By Jeff Foust on 2006 June 6 at 6:52 am ET The 2006 Space Blitz, a citizens space lobbying effort by the multi-organization Space Exploration Alliance patterned after ProSpace’s March Storm, kicked off yesterday. According to a National Space Society press release, “The main focus of this year’s Blitz is to request that Congress fund NASA at the full authorized level of $17.9 billion, which would require an additional $1.1 billion over the President’s request.” (The official agenda of the Blitz specifically calls for full funding of COTS and several science missions.) Organizers plan to meet with members of the House and Senate appropriations committees as well as “other Congressional leaders”; according to NSS executive director George Whitesides, they hope to meet with about three-quarters of House appropriators and a “good chunk” of Senate appropriators. The Space Blitz runs through Wednesday.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 June 6 at 6:41 am ET AIAA is organizing a lunchtime seminar on Capitol Hill on June 12 on the topic “Making the Business Case for Space – Where’s the Value?” The “business case” here is not so much a commercial business case but instead how to sell the public on the importance of NASA and the exploration vision. As the flyer announcing the event states:
Recent research, which includes 70 in-person interviews with NASA, White House, and Congressional staff along with national focus groups with adults and science students, reveals that the American public is disconnected and disengaged with what is going on in space and its value to them personally and to the nation, especially the President’s vision and space exploration. What is also a key finding: no clear strategy exists either within the beltway or beyond to rectify this situation.
The full text of the flyer (which is a > 1 MB PDF file) is after the jump.
Continue reading The “business case” for the Vision
By Jeff Foust on 2006 June 6 at 6:31 am ET The Air Force has completed its Nunn-McCurdy review of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) and concluded that, yes, the system is important to national security and should continue. However, the Air Force and NOAA have made some significant changes to the project, whose cost had ballooned to $13.8 billion, according to Space News (subscription required). (A less-detailed Reuters article is also available.) Instead of a five-satellite system, the NPOESS contract with prime contractor Northrop Grumman will cover two satellites, with an option for two more. A contract with Boeing for one NPOESS instrument, Conical Microwave Imager/Sounder, has been terminated, and will be recompeted. These changes are designed to bring the cost of NPOESS down to $11.5 billion, which is still far more than the $6.8 billion the program was originally projected to cost.
The House Science Committee just added a full committee hearing for Thursday at 2:30 pm on “The Future of NPOESS: Results of the Nunn-McCurdy Review of NOAA’s Weather Satellite Program”. Scheduled witnesses are Air Force undersecretary Ronald Sega, NOAA administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., and NASA administrator Michael Griffin.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 June 5 at 7:26 pm ET These guidelines should go without saying, but given the tenor of the comment threads of some recent posts, a refresher may be order: don’t post off-topic comments, don’t post comments with vulgar language, and don’t post personal attacks on one another. If these guidelines are unacceptable to you, please troll elsewhere. Thanks for your cooperation.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 June 5 at 7:18 am ET The Senate Commerce Committee’s science and space subcommittee is scheduled to hold a hearing this Wednesday afternoon titled “NASA Budget and Programs: Outside Perspectives”. That’s the only information about the hearing available as of early this morning; the witness list has yet to be published on the committee web site.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 June 2 at 1:09 pm ET In an op-ed in Friday’s edition of the Washington Times, Fred Stakelbeck Jr., a “foreign affairs analyst based in Philadelphia”, argues that the Bush Administration’s decision to pursue potential cooperation with China in space is evidence that overall US policy regarding China is showing signs of inconsistency, with “pro-engagement” initiatives in space and other areas popping up:
In addition to joint military cooperation, the announcement last month by the Bush administration that the head of NASA, Michael Griffin, would travel to China to work on plans for a joint U.S.-China space mission, conflicts with past policy. The development of a space program is an important step for a developing country such as China. But many observers worry that China could use its newfound technological expertise to militarize space. Beijing has spent billions of dollars to develop a sophisticated satellite constellation designed specifically to collect and transmit data on the movements of U.S. military forces around the world.
Also, work on space and ground-based anti-satellite systems that can identify, track and destroy U.S. satellites is ongoing. As one Chinese general said, “The mastery of outer space will be requisite for military victory — a new frontier for combat.” And yet the Bush administration is now prepared to assist China’s space program. Why?
A few thoughts: right now, the shape of any potential cooperation between the US and China in space is very unclear. It may end up as some kind of “joint U.S.-China space mission”, but any cooperation that emerges from Mike Griffin’s trip to China this fall might be far more basic, like flying a US instrument on a Chinese spacecraft (or vice versa) or simply the exchange of scientific data.
Also, it’s not clear what Stakelbeck is referring to when he says China has ” spent billions of dollars to develop a sophisticated satellite constellation” to monitor US military forces. There’s no doubt that China does use its existing space assets to monitor US forces, but given that CNSA vice-administrator Luo Ge said a couple months ago that China’s annual space budget is around $500 million/year, has China really spent “billions” on such a system? One can argue that Luo was low-balling Chinese expenditures; he admitted that Chinese budgets are “very complicated”. Still, billions is a lot of money, particularly in China.
Stakelbeck also refers to anti-satellite work allegedly being conducted by the Chinese. I use “allegedly” since the evidence supporting it, primarily in Defense Department reports about China’s military, the same article notes that some people are highly skeptical of such claims.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 June 1 at 7:29 am ET In an essay in the June issue of the Space Foundation newsletter Spacewatch, Space Foundation president and CEO Elliot Pulham says it’s time to give former NASA administrator Dan Goldin credit for “rebuilding NASA’s Mars exploration strategy” after the failures of two Mars missions in 1999. Pulham writes: “By the late 1990s, Goldin had inherited a flawed and discredited Mars exploration architecture that had produced a string of embarrassing disasters.” That assessment is probably surprising to many who blamed an overzealous implementation of Goldin’s “faster better cheaper” philosophy for the failures of the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander. It is a stretch to claim that Goldin “inherited” the Mars exploration program in the late 1990s, since he became NASA administrator in 1992; the only Mars mission failure that one can credibly say that he inherited was Mars Observer, back in 1993.
Goldin, Pulham writes, deserves credit for shaping the Mars Exploration Rovers program, including winning the necessary funds and doing the “political ‘blocking and tackling’ of building inside-the-beltway support” for it and later Mars missions. This enabled the rovers to become “what is arguably the most successful planetary surface robotic mission in NASA’s 50-year history.” That’s true (except for the 50-year-old part; NASA won’t turn 50 until 2008), although the rovers don’t have much competition in the “planetary surface robotic mission” category: the Surveyor lunar landers in the 1960s; the Viking 1 and 2, Mars Pathfinder, and Mars Polar Lander/Deep Space 2 missions to Mars; and perhaps the Pioneer Venus probes (since one of the probes survived for about an hour after landing) and NEAR Shoemaker (which touched down on the asteroid Eros near the end of its mission).
Incidentally, if you’re curious what Dan Goldin is up to these days, Red Herring magazine has a very brief (three questions) interview with “Dr.” Goldin (when did he earn a doctorate?), who is now focused on the development of “biologically inspired computers and robots” at a startup company, Intellisis.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 May 31 at 7:03 am ET Earlier this month a group of fiscal conservatives in the House put forward a budget resolution proposal that, according to an article in today’s issue of The Hill, “was as nearly identical as possible to the 1995 budget resolution” during the heyday of the “Contract with America”, with sharp cuts on federal spending. However, unlike in 1995, a majority of Republicans in the House—134—voted against the resolution, including retiring Congressman Tom DeLay. Why did he vote against the resolution?
DeLay said he voted against the conservatives’ budget because it would have hurt the space program based in his district. He agreed with the conservative principles but couldn’t vote for a budget “that would have crippled NASA while giving China’s military-run space program the go-ahead to make the next giant leaps,” said DeLay spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty.
“This budget would have devastated our space program, and no conservative should feel comfortable voluntarily locking our nation out of space and making us dependent on foreign countries to access the international space station.”
Readers may recall that the perceived threat posed by China to the US in space was a key issue in a subcommittee hearing of the House Appropriations Committee on the NASA budget two months ago. At that time the sub, whose membership includes DeLay, committee asked NASA to compile a report within 30 days on the Chinese space program and goals, and planned to hold another hearing on the topic timed to coincide with its release. It’s now been 60 days, with no sign of the report, nor another hearing on the topic by the subcommittee. And DeLay is scheduled to leave Congress in early June.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 May 30 at 6:27 am ET In her speech last week at CSIS, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison endorsed (although not by its specific name) NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to support the development of commercial vehicles to transport cargo and personnel to and from the ISS. She sees this approach as one way of dealing with the potential four-year gap between the retirement of the shuttle and the introduction of the CEV. “I think if we, in the next five years, put some money into the private sector as seed money, and we see that there can be progress there, of course that would be a wonderful option,” she said. “Certainly, I think, if we can get the private sector up to speed, that would be a great option.”
In an editorial in today’s issue, the Houston Chronicle supports Hutchison’s statements, but wonders if NASA is doing enough:
NASA has taken a few halting steps to encourage non-government development of space technology, including sponsoring a $2 million contest modeled on the $10 million Ansari X Prize won by Rutan for the historic suborbital flight of SpaceShipOne. The NASA contest, to be conducted by the X Prize Foundation, challenges designers to come up with a means to shuttle astronauts and cargo between the lunar surface and orbit. It also has asked the aerospace industry to come up with new technologies to provide needed transportation to and from the International Space Station.
These are good first steps, but alone they will not stimulate the massive involvement by private industry needed to boost the space program. NASA should develop a long-range strategy to harness the engine of free enterprise for the exploration of space, with government providing regulatory oversight, while allowing private partners in the pilot’s seat. After all, a formula that made the United States the most powerful nation on Earth should work just as well on the moon and beyond.
This sort of glosses over the $500 million that NASA has committed to COTS through 2009, which is designed to “stimulate the massive involvement by private industry” seen, in part, by the strong interest in the COTS program by the industry. A bigger near-term challenge for NASA—and Congress—may not be drafting a long-term strategy for private sector involvement in the Vision for Space Exploration, but simply ensuring that planned COTS funding for FY2007 and beyond remains intact.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 May 30 at 6:09 am ET Most people in the US have not heard about the “Clearstream” scandal that’s currently rocking French politics; I admit I had not until last week, although the controversy has been brewing for weeks. In an article in this week’s issue of The Space Review, Taylor Dinerman provides a capsule summary of the scandal and its ties to the French aerospace industry: one of the key figures was, until recently, a vice president of EADS. Dinerman believes that EADS will get caught up in the controversy, which could have repercussions for launch services provider Arianespace and satellite manufacturer Astrium, as companies and governments outside France may be prompted to review their dealings with EADS “if only to insure that they are not being manipulated for interior French political purposes.” This comes at a time when the European aerospace industry had been performing well, yet “the Clearstream scandal looks to be yet another obstacle to France’s ambitions to make the EU into a first-rate space power.”
A couple other policy-related articles of note in this week’s issue:
- Christopher Stone makes the case for space-based weapons—not for use against satellites but against terrestrial targets. Given the squeamishness many have towards putting weapons of any kind in space, this proposal is not likely to go anywhere in the foreseeable future, but it’s an interesting argument.
- Eric Hedman examines why NASA appears unwilling to take major risks, noting the lack of new technology in the current implementation of the Vision for Space Exploration. (Some, of course, have argued that the lack of new technology is a positive, not negative, attribute of the VSE.) He hopes that the COTS program is a sign NASA is willing to take some risks to try and gain “a revolutionary approach to orbital access”.
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