an answer soon.”
By Jeff Foust on 2007 December 19 at 7:01 am ET That’s the Orlando Sentinel’s assessment of the odds that Congressman Dave Weldon’s shuttle life extension proposal will be enacted in an editorial published Wednesday. The Sentinel finds faults with Weldon’s proposal in terms of both money and priorities. Getting that money—Weldon estimates that the total cost would be about $10 billion, assuming the shuttle can be operated for a fraction of current costs—is no easy feat in the current Congressional environment, the editorial notes. “Even if all those extra dollars were to fall like meteors from space, the shuttle would not be the best place for NASA to put them,” the editorial continues, saying the money would be better spent on accelerating Constellation. “Investing billions more now [on the shuttle] would be like busting the family’s bank account to put a new engine in a 30-year-old car.”
By Jeff Foust on 2007 December 18 at 1:48 pm ET I haven’t had a chance to review the NASA-related language in the omnibus appropriations bill currently being considered by Congress, but Space News [subscription required] has found a provision that would effectively place the ongoing COTS selection process on hold, perhaps for months:
“[T]he Appropriations Committees note that one of the two COTS contracts is currently in dispute, and are concerned by NASA’s recent decision to re-compete the disputed contract before all challenges have been resolved,” the report language states. “In doing so, NASA could potentially create a liability to fund three proposals instead of two as originally envisioned, increasing the costs of this program to the taxpayers. Therefore, NASA is directed not to select a new contractor until all challenges are decided. Further, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is directed to perform a full review of COTS program expenditures and management.”
(I suspect some at NASA are cringing at the use of “contracts” and “contractor” above since they have emphasized on many occasions that COTS is run as a set of Space Act agreements awarded to companies outside of the usual federal acquisition regulations; that flexibility would seem to provide ways for NASA to get around any concerns expressed in the conference report excerpt above.) The article also notes that the bill cuts the funding for COTS in FY08 by roughly a third, from the requested $236 million down to $160 million, which could have a bigger influence on the selection process that the delay.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 December 18 at 7:55 am ET Congressman Dave Weldon (R-FL) formally announced yesterday his legislation intended to keep the shuttle flying until Orion is ready to begin operations. A breakdown of what his bill would cost, according to Florida Today:
- $1.6 billion to speed the development of the new Orion space capsules and Ares rockets.
- $819 million to reimburse NASA for costs incurred returning to flight after the 2003 Columbia accident.
- $1.2 billion to bolster other NASA aeronautics and science projects that have been cut in recent years.
- “Such sums as necessary” to keep the shuttle fleet flying two missions a year until Orion spacecraft are ready to launch.
Weldon believes that the “such sums” would amount to $2 billion a year for 2011 through 2013, when Orion would be ready to fly under an accelerated schedule, although he didn’t get into details why he thought that, given that this would be cheaper that current shuttle operation costs (he did say he thought that one of the shuttle orbiters could be retired, and that NASA had developed a track record that showed it could “be innovative and make do with limited resources”).
Where would this money come from? That’s not addressed in Weldon’s legislation. “It’s an authorizing bill, not an appropriating bill,” he said, meaning that even if Congress approved the bill, there’s no guarantee that appropriators would provide the requested funding. Recall that the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 authorized nearly $18.7 billion for NASA in FY08; it appears the final appropriations bill being considered by Congress now will fall over $1 billion short of that request.
Moreover, it doesn’t seem likely at the moment that Congress would approve the bill. Florida Today reports that two of the biggest shuttle supporters in the Senate, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Bill Nelson, were lukewarm at best about the bill. The Orlando Sentinel reports that even Weldon considers it unlikely that the bill will make it into law.
So why introduce it at all, besides demonstrating to constituents that you’re trying to help the local economy by keeping the shuttle and its jobs in place for a while longer? Weldon hopes that his bill will “force a national debate over the future of America’s space program”, in particular among the presidential candidates. Weldon criticized the Republican candidates for not being forthcoming about their proposed space policies, according to the Sentinel:
“The best person with a space policy — actually, the only candidate with any kind of substantial space policy on their Web site — is Hillary [Clinton],” he said. “The Republican candidates need to wake up and smell the coffee.”
The Sentinel did contact two of the leading Republicans, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney; both offered general platitudes in support of space exploration and the Vision for Space Exploration that are unlikely to mollify Weldon.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 December 17 at 7:29 am ET Congressman Dave Weldon (R-FL) will formally introduce legislation today to extend the life of the space shuttle during a press conference today at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. As first reported by the Orlando Sentinel earlier this month, Weldon is concerned about a long gap between the shuttle retirement around 2010 and the introduction of Orion, circa 2015. According to a statement from the Congressman’s office, the “S.P.A.C.E. Act” would “propose” additional shuttle flights during the gap. “This legislation will also provide additional resources for the Constellation project, and will have a positive effect on our national security as well as the local economy.” (The latter is pretty obvious, but perhaps someone will ask Weldon how he ties continuing civil human spaceflight with national security.)
By Jeff Foust on 2007 December 16 at 5:37 pm ET This afternoon I was finishing up the second volume of Astronautics, a two-volume history of the Space Age by Ted Spitzmiller published this fall by Apogee Books. A section about the future of the ISS and its overall viability states that NASA administration Michael Griffin had said that he would not have chose to build the ISS in its current configuration and orbit. Such statements, Spitzmiller writes, “call into question not only continued support for the ISS but funding for the return to the moon as requested by President Bush. Bush himself stated—perhaps with tongue-in-cheek—‘We plan to either hold an auction on Ebay [sic] or give it away to our international partners.'”
Had Bush really joked about selling the ISS on eBay? I didn’t recall Bush making such a statement, and Spitzmiller doesn’t include endnotes in the book. So I did a little research, and turned up this SpaceDaily piece that includes the quote used in the book. The problem is the article’s lede: “US President George W. Bush declared today that he had signed a rare Presidential Decree canceling any further expenditure of Federal funds on the US Space Shuttle program.” Not to mention the article’s publication date: April 1, 2005. Oops.
The irony of all this is that, in the long run, NASA might well turn over the ISS to its international partners, depending on how the Vision for Space Exploration and the agency’s finances unfold in the years to come. Selling it on eBay, though, still seems a little unlikely…
By Jeff Foust on 2007 December 15 at 4:32 pm ET The Space Exploration Alliance (SEA) is planning an annual “legislative blitz” in February, bringing together to people to meet Congressional staffers on space policy issues. The February 10-12 event will be focused on the FY2009 budget proposal, which will have been released about a week earlier. “Participants will be the first members of the space advocacy community to visit Congress to discuss the FY09 budget,” the announcement reads (unless someone gets there the week before). The effort will also be directed at “numerous efforts in Congress to either delay or derail NASA’s Moon-Mars plans”. The irony of all this is they could be meeting about the FY09 budget proposal before the FY08 budget is actually enacted, given the slow rate of progress on that effort so far.
Meanwhile, the SEA is also paying attention to the presidential campaign, asking the candidates to provide details on their space policy positions. “The Space Exploration Alliance applauds Senator Hillary Clinton for releasing her comprehensive space policy,” the SEA release notes, “and calls on all of the other candidates to release the details of their policies for space exploration and NASA.”
By Jeff Foust on 2007 December 15 at 4:23 pm ET Since this issue has come up in the comment threads of more than one post, I’ll briefly mention it here. There is no way to prevent a determined individual from posting comments here, regardless of what you think of them. Thanks to anonymizing servers, people can comment without leaving any trace of where they actually came from, thus making any blocking attempts futile. Short of moderating all comments (which would significantly restrict the flow of discussion, not to mention put a huge burden on me on top of all my other work) or simply turning off comments all together, the best approach I can recommend to objectionable comments is the lesson I learned in school many years ago when dealing with bullies: ignore them, and soon enough they’ll direct their attention elsewhere. After all, it’s not like they’re going to be receptive to your arguments and logic…
If you have specific technical recommendations on measures that can improve the quality of comments here, of course, feel free to email me.
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