By Jeff Foust on 2006 December 1 at 5:18 pm ET When Boeing and Lockheed Martin jointly announced the formation of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) 19 months ago, they noted that they believed that the deal would close by the end of the year. They were right—so long as they’re not specific about what year. Today the ULA deal finally closed, as the joint venture started operations (they’re so official now they have their own web site). Now that the ULA is a fait accompli, let’s see how well it lives up to original expectations about saving the government over $100 million, and how it affects competition in the launch market, particularly as SpaceX develops the EELV-class Falcon 9.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 December 1 at 6:00 am ET The British government has tended to be disdainful of space exploration and human spaceflight over the years, focusing its ESA contributions and its own national space agency, the BNSC, on earth and space sciences as well as commercial applications. However, the UK now seems willing to take on at least a small role in the Vision for Space Exploration: on Thursday the new UK science minister, Malcolm Wicks, met with NASA administrator Michael Griffin in London. Wicks, who replaced the retiring Lord Sainsbury as science minister just a few weeks ago, expressed an interest in cooperating with NASA in lunar exploration, although the specific role(s) the UK would play were not described. “This could be the world’s largest science and technology program.” Wicks said in a statement. “We will be considering whether there is an opportunity to build a partnership with the US.” One potential role hinted at in the release would be the development of small satellites to carry out some missions: UK-based Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. is arguably the leading developer of smallsats worldwide.
More details about the roles other countries could play in carrying out the Vision are expected to be released at a press conference Monday in Houston, just before the AIAA’s Second Space Exploration Conference.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 December 1 at 5:40 am ET G. Madhavan Nair seems to think so. Nair, the chairman of the Indian space agency ISRO, told attendees of an Indian Law Institute seminar that “International Space Law” is losing its relevance because of new developments, such as orbital debris and space weaponization. The space law he refers to is the series of treaties anchored by the Outer Space Treaty (OST) that governs, at the broadest level, what countries and their representatives can and cannot do in space. “There is a need to replace the entire set of treaties by a comprehensive space law,” Nair said.
The idea of revisiting or replacing the OST and related treaties is not new, although it’s rare to hear the head of a space agency make such a suggestion. (Usually, such calls come from space advocates concerned about sovereignty and property rights issues.) Actually making such a change, though, is easier said than done: there’s no broad consensus yet that the OST needs revision or replacement, and doing so could open up a very big bag of worms.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 November 30 at 7:30 am ET It’s a little late (nearly two months after the policy’s quiet release), but the AP, citing an Interfax article, reported Wednesday that a key Russian official criticized the new US national space policy, calling it “the first step toward a serious deepening of the military confrontation in space.” Vitaly Davydov, deputy head of Roskosmos, added that the policy indicated that Americans “want not only to go to space but they want to dictate to others who else is allowed to go there.” He claimed that if the US actually did deploy weapons in space, Russia “could respond”.
The AP article includes this curious statement near the end: “Moscow’s concerns about space-based weapons go back to the Soviet-era space race and U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s 1980s plans for a ‘Star Wars’ missile defense system.” Of course, the former Soviet Union seriously investigated, tested, and even deployed some devices that would be categorized as space weapons, as Jim Oberg noted in a recent TSR article.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 November 28 at 6:51 am ET A Space Frontier Foundation press release Monday announced that the Space Exploration Alliance, a loose coalition of over a dozen space organizations, along with the Space Frontier Foundation and the X Prize Foundation, are all asking Congress to restore funding for NASA’s Centennial Challenges prize program in the still-incomplete FY2007 budget. “We call on the appropriations conferees to support full funding for the Centennial Challenge program in 2007,” said George Whitesides of the NSS. (That call might be a bit premature, since the full Senate hasn’t yet acted on the NASA appropriations bill, but it may be a more pragmatic approach.)
The press release rehashes ground that should be familiar to many readers (such as the debate on the topic in the comments to this post): prizes promote innovation and cost NASA very little, even though it’s hard to convince some in Congress that unspent prize money has not been wasted. “They see the money sitting there unspent and it makes them salivate,” said Rick Tumlinson. “But with a prize, just because it hasn’t been won yet doesn’t mean it has failed. Quite the opposite.”
One question: the press release includes the statement “The Department of Defense’s Grand Challenges robotics prize, a $2 million program for autonomous vehicles, generated approximately $150 million in development, according to many sources.” A quick search this morning didn’t turn up a reference to the $150-million figure; does someone know the source of this? While prizes typically do stimulate total investment far greater than the prize purse, the 75-to-1 ratio here seems rather high.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 November 27 at 7:04 am ET On his excellent blog, Selenian Boondocks, Jon Goff seems surprised when he finds that the current NASA exploration architecture is really geared towards Mars. That revelation came from a discussion thread on NASA SpaceFlight.com’s forums, where one of the key authors of the ESAS study, Doug Stanley, makes the point that the architecture’s key elements are designed to support human missions to Mars, not just the Moon. (Stanley adds that, in his personal opinion, lunar exploration “will be the ‘tar baby’ we will be stuck with that will keep us from going to Mars in my lifetime.”)
Now is that really such a revelation? Back in August NASA administrator Mike Griffin, speaking at the Mars Society conference in Washington, said that the decision to develop the two different launch vehicles for the Vision, the Ares 1 and 5, were motivated in part by long-terms to go to Mars. In his words, “if I want to go to Mars, and I believe I need something like a million pounds in low Earth orbit to do that, then I want to do that in five or six launches, not 10 or 12.”
In his forum comments, Stanley also says, “If the next administration wishes to re-focus on Mars, all of the building blocks will be there.” True, but if the next administration isn’t fond of Mars exploration, it would be easy for them to terminate the Ares 5 and focus on the Ares 1 and/or other vehicles for Earth orbit or lunar operations.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 November 27 at 6:46 am ET I noted here an article two weeks ago by James Oberg that took on the issue of space weapons and arms control, noting the problems of verification and definition regarding such systems. This week’s issue features an article by Nader Elhefnawy of the University of Miami that takes a different look at the same issue. He calls ruling out arms control in space “a diplomatic and political error, unnecessarily provocative to other states that already view US policy with alarm.” Refusing to engage in such discussions, he argues, may actually undermine US foreign policy in the long run, empowering other nations like Russia and China. Rather than reusing to negotiate on the issue, the US should instead engage other nations to find some level of compromise that would still allow the US to deploy missile defense systems and “active measures to protect US satellites”.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 November 22 at 7:30 am ET When Tom DeLay was House Majority Leader a few years ago, he certainly did his part to support NASA, including an effort just as the FY2005 budget was being finalized in conference to win full funding for NASA. DeLay is gone, of course, and the incoming majority leader is Steny Hoyer (D-MD). Hoyer’s politics are very different from DeLay’s but they do have some things in common: both have skills in bringing money to their home districts, and their home districts both have NASA centers. Hoyer’s district, which extends from portions of the Washington suburbs through southern Maryland, includes NASA Goddard, which, as an article in today’s Washington Post points out, has been one of the beneficiaries of Hoyer’s largesse. (A sidebar notes that Hoyer “secured more than $400 million in funding” for Goddard, including for Hubble Space Telescope work, although the article isn’t specific regarding both the nature of the funding and the timespan covered.) The article adds that “constituents and officials in his district hope that the move will put Hoyer in a stronger position to do what has earned him much loyal support in his 25 years in Congress: bring home the bacon.” That may well include NASA, but where that money goes, and how much of it, will likely be different under Hoyer than it was under DeLay.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 November 21 at 6:54 am ET Last weekend Washington was host to the Princeton Model Congress, where over 1,000 high school students from around the country come to DC to debate issues and pass “legislation” about them. (Think Model UN but with also a model president, Supreme Court, and press corps, but, in a shocking departure from reality, apparently no model lobbyists.) An article in the Daily Princetonian about the event includes this relevant passage:
The conferences entail more than just debates about contemporary matters, however. [Director of programs Kit] Tollerson recalled an unusual bill that advanced to full sessions this past weekend. The bill shut down NASA on the rationale that “nothing useful has ever come from outer space.”
“The boy was able to put his idea through to his audience by the sheer power of his charisma,” Tollerson said, referring to the student who introduced and backed the bill.
NASA, you’re on notice: you’ve got about 15 or 20 years before this person makes it to the real Congress to demonstrate otherwise.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 November 20 at 7:33 am ET A couple articles of note in this week’s issue of The Space Review:
Ryan Zelnio argues that the Bush Administration needs to develop a new space policy for the commercial satellite industry. Such a policy would focus in large part on export control issues, including directing the State Department to increase the workforce devoted to handing export control applications and reexamining what space-related items should fall under the more restrictive provisions of the Munitions List. Zelnio’s arguments are similar to those made by David Cavossa of the Satellite Industry Association last month (and are cited in Zelnio’s article).
In another article, Taylor Dinerman worries about potential changes to the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act that Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) might want to push through Congress. Oberstar, as discussed here earlier this month, will likely become chairman of the House Transportation Committee in January, and two years ago tried to get more strenuous passenger safety regulations added to the CSLAA; he also introduced legislation last year to amend the CSLAA with similar provisions, although that bill went nowhere. There have been indications that Oberstar is still interested in making changes to the CSLAA, but as Dinerman notes, “One hopes that the new Congress will have enough to do so that it just leaves space tourism alone, at least for the next five years or so.”
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