By Jeff Foust on 2007 November 9 at 6:32 am ET President Bush happened to be in the neighborhood, it seems, so he decided to greet the STS-120 crew upon their return to Houston on Thursday. Bush met with the astronauts and their families at Ellington Field upon their arrival there, one day after the astronauts returned to Earth on the shuttle Discovery. According to the Houston Chronicle, the White House contacted NASA on Tuesday to arrange for a private meeting with the crew while Bush was in Texas for a visit to a veterans rehab center and a fundraising luncheon for Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who is running for reelection next year. The only mention of the meeting on the White House web site is a photo of Bush meeting the crew, and the only quote from Bush: “Wow, what a terrific mission!”
By Jeff Foust on 2007 November 7 at 7:29 am ET Since this summer the Mars Society has battled language in the House version of the appropriations bill that prohibits NASA from spending money on projects exclusively intended for human Mars exploration. Now, as conferees prepare to work out differences between the House bill and its Senate version (which lacks the offending provision), the NSS is joining the fray. “HELP!” begins an email sent out by the NSS late yesterday. “A bill heading through Congress MUST be amended or stopped–or NASA could be barred from doing anything related to ‘Human Exploration of Mars.’” (Emphasis in original.) The email goes on to explain what’s going on, and what kind of help—primarily financial—is seeking (again, emphasis in original):
Here’s what’s going on: The same bill that would increase NASA’s overall budget, specifically FORBIDS NASA from investing in human exploration of Mars!
NSS has started an EMERGENCY LEGISLATIVE CAMPAIGN to stop this outrageous effort. YOU CAN HELP.
Please send your Emergency Contribution to NSS now at www.nss.org/save_mars.
We’ve got to preserve NASA’s ability to function…but we hadn’t planned for this fight so our resources are now stretched thin. Your generous donation today will enable us to fill the gap and keep going.
The House of Representatives has already approved the bill. The Senate, on the other hand, refused to include the negative language against human exploration of Mars. Because of this, the bill is heading to the Congressional Conference Committee – right now! We must immediately take action to ensure that this language stays out of the final bill.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 November 1 at 7:21 am ET The House Science Committee’s space subcommittee hearing on NASA’s near Earth object (NEO) study that was scheduled for last month but postponed because of the funeral for Rep. Jo Ann Davis is still planned to take place next Thursday, the 8th, at 10 am. The list of speakers remains pretty much the same:
- Dr. James Green, Director, Planetary Science Division, NASA
- Dr. Scott Pace, Associate Administrator, Program Analysis and Evaluation, NASA
- Dr. Donald K. Yeomans, Manager, Near Earth Object Program Office, JPL
- Dr. Donald B. Campbell, Professor of Astronomy, Cornell University
- Dr. J. Anthony Tyson, Professor of Physics, University of California Davis
- Mr. Russell L. Schweickart, Chairman, B612 Foundation
Update 11/2: A second panel has been added to the hearing, with a single witness: Luis Fortuño, the Resident Commissioner (non-voting representative) of Puerto Rico. Fortuño, along with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, has advocated keeping the Arecibo radio telescope open in part to help study NEOs, to the point of introducing legislation mandating that the NSF and NASA keep the telescope open even though the NSF wants to shut down the telescope by the end of the decade to focus on other astronomy projects.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 October 24 at 12:40 am ET One of the leading rationales for increasing NASA’s budget, such as the proposed $1-billion increase the Senate approved earlier this month, has been to try and shorten the gap in US government human spaceflight access between the end of the shuttle program and the beginning of Orion flights. Earlier this year NASA administrator Mike Griffin said that the year-long continuing resolution that funded NASA in FY07 at FY06 levels created a six-month delay in Orion, pushing its introduction to service to as late as early 2015. Want to shorten the gap? Then increase funding for Ares 1 and Orion.
Or not. Florida Today reported Tuesday that NASA is planning on the first manned Orion flight in September 2013, with the ISS as the mission’s destination, although the first “operational” flight (however that’s defined) would still not be until 2015, after two more manned test flights. The article’s tone suggests that this is a change from previous plans, but that’s not entirely clear; also uncertain is the level of funding required to make this happen (such as whether this has factored in the extra billion dollars or if, as noted near the end of the article, it’s based on existing, relatively flat budget projections.)
By Jeff Foust on 2007 October 19 at 7:03 pm ET Tuesday’s scheduled hearing about the status of the Ares 1 and Orion programs has been postponed, according to an updated scheduled circulated late Friday by the House Science and Technology Committee. No makeup date for the hearing has been formally announced.
You can, though, still get your hearing fix for the week on Tuesday: the energy and environment subcommittee of the same committee is holding a hearing Tuesday afternoon on “GAO’s Report on the Status of NOAA’s Geostationary Weather Satellite Program”. Scheduled to testify are David Powner, Director of Information Technology Management Issues at the GAO; and Mary Ellen Kicza, Assistant Administrator for Satellite and Information Services at NOAA.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 October 18 at 1:03 pm ET The Democratic leadership of the House, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, now appears inclined to support the so-called “Mikulski miracle”, the $1 billion added by the Senate to the NASA budget in its version of the FY08 appropriations bill approved earlier this week. “In the House there’s some increased interest in keeping that $1 billion in the CJS [Commerce, Justice, and Science] appropriations bill,” said Congressman Mark Udall (D-CO), speaking at a Space Transportation Association breakfast on Capitol Hill Thursday morning. “The Speaker understands how important this is.” The House version of the bill, passed this summer, doesn’t have that extra $1 billion, so its immediate fate lies in the hand of the conference committee that will reconcile that and other differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. “There are some positive indications from the Speaker’s office and the appropriations committee” that the House would be favorably disposed to keeping the money in the final version of the bill, Udall said.
Udall was initially reticent to go into more details about why the House leadership now seemed willing to support the money, saying at one point that it simply “flat out makes sense to do this.” A member of the audience later said that Paul Carliner, a staffer on the Senate Appropriations Committee, worked with Rep. Nick Lampson (D-TX), and Lampson then approached Pelosi and got her to support the funding. Lampson, of course, is a big supporter of NASA and has JSC in his home district; he also has a tough reelection fight coming up next year, which may have swayed Pelosi, as Udall acknowledged.
(Lampson hasn’t been the only member lobbying his colleagues to support the additional funding; the Orlando Sentinel reported last week that Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL) had sent a “Dear Colleague” letter in support of the funding. Lampson, though, doubtless has better access to the speaker than Weldon…)
Udall also said there would be very few strings attached to the additional $1 billion, to give NASA administrator Mike Griffin (who was in attendance at the breakfast) the flexibility to spend the money where it was most needed, “as long as it doesn’t all go in one pot.”
The biggest obstacle, though, remains the threat of a Presidential veto of the overall appropriations bill. (As noted at the breakfast, it’s less difficult to get the House to support the funding increase if they know the bill is going to be vetoed regardless.) “We will be here into the middle of December, by all accounts,” Udall said, anticipating the veto and corresponding efforts to either override the veto or come up with an alternative funding bill. “The crossroad we’ll reach is do we have a CR [continuing resolution] and a standoff, or do we find some sweet spot where we compromise.” He said there is a “spirit” of compromise in the House, but didn’t know if that extended to the Senate or the White House.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 October 18 at 6:06 am ET While the Senate was wrapping up work on appropriations legislation earlier this week, the House of Representatives was taking some time to pass a couple of anniversary resolutions related to NASA and the Space Age. On Tuesday the House passed H.Con.Res. 225, a resolution honoring the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Space Age as marked by the launch of Sputnik 1. The non-controversial resolution lists the history and benefits of space exploration, then “declares it to be in America’s interest to continue to advance knowledge and improve life on Earth through a sustained national commitment to space exploration in all its forms, led by a new generation of well educated scientists, engineers, and explorers.” The resolution, which passed on a voice vote, was sponsored by House Science and Technology Committee chairman Rep. Bart Gordon, with 11 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle.
Yesterday, the House passed H.Con.Res. 222, a resolution honoring NASA’s Langley Research Center, which marks its 90th anniversary later this month. The passage of the resolution (approved by a 421-0 roll call vote) was a bittersweet moment: the resolution has been introduced by the late Rep. Jo Ann Davis(R-VA) less than a week before her death. The legislation was co-sponsored by the rest of the Virginia House delegation.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 October 17 at 7:49 am ET The good news: the Senate finally passed the Commerce, Justice, and Science FY08 appropriations bill Tuesday after defeating an effort to transfer some money from the space agency. As the Houston Chronicle reports, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) introduced an amendment that would have transferred $150 million from NASA’s science, aeronautics, and exploration account to the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which reimburses states for jailing illegal immigrants (not space aliens, Rudy.) The amendment was defeated on a 68-25 vote (although the Chronicle reports the vote as 70-23). Opponents of the amendment, like Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, argued that anything that stripped money from NASA would extend the “gap” between the shuttle and Orion, creating, as she put it, “a security risk for the United States” (a belief that isn’t exactly universally shared).
The bad news: the bill still has to be reconciled with the House version that doesn’t have the extra $1 billion the Senate approved earlier this month. The overall appropriations bill still faces a threatened presidential veto. According to a report by the AP, Congress plans this appropriations bill to be one of the first to be sent to the president “to test the strength of his veto”.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 October 16 at 12:37 pm ET The space subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee has announced a hearing for next Tuesday, October 23, on “Status of the NASA Crew Exploration Vehicle and Crew Launch Vehicle Programs”. The two witnesses currently scheduled to testify are:
- Dr. Richard J. Gilbrech, Associate Administrator, Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, NASA
- Ms. Cristina T. Chaplain, Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management, Government Accountability Office
It’ll be interesting (to say the least) to find out what the GAO has to say on the Ares 1 and Orion programs.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 October 16 at 7:29 am ET The British government will decide by next October whether to establish a government human spaceflight program, Flight International reported this week. The British National Space Centre will assess the costs and benefits associated with having an astronaut corps, either as part of ESA’s astronaut corps or as a more direct relationship with NASA, like Canada and Japan. If the British government does decide to support human spaceflight, it won’t rush into it, incorporating the costs into its 2011-2014 spending plan rather than a 2008-2010 spending plan announced earlier this month.
(Update: the head of the RAF has weighed in and thinks a UK astronaut corps is a good idea in part as “a means of inspiring young people to join his service”.)
The irony in all this is that while the UK government doesn’t support human spaceflight, UK businesses do. Virgin Galactic is based in London and Starchaser, another company pursuing suborbital space tourism, is based near Manchester.
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