By Jeff Foust on 2007 November 29 at 6:52 am ET Last night provided a rare opportunity for presidential candidates to address space policy issues on a national stage. Too bad that most everyone involved fumbled the chance.
In the CNN/YouTube Republican debate in St. Petersburg, Florida, the questions came from short videos from the public, similar to a Democratic debate earlier this year. And one of those questions came from a Mars exploration advocate in Colorado: (All quotes from the CNN transcript of the debate)
Steve Nielson: My name is Steve Nielson. And this question comes to you from Denver, Colorado.
JFK’s vision put a man on the moon from a nonexistent space program in about seven years. The new vision for space exploration has provided about 15 years for that same feat.
Meanwhile, Congress is pulling funding for human-to-Mars research altogether.
Is there a candidate amongst you willing to take a pledge on behalf of the Mars Society of sending an American to the surface of Mars by 2020? If not, what is your vision for human space exploration?
Host Anderson Cooper turned, for no particular reason, to Mike Huckabee to take a first shot at the question. Huckabee’s response was similar to the one he gave this summer when asked a similar question about Mars exploration:
Huckabee: Whether we ought to go to Mars is not a decision that I would want to make, but I would certainly want to make sure that we expand the space program, because every one of us who are sitting here tonight have our lives dramatically improved because there was a space program — whether it’s these screens that we see or the incredible electronics that we use, including the GPS systems that got many of you to this arena tonight.
(Laughter)
Some of you were late because you didn’t have one, by the way. Or whether it’s the medical technologies that saved many of our lives or the lives or our families, it’s the direct result of the space program, and we need to put more money into science and technology and exploration.
Now, whether we need to send somebody to Mars, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what: If we do, I’ve got a few suggestions, and maybe Hillary could be on the first rocket to Mars.
(Laughter)
Cooper then turned, not to Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson or even Ron Paul, but to Tom Tancredo, who wasn’t exactly supportive of the proposition:
Tancredo: The question is a serious one and it deserves a serious answer, and that is this: Look, we’ve been — how many times up here, how many questions have dealt with the issue of deficit spending, the debt out of control? And yet, we have somebody saying, “But would you spend more money on going to Mars?”
And the suggestion that we need to spend more money on space exploration. This is it, folks. That’s why we have such incredible problems with our debt, because everybody’s trying to be everything to all people.
We can’t afford some things, and by the way, going to Mars is one of them.
And that was it. Cooper then turned to the next question. (To be fair, that was how the debate was run: most questions were only answered by a couple of the candidates.) CNN deserves some credit for selecting a question about space policy in general, although the debate questions were very wide ranging: one person asked about the candidates’ gun collections, and another if the candidates believed “every word” in the Bible. However, asking the candidates if they supported a human Mars mission by 2020 isn’t exactly the highest priority space policy issue today: did no one submit questions about the NASA budget in general, the Vision for Space Exploration and its current implementation, the “gap” between the shuttle and Orion, or even milspace issues like space weaponization and the Chinese ASAT test?
Still, the question did provide some latitude for candidates to go off in a different direction on space policy. However, CNN trivialized (inadvertently or otherwise) the question by posing it to a candidate polling well only in Iowa (Huckabee) and one not polling well anywhere (Tancredo). That meant no chance to find out what candidates doing well nationally (Giuliani, Romney, Thompson) thought—important since they have said little, if anything, on the topic.
One other bizarre aspect of this: the Steve Nielson who asked the question appears to be the same Steve Nielson who ran a pro-Huckabee blog, “Colorado for Huckabee” until recently (when he took a leadership post in his county’s Republican Party), and was the one who asked Huckabee the Mars exploration question in the July conference call.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 November 29 at 6:19 am ET An article in Wednesday’ edition of the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill dropped a hint about the long-term plans for one of the few staunch space advocates in the Senate. In the article about shuffling of the Republican leadership in the Senate in the wake of Trent Lott’s surprise retirement, the article notes that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is currently the No. 4 Republican in the Senate as chair of the Republican Policy Committee, is considering running for the No. 3 position, conference chairman, should the current chairman, Jon Kyl, move up to Lott’s vacated position of minority whip. The article adds in passing that Hutchison “is said to be eyeing a gubernatorial bid in 2010.”
It’s not the first time that Hutchison has been rumored to be leaving the Senate to be governor. In late 2005 and early 2006 Hutchison was openly mulling a challenge to incumbent governor Rick Perry in the Republican primary; she decided instead to run for reelection to the Senate, which she won easily. A move from the Senate to the statehouse would deprive NASA and its supporters with one of the few strong advocates for the agency in the Senate.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 November 28 at 7:15 am ET We interrupt the ongoing debate about the space policies (such as they may be) of the various presidential candidates for another space policy development: what the Democratic Senate candidates in Minnesota think about space. Earlier this month in Prior Lake, Minnesota, four candidates, including one nationally-known figure, Al Franken, participated in a debate that included, incredibly enough, a very general question about funding for NASA. (One of the earlier questions, to give you a feel for the wide-ranging nature of the debate, asked whether the US should have a Department of Peace.) The article summarized the candidates’ positions, but there’s also video of the debate (skip ahead to the 15-minute mark for the section on NASA) that allows for a little more thorough summary:
- Franken, one of two frontrunners for the Democratic (technically Democratic-Farmer-Labor, as it’s known in Minnesota) nomination against incumbent Republican Norm Coleman, said he favored NASA funding, although he did not specify at what level “It’s part of the human experience to be adventurers, to be pioneers,” he said, expressing his support for human and robotic spaceflight. “We’ve reaped tremendous benefits from the space program, in terms of innovation and technology.” He spent the rest of his time expressing his dismay for the “war on science” by the Bush Administration, including editing and suppression of climate change reports. He advocated legislation that would prohibit political appointees from editing scientific reports without the permission of the scientists who wrote them.
- Mike Ciresi, the other frontrunner, said, “Yes, I would support further funding of NASA,” but said that the level of funding would depend on other priorities. “NASA is going to be in there, but it may be a different level of spending than in the past.” He also spoke out against the perceived war on science by the current administration.
- Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer said he wanted to take the question about support for NASA “in a little different direction”. “Yes, I support research and development money that goes to NASA,” he said, particularly for global climate change studies. “But we also have to acknowledge that a lot of that NASA budget is designed to move forward in the militarization of space.” He didn’t specify exactly what NASA programs he thought were moving in that direction, but he did bring up a UN vote last year on space weaponization where the US was the only country to vote against it because “we have an active campaign and program to militarize space.” (The difference between “weaponization” and “militarization” appears to be a subtlety lost on him.) “So when we talk about support for NASA, of course we want to support aspects of NASA,” he concluded. “I am absolutely opposed to any country unilaterally deciding that it has the right to militarize space against the wishes against the rest of the world.” (That got one of the loudest rounds of applause from the audience in the debate.)
- “I support the NASA budget increases and funding for it,” Jim Cohen said. “It’s exciting, it nurtures exploration, adventure, it helps inspire our children in school, maybe even helps build toys and so forth for kids.” He recalled the excitement of the Apollo 11 landing in 1969 and how that excitement had been lost since then. “The NASA funding hasn’t been balanced, as Jack [Nelson-Pallmeyer] referred to,” he said. “We need to take a look at that budget from how much is being spent towards research and development of militarizing our space.” He also said that technology developed by NASA should be shared “with the rest of the world.”
By Jeff Foust on 2007 November 27 at 7:31 am ET While people in the US were doing their Black Friday shopping for Christmas, EU budget ministers did a little shopping of their own, reaching a deal to pay for the Galileo satellite navigation system through the use of surplus agricultural subsidies. Germany, which had been opposed to the proposal when it was announced this fall, was the only EU member to vote against it, although it did win concessions on how the contracts would be awarded: the Galileo work will be split into six contracts, with no one company allowed to be the prime contractor for more than two. “The approach,” noted Deutsche Welle, “was meant to quell German fears that French companies would win control of the essential elements of the projects.”
While the funding deal is now all but certain to be approved, not everyone is happy. Spanish officials are concerned Italy and Germany are blocking Spanish companies from taking a “leading role” in Galileo. And there remains skepticism about Galileo in the UK: in The Times, commentator Bronwen Maddox argues that the EU “is paying too much (of taxpayers’ money) for an overcomplicated system that doesn’t yet work, in which private companies have refused to take part, and which may be overtaken by its rivals before it starts.” Her recommendation: “The best option for Galileo would have been to get a simple version running and gradually to make it more sophisticated if demand warranted.”
By Jeff Foust on 2007 November 26 at 1:15 pm ET In the last couple of months some advocates of the US space program, including NASA administrator Mike Griffin, have been racheting up the rhetoric about the US in danger of being beaten back to the Moon by China. Unless the President and Congress commit more resources to NASA to close The Gap and accelerate other aspects of the exploration architecture, Chinese astronauts will land on the Moon before Americans return. And that, they claim, would be bad, although rarely are people very specific about the negative consequences of such a feat, other than to state vague concerns about “national security”.
A case in point is an editorial in today’s issue of Florida Today by John Glisch. Recalling the original Space Race between the US and USSR that caused President Kennedy to make his bold lunar mission goal, he writes:
Today, it may take that same kind of political gut-check by a new president to boost NASA’s return-to-the-moon plan or risk watching China plant the next flag on our celestial neighbor.
A potential accomplishment that’s already raising national security concerns as China continues its rise as a global economic and military power.
Later, he writes that such claims are “not bogus talk”. “Now leaders in Beijing are seriously pursuing ways to send taikonauts — their name for astronauts — to the moon before America’s scheduled return around 2020.”
Leaving aside the question for the time being of just how serious the consequences a Chinese-first human mission to the Moon would be, there’s the question of just how “seriously” China is pursuing a human lunar mission. Unfortunately for Glisch, his timing is bad:
China currently has no plan to send a man onto the moon, said Sun Laiyan, chief of the China National Space Administration, on Monday.
“I’ve read reports by foreign media saying that China would carry a manned moon landing in 2020, but I don’t think there has been such a plan,” Sun told a press conference in Beijing.
Sun did add that he believes that “one day China will for sure send its own astronauts to land on the moon”, but he certainly didn’t sound like someone who thought China would get there before 2020. Which makes you wonder just how strong the so-called “China card” is—or should be—in arguments on Capitol Hill and elsewhere for increasing NASA’s budget.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 November 23 at 8:23 pm ET The rWashington Post article today about presidential candidates positions, such as they may be, on space policy got a little attention in the blogosphere (muted, perhaps, because it was the day after Thanksgiving). One person who picked up on it was Steve Benen of The Carpetbagger Report who was thankful that space policy discussion was not focused on UFOs or alien invasions, even if he was a little unclear on some of the details. “Candidly, I should admit that I know very little about the Constellation program, and just how much it costs,” he admitted. Undeterred, though, he adds, “I’m fairly encouraged that leading candidates would explore a policy difference about investing quite a bit of money in a space-exploration initiative.” How much additional “exploration” of that issue, though, by Obama, Clinton, and other candidates remains unclear.
He continues: “Bush may have gotten the ball rolling in 2005 [sic] with a plan for a new generation of spacecraft that can fly to the moon and perhaps to Mars, but most Republican presidential candidates seem to be leaning in Obama’s direction.” He backs that up with a passage from the Post article about the limited space policy platforms of the leading Republican candidates, but that doesn’t mean that they side with Obama about cutting Constellation or other NASA programs. Recall from this morning’s post that Giuliani has argued for “aggressively” pursuing space exploration, while Romney said he had no reason to change NASA’s current direction as described by the Vision for Space Exploration. And let’s not forget Mike Huckabee, surging in the polls in Iowa (maybe because of that Chuck Norris endorsement?) said this summer that he would be in “strong favor of increasing our efforts in space exploration and technology”, although unwilling to commit to a human Mars mission in the near term.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 November 23 at 8:09 am ET An editorial today in the Orlando Sentinel argues that the US needs to close “the gap” between the shuttle and Orion by increasing NASA’s budget to accelerate Orion. Interestingly, despite Orlando’s proximity to the Space Coast, the editorial doesn’t make the argument primarily out of concerns of any economic displacement in the area that would be created by an extended gap. Instead, the paper’s concerns are based on reliance on the Russians, as US-Russia relations in general deteriorate: “Putting Mr. Putin in the pilot’s seat that long could lead him to jack up the price for U.S. access to space, or use it as a bargaining chip in other disputes.” (The editorial adds that once the shuttle is retired, “U.S. astronauts will have no option but Russian space vehicles until the Constellation program is ready to get off the ground”; apparently the Sentinel is either unfamiliar with COTS or dismissive of its prospects to provide commercial crew transport to and from the ISS.)
The solution: add $2 billion to NASA to accelerate Orion’s introduction to September 2013, as NASA officials outlined in last week’s Senate hearing. “But other lawmakers are reluctant to make that investment,” the editorial states. “Meanwhile, Congress is poised to approve a bill that would dump tens of billions of dollars into subsidies for farms that don’t need them. Go figure.” (It’s easy to figure: the agriculture lobby is far more powerful than the space lobby.) Given the apparent inability of Congress to provide an extra $1 billion for NASA in FY08, getting $2 billion doesn’t seem very likely—especially when some see the program as a source of funding for other programs…
By Jeff Foust on 2007 November 23 at 7:48 am ET Today’s Washington Post reviews what the 2008 presidential candidates have said about space and finds that (to no one’s surprise who reads this blog regularly) they have said very little. The article uses as a hook Barack Obama’s announcement earlier this week that he would delay NASA’s Constellation program for five years to fund part of his education plan. The article does include a quote from a Hillary Clinton spokesman in response to Obama’s plan: “Senator Clinton does not support delaying the Constellation program and intends to maintain American leadership in space exploration.”
Most of the other information in the article has been published elsewhere: the statement from the John Edwards campaign, for example, was published back in July, while the Mitt Romney statement came from an August visit to Florida’s Space Coast. Of interest is this passage from the Post article:
When asked about their candidates’ positions on the moon-Mars project, a spokeswoman for Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) did not respond, while one for former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said, “I’m not sure anything is out there on this subject.”
That last part is not entirely correct: Giuliani has said he would “aggressively pursue space exploration” earlier this year. And, of course, he’s ready to defend the planet from alien invasion.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 November 21 at 7:01 am ET An article in today’s USA Today includes a quote from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama explaining, in part, why he chose to cut money from NASA’s Constellation program to pay for his education plan:
To pay for his education program, Obama would eliminate tax-deductibility of CEO pay by corporations and delay NASA’s program to return to the moon and then journey to Mars.
“We’re not going to have the engineers and the scientists to continue space exploration if we don’t have kids who are able to read, write and compute,” Obama said.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 November 20 at 2:06 pm ET Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama released today the education plan he would enact if elected. The full 15-page plan includes a variety of proposals, including reforming early education programs. The last section of the plan, titled “A Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility” explains how he would pay for these initiatives. The passage of relevance here: “The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years,” among other steps. According to MSNBC, Obama would leave in place $500 million/year for Constellation’s “manufacturing and technology base”, but would otherwise transfer the funding to the education effort. None of the campaign’s official statements or other media reports indicate any alternative measures the campaign would take to address what, on its face, would appear to be a five-year delay in the introduction of Ares 1, Orion, and the other main components of NASA’s current exploration architecture.
(A potentially ironic item, depending on your opinion on the importance of Constellation: one other section of the Obama education plan is titled “Make Math and Science Education a National Priority”.)
The Republican National Committee has criticized the move to delay Constellation, The Hill reports, quoting RNC spokesman Danny Diaz: “It is ironic that Barack Obama’s plan to help our children reach for the stars is financed in part by slashing a program that helps us learn about those very same stars.”
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