By Jeff Foust on 2006 August 30 at 7:23 am ET And the beat goes on: the Hampton Roads (Va.) Daily Press, in an editorial yesterday, criticizes NASA for turning its back on the Earth through a series of “ominous signs”, including deleting a reference to the Earth while revising the agency’s mission statement. “The evidence that speaks the loudest is where NASA puts its money, and it has been raiding science budgets to find money for President Bush’s misguided quest to send humans back to the moon and on to Mars.” (And if you don’t think that language is strong enough, try this: “…a nationally important agency turned on its head to pursue the whim of a man who will never have time to achieve his goal before he’s out of office. What he’ll leave behind is the toll his fancy is taking on the capability and culture of that agency.”) The paper is particularly concerned because the nearby Langley Research Center focuses on aeronautics and atmospheric sciences, two areas that appear particularly vulnerable to cuts.
Lou Friedman, executive director of The Planetary Society, makes a big deal about wading his toes into the blogosphere, but really his first post is a conventional op-ed about the state of NASA’s support (or lack thereof) for science and exploration as a part of the Vision for Space Exploration. Friedman takes aim in particular at a speech made by presidential science advisor John Marburger, one that, in Marburger’s own words, “subordinates space exploration to the primary goals of scientific, security, and economic interests.” “I am beginning to think that the new interpretation of the Vision, and the new direction of NASA, is more ideological than visionary, more about extending our economic interests than anything to do with the public good and public interest in space exploration,” Friedman writes. But other than calling this “anti-science rhetoric”, Friedman doesn’t explain why economic and security interests shouldn’t have a higher priority that science; one can argue that this has pretty much been the case for the entire history of NASA.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 August 30 at 7:04 am ET With all the hubbub in the last week about the decision by the International Astronomical Union to “demote” Pluto to the lesser status of “dwarf planet”, you probably feared that, at some point, politicians would get involved. You were right. A resolution introduced in the California State Assembly hours after the IAU’s decision last Thursday, HR 36, “condemns the International Astronomical Union’s decision to strip Pluto of its planetary status for its tremendous impact on the people of California and the state’s long term fiscal health”. If you read through the resolution you can see it’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, and the resolution’s sponsor, Keith Richman (R-Simi Valley) told the Ventura County Star that he introduced it out of frustration over the legislature’s inability to pass some political reforms, such as an independent redistricting resolution. HR 36 doesn’t seem to have the same problems: Richman rounded up over 50 co-sponsors on both sides of the aisle within hours. “Sadly, there is probably a much better chance that the Assembly will vote on HR36 than independent redistricting,” Richman said.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 August 25 at 7:42 pm ET Space is not a key issue is most Congressional campaigns, something most people understand (even if they don’t like it.) However, in the last week space policy issues have cropped in a couple of Congressional races in locations not typically considered space hotspots:
The Gainesville (Fla.) Sun reports on a race to win the Democratic Party nomination for Florida’s 5th district, in west-central Florida. the paper asked three candidates questions on a number of issues, including immigration policy, Iraq, offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (a big issue in Florida), stem cell research…, and space:
ISSUE: Do you support indefinite continuation of NASA’s manned-flight space program?
Rick Penberthy: I think we have to take a good look at the space program, especially the shuttle and see if that is the best way to continue with space exploration.
John T. Russell: Yes. The mission of humanity is to explore, and manned space flight as a means of exploration must remain a component of our nation’s science program.
H. David Werder: I would like to see a man on Mars.
Not necessarily the most insightful answers, but it was interested to see space elevated to the same level as Iraq and immigration.
Meanwhile, Courier-Life Publications, which publishes a number of neighborhood newspapers in Brooklyn and Queens, recounts a candidates’ forum whose participants included Congressman Anthony Weiner, a Democrat who is not facing a challenger his party’s primary. After the forum, Weiner got a question about his proposed amendment to an appropriations bill earlier this year that would have cut funding from NASA’s Mars exploration program:
After his talk, Weiner was asked by one of the few public observers at the forum, Eugene Cervone, secretary of the National Space Society Chapter of New York, about his amendment to cut the NASA budget by $477 million and give the funds to the COPS Program to hire more police. His amendment was defeated in June, but Weiner said that the NASA budget is being increased. “I support the space program,” Weiner said.
Supports it so much he tried to take money away from arguably one of the more productive and popular parts of it, it would seem.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 August 24 at 8:24 pm ET [Editor’s note: an earlier version of this entry attributed the comments below to Burt Rutan, when in fact they were spoken by Dick Rutan, Burt’s brother. I apologize for the error.]
Dick Rutan, appearing at the Camarillo Air Show last weekend in southern California, had a few contentious things to say about NASA, according to an article in a local community newspaper, The Acorn:
Rutan took time to comment on last week’s resignation of three NASA advisers who were asked to step down because they disagreed with NASA Administrator Michael Griffin’s plans for a manned flight to Mars and the return of humans to the moon.
“They’re using four-decadesold equipment to go and do something that we’ve already done,” Rutman [sic] said. “The American people should be ashamed of themselves for even supporting such a worthless endeavor. Mars is a dead planet. There’s nothing there of any interest. We need to find something where there is true exploration.”
I don’t think Rutan will be getting an invitation to next year’s Mars Society conference…
By Jeff Foust on 2006 August 23 at 6:26 am ET Several days after three scientists resigned (or were asked to resign) from the NASA Advisory Council, administrator Michael Griffin fired back at the members, and scientists in general, in a memo, ScienceNOW reported late Tuesday. “The scientific community… expects to have far too large a role in prescribing what work NASA should do,” Griffin told NAC members in a memo obtained by ScienceNOW. “By ‘effectiveness,’ what the scientific community really means is ‘the extent to which we are able to get NASA to do what we want to do’.” And if NAC members disagree with NASA’s approach? “The most appropriate recourse for NAC members who believe the NASA program should be something other than what it is, is to resign.”
Harsh language, and language that is unlikely to win much support from the scientific community, although former NAC members like Wes Huntress were firing back. Saying that the advice that he and fellow former members Charles Kennel and Eugene Levy was “simply not required nor desired,” Huntress added that the current council “has no understanding or patience for the science community process.” One suspects that we have not heard the last in this clash between NASA leadership and scientists.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 August 23 at 6:10 am ET After months of legal wrangling in the wake of Tom DeLay’s decision to retire from Congress failed to get his name replaced on the November ballot, Republicans in the 22nd District in Texas have finally settled on a single write-in candidate to compete against Democrat Nick Lampson: Houston city councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. And, in a Houston Chronicle article, Sekula-Gibbs sought to demonstrate her credentials on national issues, including one very near and dear to those in the district: “I have been here over 20 years. I have worked hard to support NASA. I’ve traveled to Washington multiple times to support the full funding of NASA,” she told the Chronicle.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 August 23 at 6:00 am ET I neglected to mention earlier this week Chris Carberry’s article in this week’s issue of The Space Review about the recent “Mars Blitz” on Capitol Hill on August 3, when over 100 Mars Society conference attendees spent the afternoon briefing Congressional offices. “The reaction from Congress was what I can only call ‘freakishly’ positive,” Carberry writes. “We received dozens of requests for follow-up information, strong statements of support for VSE, and even some requests to testify in front of Congress—all in all, a pretty good day on the Hill.” The article also discusses what the Mars Society has planned for further political activism, particularly with the 2008 presidential election in mind. Also, don’t miss the tale of the $2 bills…
By Jeff Foust on 2006 August 18 at 6:50 am ET The RAND Corporation this week released a report by the National Security Space Launch Requirements Panel that evaluated the status of the EELV program and military launch efforts in general. (The panel was mandated by a provision of the FY05 defense authorization bill.) The panel’s overarching conclusion is that, from a technical standpoint, the two EELV vehicles are excellent and will be able to serve national security needs through at least 2020 (and perhaps “much longer”, in the words of study chairman Forrest McCartney, who present the report’s results at a briefing Wednesday), but that the government needs to start preparing now for some hard decisions about the program in the post-2010 timeframe.
The biggest issue, as one might expect, is whether to downselect to a single EELV family, either the Atlas 5 or the Delta 4, as a cost-saving measure. The panel made no recommendation whether or not to do this, saying the government needs more data on how much it costs to operate the vehicles, as well as their overall reliability. McCartney said no decision on this should be made before 2010. He did add, though, that “assured access”, one of the central mantras of the overall EELV program, doesn’t necessarily require two vehicles, since in many cases payloads are designed to fly on one EELV family or the other, but not both. The formation (or not) of the United Launch Alliance also doesn’t play a factor one way or another; in fact, McCartney said that the panel didn’t take a position on the ULA since it was announced just as the panel started work in May 2005, and they assumed that the ULA would have been approved or rejected by the time they finished their work…
The panel also brought up some secondary issues with the EELV program and assured access, including both vehicle’s reliance on the RL-10 upper-stage engine, domestic production of the RD-180 engine used on the Atlas 5, and the need to develop a heavy variant of the Atlas 5, as well as future needs for heavy variants of both vehicles in general (current manifests show that all but one of the heavy launches planned after about 2013 are for the TSAT communications satellite program, a program that is still in the earliest stages and could thus conceivably be redefined so that it doesn’t need a launch on an EELV Heavy.)
The panel also examined small launch vehicles, in particular the new interest in Operationally Responsive Space (ORS). While the panel supported the development work in progress now, like DARPA’s Falcon program, the panel said it was “too soon” to go into full-scale production of such vehicles, in part because there are still many questions about the requirements of such vehicles, the overall concept of operations, and the types of ORS payloads that would use these vehicles. (Questions that mirror those about ORS in general within some sectors of the military.)
By Jeff Foust on 2006 August 18 at 6:23 am ET The Associated Press and NASA Watch report that three members of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) have resigned, apparently because a difference of opinion with NASA leadership. Wesley Huntress, Charles Kennel and Eugene Levy all served on the NAC’s science committee. Huntress and Levy were asked to resign, while Kennel left of his own accord.
So why did they resign, or be asked to resign? Levy, reached by the AP, said that he and his colleague’s scientific interests “didn’t comport with the kind of advice that the administrator and the chairman of the committee were looking for.” In particular, he said that given cutbacks in NASA science programs “we were certainly concerned that a strong commitment to science be maintained.” So did that cost him his spot on the NAC? “That’s a little unclear for me.”
A NASA spokesman told the AP that any outspokenness by Levy et al. on the budget was “why they were asked to leave because that’s not the case at all,” but one suspects that this move may be seen as such among scientists and others who think that science is being sacrificed for the sake of exploration or other NASA programs.
[Update 8/18 8:30pm: Wes Huntress told SPACE.com that his resignation was not a protest against science funding cutbacks. “Suffice it to say that these resignations were over principle,” he said, but does not elaborate. As for the overall Vision for Space Exploration, “I wish the agency every success in that effort and sincerely hope that science will be a partner in that enterprise.”]
By Jeff Foust on 2006 August 17 at 7:38 am ET Next month the state of Washington will hold party primaries for the US Senate seat currently held by Maria Cantwell. There are several people competing against Cantwell in the Democratic primary (although she is very much the frontrunner), one of whom is Michael Goodspaceguy Nelson. That’s right, Michael Goodspaceguy Nelson. Mr. Nelson, a former Libertarian candidate for governor, doesn’t appear to have a campaign web site, but he has something better: a blog. And it’s a doozy. It appears Mr. Nelson is very fascinated with space colonization: a noble pursuit, to be certain, but an odd topic to base one’s campaign upon. It should be noted that he hasn’t posted an entry in his blog since July 19: perhaps he’s too busy on the campaign trail. Or building an orbital space colony. As the reader who pointed this candidate out to me said in an email, “And we wonder why our issue doesn’t have more political credibility.”
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