By Jeff Foust on 2006 September 22 at 6:49 am ET In an op-ed in the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill this week, Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan talks up the Vision for Space Exploration. Cernan strongly supports the Vision, but the arguments are hardly original: “job security for thousands of skilled aerospace workers”, “benefits coming in the form of new technology, medical advances, consumer products”, and giving “our younger generation a tangible reason to dream about the future and inspire them to become a significant part of that future”. This isn’t the first time such arguments—jobs, spinoffs, and education—have been used to justify a NASA program. Are these the right reasons, and will the Vision be more effective in those areas than past programs?
By Jeff Foust on 2006 September 22 at 6:40 am ET The House Science Committee announced this week that Johannes Loschnigg will be the new staff director of the space and aeronautics subcommittee, replacing Bill Adkins. Loschnigg came to Capitol Hill as an AAAS fellow in 2002 and joined the professional staff of the committee in 2004.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 September 21 at 12:54 pm ET The successful landing this morning of the space shuttle Atlantis prompted a congratulatory press release from Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. The first sentence of his statement: “Once again the American space program has forged new heights in space exploration through its commitment to diligence, innovation, and entrepreneurship.” Diligence? Most definitely, to assure the success of the shuttle mission. Innovation? Yeah, you can make a case for that, at least for some aspects of the mission. Entrepreneurship? Um, not so much.
Interestingly, Hastert used similar language in a July 2006 press release after the end of the STS-121 shuttle mission: “The American entrepreneurial spirit of innovation is alive and well. Our space program taps into that spirit to attract the best and brightest minds to explore the last frontier.”
By Jeff Foust on 2006 September 21 at 7:33 am ET On Wednesday the state of Texas awarded a $7.5-million grant to Lockheed Martin to help the company establish operations in the state for work on the Orion (formerly CEV) program. The award isn’t surprising, since prior to winning the contract last month the company had won incentives from the state in exchange for putting some of the Orion work (including 1,000 jobs) in the Houston area. However, not everyone is supportive of the award: in a column in the Galveston Daily News, Heber Taylor wonders if the state is throwing the money away: “Does a company that just won $7.5 billion in federal contracts really need an additional $7.5 million from the state? Can you really say that is an incentive to a company that is competing for that kind of federal money?” Taylor uses the award a way to make broader criticisms of the state’s spending on economic development projects, which account for about a tenth of the state’s $90-billion budget. “The question, though, is whether a state that is struggling to pay for public schools and that has cut programs to provide health insurance for poor kids should be first in line with funds for companies that obviously are doing well.”
By Jeff Foust on 2006 September 20 at 12:46 pm ET The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has posted a transcript of a press conference Tuesday with ministry spokesman Qin Gang. One of the reporters at the press conference asked about NASA administrator Mike Griffin’s upcoming trip to China:
Q: The Administrator of NASA will visit China next week. Please brief on his agenda. What does China expect out of the visit? Will the visit promote cooperation between China and the US in air space?
A: The peaceful use of outer space is the common cause of all mankind. China is ready to conduct cooperation in outer space with other countries including the US on this basis. China hopes the space authorities of the two countries can establish friendly and stable relations of cooperation, and explore the possibility of cooperation in space science, application and other fields. I am not aware of the specifics of this visit. I will see if I can get you some information from relevant authorities.
As you can see, the visit is not very high up on Mr. Qin’s radar (although, to be fair, I am sure he and his superiors are more preoccupied with the current visit of US Treasury Secretary Paulson, which was addressed in the second half of the question from the same reporter.)
By Jeff Foust on 2006 September 20 at 7:15 am ET A couple of new commentaries have taken some swings at NASA’s exploration program and NASA in general, but they arguably stand on shaky ground. First up is a piece by Alexander Villacampa on LewRockwell.com. Villacampa, speaking with all the experience of a college sophomore (which he is), argues that NASA should be abolished and space exploration completely privatized. “In order to save the taxpayer from having to pay the increasing costs of a hopeless space exploration program, simply disband NASA and allow the market to decide if such practices are needed in society.” He speaks highly of SpaceShipOne and Virgin Galactic, although he doesn’t appear to quite grasp the fact that SS1 was a suborbital vehicle, hence it and its successor will cost far less to operate than the shuttle or any other orbital vehicle in operation or under development. And Villacampa ignores the fact that society does indeed “decide if such practices are needed in society” through the electoral process; at the very least, they decide that they don’t care too much one way or the other.
In an op-ed published on the environmental web site Mongabay.com, Russell A. Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, decries the lack of money being spent on ocean research compared to space exploration. His most dubious claim: “Then there’s the latest $230 billion to send us back to the moon, and beyond. How much is the government spending each year to probe Earth’s still-unexplored frontier – the deep oceans? About $30 million. That’s million, with an ‘m.'” Mittermeier doesn’t provide a source for that $230 billion figure, which is far higher than previous estimates for exploration spending through the end of the next decade (perhaps he’s added a fudge factor for cost overruns?), which doesn’t help his argument. He tries to be careful not to put space exploration versus earth science, but sometimes he crosses the line. “I believe that some of those billions of NASA dollars would be more wisely invested on discovering and safeguarding Earth’s biodiversity that we earthlings ultimately depend on for survival.” This is not a zero-sum game: if we care enough about both, we can spend money on both.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 September 19 at 10:04 pm ET All the cool kids, it seems, are in San Jose this week for the AIAA Space 2006 conference. If you, like me, are not one of them and are spending the week in the DC area instead, there are a couple of potential consolation prizes:
On Wednesday at 6 pm John Logsdon will be speaking on “Outer Space: The Next Frontier for International Affairs?” at George Washington University. An an email announcing the talk describes, “This talk will cover the full range of international activities associated with humanity’s push into space, from today’s practical issues to the more speculative question of what lies ahead.”
On Thursday Ed Morris, director of the Office of Space Commercialization, will be speaking at a free luncheon at the US Chamber of Commerce organized by the Washington Space Business Roundtable. The topic, though, may not be the most titillating subject matter: “Continuity of Business: Planning to Survive Natural and Man-Made Disasters”.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 September 19 at 9:47 pm ET Next week is going to be a busy week for the House Science Committee, with two hearings by the full committee on space issues and another hearing by the space and aeronautics subcommittee.
On Thursday the 28th at 2 pm the full committee plans to hold a hearing titled “Implementing the Vision for Space Exploration: Development of the Crew Exploration Vehicle”. This is the long-anticipated hearing on the GAO study released earlier this summer that criticized NASA for pushing the CEV/Orion program ahead too quickly. The witnesses will be NASA associate administrator for exploration Scott Horowitz and Allen Li from the GAO.
On Friday the 29th at 10 am the full committee will meet again to tackle another GAO report, titled “GAO Report on NOAA’s Weather Satellite Program”. (It’s not clear is this is a reference to the GAO report on NPOESS from March or another, perhaps as-yet-unreleased report.) David Powner of the GAO and NOAA administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher will be the witnesses.
The space and aeronautics subcommittee, meanwhile, will be meeting on Tuesday the 26th at 10 am on “Part II: The National Academy of Sciences’ Decadal Plan for Aeronautics: A Blueprint for NASA?”. Lisa Porter, NASA associate administrator for aeronautics, and retired Air Force general William W. Hoover, who co-chaired the panel that produced the decadal plan, are the scheduled witnesses.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 September 17 at 1:16 pm ET Steinn Sigurðsson, an astronomer at Penn State, wrote a long entry on his blog Friday night about some potential changes to NASA’s Beyond Einstein program, a series of missions designed to study issues like the Big Bang and dark energy. The most recent plan, according to Sigurðsson, was to make a decision around 2010 on what the first two flagship missions in the program would be among five current candidates. Now, he says, the NRC plans to convene a panel and make a recommendation to NASA in a year—three years ahead of schedule—on what the first mission should be, with the rest to die or, as he puts it, “go into suspended animation for a decade or more.” (NASA would not be bound to the panel’s recommendation.)
So what’s the rush? Sigurðsson blames inter-agency politics, with the Department of Energy, which is backing one of the five proposals, the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM; also known as SNAP), apparently wanting a decision as soon as possible on the concept. “Oh, and they want it to be SNAP that is selected of course,” he adds. In addition, it’s a bit of an unfair comparison: while planning for JDEM/SNAP and two other missions, LISA and Constellation-X are fairly far along, the other two candidates, Inflation Probe and Black Hole Finder, are less mature and thus at a disadvantage. Also, NASA has already agreed to cooperate with ESA on LISA; if NASA backs out by not selecting it, he claims, “ESA will explode.”
Sigurðsson is worried about the long-term effect such an early downselect will have on the field of high-energy astrophysics: “potentially the careers of a couple of thousand scientists are at stake, if two major missions are permanently downselected then a lot of people are out.” I personally don’t have a good feel for the issues in this area; I would be interested in any informed comment regarding whether this issue is as dire as Sigurðsson claims.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 September 15 at 8:20 pm ET Reuters reported Friday afternoon that the Federal Trade Commission may finally be ready in the next few weeks to make a decision on the United Launch Alliance. According to the Reuters article, the Pentagon continues to push for the formation of the ULA (although how hard it’s been lobbying for it is unclear). The FTC is expected to finally vote on whether to approve the joint venture or not in two to three weeks. For the record, as of Friday it was 501 days since the ULA was first announced on May 2, 2005; at that time Boeing and Lockheed anticipated the ULA would begin operations by late 2005.
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