Space Politics

Yesterday morning Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) spoke at a Space Transportation Association breakfast. Her relatively brief comments (about 20 minutes, including Q&A; Congressman Tom Feeney spoke for nearly an hour at an STA breakfast last month) focused primarily on last year’s NASA authorization bill and the importance of scientific research on the ISS. Some highlights:

• Hutchison thinks there needs to be a place in the new American Competitiveness Initiative for NASA: “I want to try and put NASA in that mix. NASA should be doing some of the hard science research. We should be doing it on the International Space Station.” Later she said that she wants NASA administrator Michael Griffin to work with her “to be creative” in finding outside sources of money to support ISS research.
• A provision of the NASA authorization bill requires NASA to spend 15% of its ISS research budget on non-exploration science, but Hutchison is concerned that NASA is shortchanging those efforts. “The figures that NASA is providing is that our 15% set-aside would be $14 million in 2006, and that would mean that the total International Space Station research budget is $85-100 million. Out of a $1.7-billion budget, I’m not relating to that. So I’m going to ask NASA to go back to the drawing boards and come back with a better number.”
• Regarding the NASA budget increase for 2007: “I don’t think the three-percent increase in the NASA budget is enough, but I am very pleased that we got an increase.”
• About the shuttle: “Mike Griffin doesn’t like the shuttle. He thinks it’s a flawed vehicle and I think he’s right. We all agree that it’s a vehicle that has had its problems. It’s also served an incredible function.”
• One of her big concerns last year was the potential for a gap between the retirement of the shuttle and the introduction of the CEV. Some language that would have mandated eliminating the gap in the original version of the authorization bill, though, was moderated in the final version. “My bill originally said there would be no gap. We were standing firm on no gap. But we compromised because Mike Griffin and the White House said, ‘We can’t promise that.’ So we have, you know, namby-pamby language.”
• Shortly before that, though, she made a curious comment about opportunities for the private sector servicing the ISS: “That also means that there are more opportunities for private help and private entrepreneurship to maybe extend the shuttles beyond 2010, to get the payloads up, and finish that space station.”
• “Mike Griffin is doing a super job,” she said
• Hutchison also endorsed Rep. Ralph Hall to be the next chairman of the House Science Committee once the current chairman, Sherwood Boehlert, steps down at the end of this year. She called him “the greatest supporter of space that I work with on a daily basis.”

There was one curious theme that Sen. Hutchison mentioned on several occasions during her talk: the use of the ISS for cosmic ray research that is somehow tied to energy. “We had a great Commerce Committee hearing with Dr. Samuel Ting, the Nobel laureate at MIT, who talked about cosmic rays being the most important energy source in space that we can start probing to see how we can harness that to provide energy, energy in space, but maybe we can bring it back here too.” Later: “We have so many opportunities for advances in the cosmic research area, for energy, which the president is also committed to, that I don’t want to walk away from those opportunities.” And then, in response to a question about the utilization of the ISS after 2016: “If we are discovering new things with cosmic rays in orbit we will continue to utilize it in some way.”

The hearing she was referring to appears to be a full committee hearing titled “Future of Science” held last November. Ting was one of the witnesses, and in his prepared testimony he does discuss cosmic ray research on the ISS using the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), an instrument whose development he has been leading for several years. However, I have never heard of cosmic rays being harnessed as an energy source of any kind, and his testimony doesn’t contain any overt references to this that I could find. The closest thing is a statement that the technology developed for the AMS could be spun off, such as “the use of superconducting magnet technology for propulsion, energy sources, and to provide safe, light weight and complete radiation shielding for manned interplanetary space travel.” However, the use of those magnets for energy sources would presumably be for applications like nuclear fusion, not cosmic radiation. Is there some link I’ve missed that ties cosmic rays and energy production?

The House Science Committee released its “Views and Estimates” about the Preisdent’s FY07 budget proposal earlier today. The report outlines the committee’s (or, rather, the Republican members of the committee; more on the Democrats below) observations and opinions about the budget. Regarding NASA, the report comments on cutbacks in science and aeronautics programs:

The significantly reduced growth of the Science Directorate is of serious concern to the Committee. These reductions will necessitate the cancellation or lengthy deferral of several planned earth science and space science missions.

[…]

The Committee is again concerned about the limited funding for NASA’s Aeronautics program. The budget cuts the program by 18.1%, down to $724.4 million. Reductions of this size may jeopardize NASA’s ability to retain critical skills and perform ground-breaking research in support of this nationally important industry.

In the section about NOAA, the report brings up the NPOESS program:

Also, the Committee remains concerned about cost overruns and technical challenges that have delayed the launch date for NOAA’s new polar satellite system, the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS)… However, additional funding will be required in future years, and the Committee is extremely concerned that NOAA has not explained how it can pay for those increases without damaging other programs.

There was also a brief mention of the Commerce Department’s Office of Space Commercialization:

The Committee urges support for this Office, which has played a useful role in promoting the commercial space industry. The Office needs to take a stronger role within the government and increase their efforts to support U.S. commercial space providers.

The Democratic members issued their own, much shorter assessment of the FY07 budget yesterday. That document makes no mention of NASA at all, but it does include a discussion about NPOESS that echoes their Republican colleagues:

We have serious concerns about the present and future budget implications of the National Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) acquisition program. NPOESS is substantially over-budget and behind schedule. Final decisions about moving this program forward are now being decided through the Department of Defense’s Nunn-McCurdy process. The request offered by the Administration offers no room to maneuver as regards reasonable and prudent steps managers might otherwise take to limit the likely gaps in weather and climate data coverage implicit in this badly-managed program.