By Jeff Foust on 2007 June 4 at 7:30 am ET Mark Whittington (an occasional commenter on this blog) has an op-ed in Sunday’s Houston Chronicle advocating an alternative approach to NASA’s robotic lunar exploration plans. Rather than NASA design, develop, and operate a lunar lander mission (something that has been indefinitely delayed in part because of the agency’s overall budget crunch), he argues that NASA should structure such a mission as a prize competition. “The way it would work is that a prize – of, say, $50 million – would be awarded to the first group to land an instrument package in a predetermined area of the lunar surface, such as the South Pole, and return data,” he writes. “NASA would define what sort of data it is looking for, but it would be up to the private competitors to determine how to obtain it.”
A few thoughts: while the $50-million figure in the article appears to be a notional figure, it may be far too small to garner much interest, given that the costs of such a mission would likely be much higher. One could argue that any venture mounting such a mission could supplement that money with other income streams, like the commercial sale of imagery or other data, but the efforts of companies like Applied Space Resources, LunaCorp, and TransOrbital have demonstrated how difficult it’s been to make the business case for a private lunar mission to close; the additional NASA prize money may not be sufficient to close the gap. Also, it’s not clear that a prize is the best vehicle for this: as described, it sounds like a more conventional data purchase effort, although that may be a distinction with little practical difference here.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 May 31 at 12:56 pm ET NPR this morning: “NASA Chief Questions Urgency of Global Warming”
NASA/GSFC press release later this morning: “Research Finds That Earth’s Climate is Approaching ‘Dangerous’ Point”
Needless to say, Mike Griffin’s remarks are not going over well on Capitol Hill among those members who think that NASA is not spending enough on Earth sciences programs. I do recommend listening to the full NPR interview, about seven and a half minutes long: only a portion of it is devoted to the climate change remarks that have gotten all the press. Much of the rest is about NASA’s exploration program and the criticism directed at it by football columnist/occasional space analyst Gregg Easterbrook in a recent Wired magazine piece. If you missed Easterbrook’s piece, there’s not much there he hasn’t previously talked about, including his odd preoccupations with Venus and non-chemical propulsion.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 May 30 at 7:13 am ET The joint hearing by the investigations and oversight subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee and the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee into the investigation of NASA inspector general Robert Cobb has been rescheduled for 2 pm on Thursday, June 7 in Russell 253. The hearing had been scheduled for last week but was postponed, although the House held its own hearing into a tangentially-related issues, the destruction of video recordings of a meeting between Griffin and the inspector general’s staff last month. No witness list for the hearing has yet been announced.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 May 28 at 9:38 am ET Paul Spudis spoke Saturday morning at the ISDC, reviewing how NASA is implementing the Vision for Space Exploration and what is right and wrong with it. He said he sees a number of good decisions NASA has made regarding the Vision, including basing the lunar lander on the RL-10 engine, which allows the use of propellants that could be made on the Moon; focusing on an outpost in the polar regions versus individual sortie missions scattered around the Moon; and early involvement of international partners.
However, Spudis identified several problems he saw with the current implementation. First, he cited the lack of robotic missions beyond LRO, a decision he said was initially based on funding problems but he now perceives as the agency’s belief that it needs only “a good map” to go back to the Moon. He also disagreed with NASA’s choice of lunar orbit rendezvous over the Earth-Moon L-1 point for staging lunar landings; he believes L-1 is a much better place for a cislunar depot for lunar-produced propellants. He also described the Ares program as “having all the disadvantages of a shuttle-derived system but none of the advantages”; he prefers a Shuttle-C or similar approach. The biggest problem? “NASA still doesn’t really understand what its mission is,” he said, creating “catalogs” of rationales rather than a single unified explanation. “I always thought that if you couldn’t state your mission in a single sentence, you probably don’t know what it is.” His suggestion: “We’re going to the Moon to learn how to live and work on another world. It’s that simple.”
Spudis was not optimistic that there would be significant changes in NASA’s current approach to the Vision, but at the same time tried not to be too pessimistic. “I don’t think this is primarily about money. I think it’s about attitude,” he explained. “Have we reached a point of no return? I don’t think we have, but I think we are getting close.” His closing assessment of the Vision: “I want this to happen. I think this is the best idea to come along as far as the direction of the space program in a long time. I’m very concerned that it’s not going to happen.”
By Jeff Foust on 2007 May 26 at 8:05 am ET
Congressman Nick Lampson (D-TX), whose district includes NASA JSC but is perhaps better known as the person who won Tom DeLay’s former seat, spoke late Friday morning at the International Space Development Conference in Dallas. Lampson’s talk was something of a pep talk, encouraging attendees to lobby Congress for an increased NASA budget (the NSS is already planning such an effort with its “Moon-Mars Blitz” next month; Lampson said he has offered to help the NSS with its effort.) “There has been an unfortunate disconnect between all the rhetoric about the need to undertake a ‘once-in-a-generation change in the nation’s human space transportation system’ and the amount of money actually being budgeted for it,” he said, laying blame with both the White House and the Congress. “Instead, we’re seeing a business-as-usual approach that is not going to deliver the robust and broad-based exploration program laid out in the Vision for Space Exploration.”
He also mentioned a little-known (outside of Capitol Hill) internal lobbying effort in support of NASA called the House Action Team, or HAT. This is a bipartisan group led by Reps. Ken Calvert (R-CA) and Bud Cramer (D-AL). “Its purpose is to do much of what your Blitz is intended to do: to lobby other members of Congress, explain to them why it’s important to support space, and to put the money necessary into all of our space activities.” The HAT has about 20-25 members, Lampson said after his speech, and has been around for a few years, although “there is a greater effort to grow it” this year. When I asked him how the membership of the HAT was split between Democrats and Republicans, he said, “You know, I don’t know the answer to that, so that means it must be fairly close.”
He has fairly ambitious goals for increasing NASA’s budget. While the proposed FY08 NASA budget of $17.3 billion falls about $1.3 billion short of the authorized level approved by Congress in 2005, Lampson said he is looking to raise the agency’s budget by $1.5 billion. He said he wasn’t sure he would be able to get the full increase, “but we’re going to fight like heck to get as big a portion of it as we can.” I asked him if he thought if the controversies surrounding the NASA IG and, now, the destroyed recordings, would serve as distractions to those efforts. Lampson didn’t think it was that big an issue. “Everything’s a distraction,” he said.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 May 25 at 8:49 am ET Yesterday’s hearing of the investigations subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee made it clear that the controversy surrounding NASA inspector general Robert Cobb is not dying down, although it might yet be overshadowed by NASA chief counsel Michael Wholley’s decision to destroy DVDs of a meeting between Mike Griffin and members of the IG staff. By the end of the hearing, according to various news reports (I didn’t watch the hearing, being in Dallas for a conference) Rep. James Sensenbrenner, the ranking member of the subcommittee, said that if the chairman, Rep. Brad Miller, drafted a letter to Attorney General asking for a formal investigation into the matter, he would also sign it. (This, of course, is the same Alberto Gonzales that many in Congress wish would resign.) In any case, it appears that NASA is faced with twin issues that could prove embarrassing for the agency: the actions of Cobb himself, and the DVD destruction decision. The question: if these issues drag on for months—very possibly, particularly if the DOJ gets involved in an investigation—what sort of adverse impact does it have on the agency’s overall reputation as the FY08 appropriations efforts get into high gear?
By Jeff Foust on 2007 May 25 at 8:38 am ET While it was increasingly clear in the last couple of weeks that NASA would not close the lunar robotics office at Marshall, the Huntsville Times reported today that it was official: NASA would keep the office open at a cost of $20 million a year for the next six years. However, what the office will be doing after next year’s launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter remains uncertain, given that NASA has indefinitely postponed plans for a lunar lander and other follow-on missions. Also left unanswered: since NASA decided to close the office to save that $20 million, what other program(s) will have to take the hit to make up that money? But, at least, Sen. Richard Shelby, the most outspoken opponent of the move, won’t be spending as much time counting down the days until January 2009…
By Jeff Foust on 2007 May 23 at 6:06 am ET The Arizona Senate on Tuesday approved a non-binding “memorial” stating its support for the Vision for Space Exploration. The resolution, SM 1005, calls on Congress to “enact and fully fund the proposed vision for space exploration, as submitted to Congress in the fiscal year 2008 budget of the United States government”. State resolutions in support of the Vision were all the rage a few years ago, although it’s not clear why Arizona senators decided to approve one this year. The bill overview on the legislature’s web site indicates that the resolution was unanimously approved, but according to a short article in the Arizona Republic, the Senate approved the memorial on a less-than-unanimous 15-6 vote. Said one dissenting senator: “I have a different vision for the president: a debt-free America.”
By Jeff Foust on 2007 May 23 at 5:56 am ET While the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee has cancelled their planned joint hearing today with the House Science and Technology Committee about the investigation into the NASA inspector general (going so far as to remove the press release last week announcing the hearing from their web site), there is a space-related hearing this afternoon. The Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is holding a hearing today titled “Weaponizing Space: Is Current U.S. Policy Protecting Our National Security?”. The purpose of the hearing is to “examine the 2006 National Space Policy (unclassified version) and the impact of Administration policies on the use of space by other countries, such as the January 2007 anti-satellite test by China.” The first panel of speakers includes the head of the National Security Space Office, Maj. Gen. James Armor, as well as a State Department official; the second features a fairly typical group of outside experts.
As a prelude to the hearing, the Center for American Progress issued a statement Tuesday critical of any future US plans to develop space-based weapons. The piece is a little odd in that it focused on space-based weapons for use against targets on the ground, as opposed to other spacecraft. Most of the debate, of course, has been on the latter, both after the public release of the policy and again after the Chinese ASAT test in January. Yet the Center for American Progress paper, after describing all the problems inherent with the use of space-based weapons against terrestrial targets, concludes with recommendations about how to protect US space assets from attack, or mitigate the effects of one: “Rather than investing in space-based weapons, the U.S. government should develop satellites that can operate from farther away to ensure safety from attack, and build a stockpile of satellites in case existing ones are jammed or destroyed.”
By Jeff Foust on 2007 May 22 at 10:22 pm ET A reader noted that a comment he posted earlier in the day had not appeared. It turns out the Akismet spam filter used by this blog (and many others) is a little overzealous, and has categorized a number of legitimate comments as spam. My apologies. Until the filter problems can be corrected, I would request that if you post a comment that doesn’t appear, send me an email and I’ll look into it; if it’s caught by the spam filter it’s easy to rescue it. (One interim recommendation: very long posts appear more likely to be flagged as spam than shorter ones, so keep your comments to the point and instead package the long comments into essays to submit to The Space Review…)
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