By Jeff Foust on 2007 March 1 at 6:32 am ET The big news that came out yesterday’s hearing, as noted by the Houston Chronicle, Florida Today, New York Times, and others was that the cut in NASA’s exploration program enacted by the Congress when it passed the final FY07 budget a few weeks ago will result in a delay of four to six months in the development of Orion and Ares 1, pushing the first manned flight of Orion into 2015. (Griffin later clarified that he meant fiscal year 2015, saying that it was still possible under the revised schedule, in the best case, for a flight in December 2014).
Not surprisingly, this news did not go over well with the chairman of the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, nor ranking Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, who have previously expressed concern about the gap between the end of the shuttle program in 2010 and the start of Orion operations. Much of the hearing was devoted to discussion about whether NASA had the authority to transfer money into the exploration program from other accounts (Griffin said he didn’t; Nelson and Hutchison said they would look into the matter) or other ways to add several hundred million dollars to the agency’s budget. Griffin said he would get back to the committee regarding exactly how much money NASA would need to prevent the schedule slip.
One thing to remember with all this discussion of a gap, including claims that it is “a national security issue”, is that it refers only to the US Government’s ability to send humans into space on vehicles it operates. Should one or both of the COTS awardees, or another company interested in commercial orbital spaceflight, be successful, the gap would be greatly reduced—or even in the best case eliminated—simply by having the government procure transportation services.
Some other highlights from the hearing:
- Griffin said that he would have an FY07 operating plan ready by March 15, detailing how the agency would spend the money it got in the final appropriations bill.
- One senator, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, raised the question of what NASA was doing in terms of revamped screening of astronauts in the wake of the unfortunate Lisa Nowak saga. Griffin said that two studies, including one with experts from “high-performance, high-stress” military organizations, were underway to examine what changes NASA should make to its procedures.
- Sen. Hutchison asked Griffin whether it will be possible to get a planned ISS experiment, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), to the station. (Regular readers will recall that this experiment, and some claims about its utility, have been the subject of discussion and debate here.) Griffin said there’s no room on any of the remaining shuttle missions for AMS, but if another agency or organization was willing to handle the launch of the experiment and pay for it, NASA would not object.
- The hearing featured an appearance by full committee vice-chairman and ranking Republican Sen. Ted Stevens (who achieved fame, or infamy, last year by likening the Internet to “a series of tubes”), who asked this question: had NASA ever considered selling “space bonds”? After all, he said, most everyone in the country would be willing to buy some space bonds to help support the space agency’s mission. Griffin said that no, he hadn’t thought about that, but he was pretty sure he didn’t have the appropriate Congressional authorization to do so.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 28 at 6:43 am ET If you like Congressional hearings (and who doesn’t?), then today’s your day. The most obvious space-related hearing is the one by the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee on the NASA budget. NASA administrator Mike Griffin is the sole witness scheduled to testify; it will be his first opportunity to discuss the FY08 budget request, and perhaps the effects of the final FY07 budget on NASA, before Congress.
(The same subcommittee also has a couple hearings of interest scheduled for next month: one on Earth sciences research on March 7 and one on “Transitioning to a Next Generation Human Space Flight System” on March 28.)
There are, though, a couple of other hearings today with tangential space policy relevance. This morning the House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on the Air Force FY08 budget, with the Secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force Chief of Staff scheduled to testify; there may be questions about military space programs and/or the effects of the China ASAT test.
Wednesday afternoon the new Antitrust Task Force of the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing titled “Competition and the Future of Digital Music”. What does that have to do with space? One of the witnesses will be Sirius Satellite Radio CEO Mel Karmazin, who will be asked about his company’s plans to merge with rival XM Satellite Radio; the hearing was announced in the wake of last week’s merger news. Some see the XM-Sirius merger effort as a pathfinder for a much bigger space business deal: a second attempt at a merger between satellite TV companies EchoStar and DirecTV. If the XM-Sirius merger founders on antitrust worries (there is also a separate, and perhaps bigger, FCC regulatory hurdle that merger has to overcome), then it seems unlikely a DirecTV-EchoStar deal would pass muster. If XM-Sirius does go through, though, don’t be surprised to see a DirecTV-EchoStar merger deal, with better odds of passage than their effort several years ago. That would have ripple effects on the industry, including satellite manufacturers and launch service providers as well as their component suppliers, further down the road.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 27 at 6:15 am ET An article in Monday’s issue of Aerospace Daily caught my eye with this lede: “The Defense Department’s fiscal 2008 budget request includes just more than $1 billion in programs that could support the development of anti-satellite and space-based weapons capabilities, according to a new analysis from the Center for Defense Information (CDI).” The report references a CDI press release from late last week and accompanying budget analysis to support that conclusion. CDI uses this analysis to conclude that “In the absence of a clear national strategy to secure the future use of space, the development and testing of such technologies and the deployment of dual-use capabilities without rules of the road for their operations will threaten other nations and drive U.S. policy toward space weaponization.”
A review of their budget analysis shows that CDI has a very expansive definition of “anti-satellite and space-based weapons capabilities”. They include some technology demonstration programs, like XSS and NFIRE, which could enable future space weapons (although that’s not necessarily their only application). CDI also throws in systems with any application to potential space-based missile defense. The analysis, though, also includes programs like Operationally Responsive Space, which, one can argue, could support the development and launch of ASATs and such, although ORS has seen a lot of interest recently as a way to respond to ASAT systems by providing a means to quickly deploy gapfillers and temporary replacements in the event on-orbit assets are attacked. CDI also counts relatively benign systems, such as a ground-based jammer and a surveillance systems, which are not considered space weapons, at least in the conventional sense. At least they didn’t include EELV funding: after all, a lot of these proposed space-based missile defense and other weapons systems may be too big to launch on small boosters, and a space-based weapon does no good on the ground…
By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 26 at 7:26 am ET One of the biggest complaints that the space industry has about policy is the current state of export control regulations, which place satellite and launch vehicles, and their key components, on the Munitions List, requiring companies to go through a licensing process that is lengthy, cumbersome, and expensive. As I note in an article in this week’s issue of The Space Review, some believe that there’s a chance now to enact reform, taking advantage of the change in party control of Congress and growing evidence that US companies have been unduly hurt by the regulations, losing business to foreign (primarily European) competitors.
The strategy proposed by David Garner, a retired Air Force colonel responsible in part for the current regulations, is to have a presidential commission study the issue and propose solutions; this would provide some political cover for members of Congress who might otherwise be less willing to back reform. Otherwise, Garner warns, “If we don’t take the opportunity, politics is going to eat us alive and, frankly, my good friends across the Atlantic will take advantage, as they have for the last seven years, of the legislation we created and they’re just going to continue to beat the crap out of us.”
By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 26 at 7:18 am ET During his visit to Australia late last week, Vice President Dick Cheney briefly mentioned China’s ASAT test last month:
Last month’s anti-satellite test, and China’s continued fast-paced military buildup are less constructive and are not consistent with China’s stated goal of a “peaceful rise.” For our part, the United States and Australia have the same hopes for the future of China — that its people will enjoy greater freedom and prosperity; that its government will be a force for stability and peace in this region.
It’s not much, but it is on the first times, if not the first time, that the vice president specifically mentioned the ASAT test.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 23 at 1:12 pm ET The Mars Society is asking its members to contact their Congressional representatives and request that they either approve FY2007 supplemental funding for NASA and/or support a budget increase for the space agency in FY08. A key passage from the email sent out by the organization earlier this week:
The Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) is under attack. In a Continuing Resolution (CR), Congress has cut $500 million from the 2007 NASA budget, with $900 million cut from the Exploration mission directorate repsonsbile for implementing the Moon-Mars initiative. This cut will hurt VSE and could be the first volley in a new round of attempts to kill it. There are those in Congress who would like to eliminate human space flight all together. This job will be much easier if they only hear whimpers from supporters of space exploration.
We need to tell Congress in no uncertain terms that VSE is vital to our nation and that they need to restore the funds that have been cannibalized from the 2007 budget. In addition, they need to support a healthy increase in funding in the 2008 budget.
As for the odds of an FY07 supplemental, an article in this week’s print issue of Space News reports that a few Senators, such as Barbara Mikulski and Bill Nelson, are still working to get some additional funding for this year. Nelson will be holding a hearing of the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee next Wednesday on this topic, although as of today no witnesses had yet been announced for the hearing. However, the current conventional wisdom remains that the best chance to get additional money for NASA will be during the FY08 budget cycle as opposed to an FY07 supplemental.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 21 at 6:52 am ET On the 45th anniversary of his historic orbital space flight, John Glenn was speaking out about space, in particular his concern that the US is abandoning the ISS. “To not utilize that station the way I think it ought to be utilized is just wrong,” the former senator said, reiterating previous concerns he’s expressed about the ISS. “We will not even begin to realize its potential.” Glenn doesn’t tell the AP, though, how the station should be utilized, or what he thinks its potential actually is.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 21 at 6:39 am ET But not too much. From an AP article about a Florida appearance by the Arizona senator and likely 2008 presidential candidate:
He also said he strongly supports missions to Mars and that Florida should continue to play a major role in space exploration.
“There’s too much invested there. There’s infrastructure that’s very expensive and very extensive there,” he said.
That’s it. He supports “missions to Mars” (robotic? human? and what about the Moon?) and wants Florida to “continue to play a major role” in space (although there are no credible plans to abandon the “expensive” and “extensive” infrastructure there as part of the Vision for Space Exploration.) Not exactly the most insightful look at a McCain space policy, but given the relative standing of space versus other policy issues, it’s perhaps the best you can expect for the foreseeable future.
By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 21 at 6:31 am ET Yesterday’s New York Times had an op-ed by planetary scientist Carolyn Porco about space exploration. Unlike many planetary scientists, who are skeptical at best about the Vision for Space Exploration out of concerns that the program will suck up more money from science programs, Porco is supportive of the effort. Much of that support stems from the belief that the development of a Saturn 5-class launch vehicle, the Ares 5, could pay dividends for robotic space exploration as well, enabling larger spacecraft and/or shorter travel times. “The termination of the Saturn V program also had a stifling effect on the robotic exploration of other planets. In essence, we lost the ability to deliver larger, and in some cases faster, payloads elsewhere in the solar system.”
This argument isn’t used often, although it’s not completely novel: at the AAAS conference in San Francisco this past weekend, NASA Ames director Pete Worden noted that the Ares 5 would enable the development of much larger space telescopes than can be launched today on existing vehicles. One factor that isn’t discussed, though, is just how cost-effective such an approach is. The Ares 5 is unlikely to be a cheap vehicle: each launch is likely going to cost several hundred million dollars, and perhaps up to a billion dollars each, depending on its flight rate and final design. Will space science missions be able to afford that expensive a launcher. Porco, in her op-ed, notes that reduced flight times could save money: “In space, as on Earth, time is money, and the money saved could have been spent elsewhere.” However, mission operations, particularly in cruise modes when there is little going on, is only a small fraction of overall mission costs. And missions that are so big that they need an Ares 5-class launcher will likely also be very expensive, and therefore difficult to fund. Is there really that big of an opportunity for alternative uses for Ares 5?
By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 16 at 9:17 am ET Bloomberg News reports that a GAO report scheduled for release today finds that NASA has approved nearly the maximum amount of bonus payments on cost-plus contracts, even for those programs that fell far behind schedule and/or suffered cost overruns. “NASA paid most of the available fee on all of the contracts we reviewed – including on projects that showed cost increases, schedule delays and technical problems,” the report found, according to Bloomberg. In one example cited in the article, Boeing won 92 percent of its potential bonus—$425.3 million—on its ISS work despite major schedule and budget problems. Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are also cited in the report for large bonus payments for troubled problems. House Science and Technology Committee chairman Bart Gordon, who requested the report, told Bloomberg that “NASA has a problem that needs fixing.”
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