By Jeff Foust on 2006 February 6 at 6:00 am ET Most of the debate in the last week regarding “openness” at NASA has focused on claims that the NASA officials have tried to squelch comments by one scientist on climate change issues. However, an article in Saturday’s New York Times expands the focus to other efforts by NASA’s public affairs staff, in particular an effort by the agency, under direction from the White House, to bring as much attention as possible on the Vision for Space Exploration:
Repeatedly that year [2004], public-affairs directors at all of NASA’s science centers were admonished by White House appointees at headquarters to focus all attention on Mr. Bush’s January 2004 “vision” for returning to the Moon and eventually traveling to Mars.
Starting early in 2004, directives, almost always transmitted verbally through a chain of midlevel workers, went out from NASA headquarters to the agency’s far-flung research centers and institutes saying that all news releases on earth science developments had to allude to goals set out in Mr. Bush’s “vision statement” for the agency, according to interviews with public-affairs officials working in headquarters and at three research centers.
[…]
In another incident, on Dec. 2, 2004, the propulsion lab and NASA headquarters issued a news release describing research on links between wind patterns and the recent warming of the Indian Ocean.
It included a statement in quotation marks from Tong Lee, a scientist at the laboratory, saying some of the analytical tools used in the study could “advance space exploration” and “may someday prove useful in studying climate systems on other planets.”
But after other scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory queried Dr. Lee on the statement, he e-mailed public-affairs officers saying he disavowed the quotation and demanded that the release be taken off the Web site.
The Times article reports that NASA removed the offending quotation from the press release around midday on Friday. However, as of early Monday morning, the quotation still appeared in the second paragraph of the press release archived on the NASA web site (see screenshot taken at 5:47 am EST Monday).
Now, it makes sense for the agency to promote a major initiative in every way possible, within reason. It also makes sense for its public affairs officers to help shape that message. In some cases scientists and others mentioned in press releases are not the most articulate people, and PAOs need to work with them to craft the quotes that will be used in press releases, and in turn in many news accounts. However, when PAOs are putting words in the mouths of scientists without their consent, as was the case here, that’s going too far.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 February 3 at 5:48 pm ET Space News offers a sneak peek at the top-level figures in NASA’s FY07 budget proposal, to be made public on Monday. Overall the agency is getting about a one-percent increase over the final 2006 figure (including hurricane relief monies), to $16.792 billion. That increase, as expected, is spread unevenly: the exploration program will get $3.9 billion, a $700-million increase over what the agency planned to spend in 2006 (as the article notes, NASA has not released its operating plan for this fiscal year, so the exact breakdown of funds among the agency’s programs for this fiscal year is not known.) Shuttle and station would get a little less than in 2006, science just a little more (as anticipated), and aeronautics would be flat.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 February 3 at 5:27 am ET The 2006 edition of the March Storm grassroots lobbying blitz is scheduled to begin in just over three weeks (given the timing of this year’s event, “February Blizzard” might be a more apt title.) In the online version of Ad Astra, the NSS magazine, ProSpace president Marc Schlather outlines the key items on this year’s agenda:
- Additional funding for the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program;
- The creation of a “Center for Entrepreneurial Space Access” at the Air Force Research Lab to foster cooperation between the military and entrepreneurial space companies (this seems linked to the industry consensus document released last month);
- Support for the “The Space Prizes for the Advancement of Commerce and Exploration Act of 2006″, a bill yet to be introduced that would establish a board to oversee spaceflight prizes (presumably superseding NASA’s Centennial Challenges program) and be authorized to offer prizes of up to $100 million;
- Additional funding for near Earth object (NEO) search programs included in last year’s NASA authorization bill as well as for the Minor Planet Center, the clearinghouse for asteroid observation data.
On the last point, ProSpace had advocated an expanded NEO search program during previous March Storms, supporting separate legislation that was eventually included in the authorization bill last year.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 February 2 at 8:04 pm ET White House press secretary Scott McClellan held a “press gaggle” on Air Force One Thursday morning as the President was travelling to Minnesota. A guest of the informal press briefing was presidential science advisor John Marburger, who was there to answer questions about the science initiatives unveiled in the State of the Union address. An unnamed reporter thought to ask about the Vision for Space Exploration:
Q Scott, the President’s moon/Mars mission, plan — I mean, what’s going to come of that? There’s a lot of concern about the gap when the shuttle is retired and the new vehicle hasn’t come into play yet.
DR. MARBURGER: There’s lots of other science that’s important, and there are lots of other initiatives in other agencies that are important for our country. This initiative focuses on things that we think have especially high leverage for future innovation. And that’s what this is focused on. Space exploration is another issue, it’s another important area for the country, but it’s not part of this initiative.
Q Does this indicate any shifting of priorities away from that as a top priority?
DR. MARBURGER: No, there’s no shift of priorities for the other areas.
Later in the briefing, Claude Allen, assistant to the president for domestic policy, touched on NASA’s role in the math-and-science education work planned as part of the new competitiveness initiative:
And then the last piece of this program that we’re focused on in education is to have a survey to look at all the federal programs, all the federal dollars that are going into education right now for math and science, to make sure that they also are tied to the No Child Left Behind standards so that we make sure that agencies such as NASA, that expends more than the Department of Education in math-science, that they, too, are tying their programs to that which the students can achieve, as well.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 February 2 at 6:15 am ET To no one’s surprise, President Bush’s State of the Union address Tuesday night made no mention of the Vision for Space Exploration or space policy in general. The closest he came was this promise to double federal funding of “basic research” efforts:
First, I propose to double the federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next 10 years. This funding will support the work of America’s most creative minds as they explore promising areas such as nanotechnology, supercomputing, and alternative energy sources.
So does “basic research” include space in any way? That was part of a question one person posed to White House science advisor John Marburger in an online chat yesterday on the White House web site. Dr. Marburger’s response [emphasis added]:
The American Competitiveness Initiative identifies three priority agencies that are critical to basic research in the physical sciences that provides the foundation for future economic competitiveness. Areas like nanotechnology, information technology, materials science, and quantum coherence will be an important part of the initiative. Particle physics and space exploration are important, but not necessarily a focus of the Initiative.
I’d take that to be a “no”.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 February 2 at 5:57 am ET Most of the attention to Boeing’s 2005 financial results released yesterday focused on the boffo results of its commercial airliner business. Still, one financial analyst thought to ask Boeing executives about the status of the United Launch Alliance, and got this response from Boeing CFO James Bell, according to this transcript provided by the Wall Street Journal [subscription required]:
Don’t know if it will happen this quarter. I think it will happen. It’s both supported by us and Lockheed. And I think we’re answering the questions that the Department of Defense and others that are reviewing that transaction have. So, we just need to hang in there and keep working it, but I think it will happen. Maybe not this quarter.
Since earlier reports indicated that the Defense Department had given at least preliminary approval to the deal, one wonders if Bell’s statement means that the companies are still slogging through the paperwork and bureaucracy needed to get final approval, or if new objections or sticking points had been raised.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 February 1 at 5:50 am ET A Florida Today article today goes over expectations regarding the FY07 NASA budget proposal, including plans not to cut the number of remaining shuttle flights. One reason forwarded for retaining the scheduled 19 or so shuttle flights is allow the shuttle to launch key modules provided by ISS partners Europe and Japan. One member of Congress, though, doesn’t buy it. “One of the arguments that NASA uses is that we have a contractual obligation to 15 other countries with the ISS,” said Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL). “There is no sympathy for that argument with the Congress.” Feeney said that if there is another foam-shedding incident with the shuttle (or presumably another problem of similar seriousness) “it’s going to be really hard to save at that point, really hard to save” the shuttle program.
Even without any problems Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL) warns of problems ahead: “Our ability to fund the shuttle and the space station while we continue to develop a replacement for the shuttle in the context of funding the war in Iraq and recovering from Hurricane Katrina, rebuilding New Orleans, we have some very difficult challenges we have to address.”
By Jeff Foust on 2006 January 31 at 7:14 am ET The report in Sunday’s New York Times where NASA climate scientist James Hansen claims NASA is trying to prevent him from speaking about global warming has generated a reaction in Congress. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), chairman of the House Science Committee, issued a press release Monday that contained a copy of the letter he has sent to NASA Administrator Michael Griffin asking for clarification about the issue. “NASA is clearly doing something wrong, given the sense of intimidation felt by Dr. Hansen and others who work with him,” Boehlert wrote in his letter. “Even if this sense is a result of a misinterpretation of NASA policies – and more seems to be at play here – the problem still must be corrected.” Boehlert added that his staff “is already setting up meetings to pursue this issue” and asked Griffin for a written clarification; don’t be surprised this comes up the next time Griffin appears before Boehlert’s committee.
However, a Times article Tuesday notes that not everyone in Congress agrees with Boehlert. A spokesman for Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), a critic of claims about global warming, accused Hansen of “using his government position to promote his own views and political agenda, which is a clear violation of governmental procedure in any administration.”
By Jeff Foust on 2006 January 31 at 6:51 am ET The successful launch of a remote sensing satellite might not seem like the type of event to trigger reflections on national space policy. Yet, in Japan, the launch last week of the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS), or “Daichi”, generated some editorials expressing some optimism, yet also caution, about the Japanese space program. Both the Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun congratulated the Japanese space agency JAXA on the spacecraft’s launch and plans to use the spacecraft for disaster monitoring and related applications. Yet both expressed concern about the spacecraft’s size and complexity, citing the failures of less-complex earth observing spacecraft. Yomiuri Shimbun in particular hopes that Daichi “helps rebuild trust in Japan’s satellite technology.” That lack of confidence also extends to Japan’s launch vehicle program. Asahi Shimbun seems concerned about a couple of minor technical problems—hardly unusual for any launcher—that delayed the launch, calling them “worrisome”.
Taking a broader view, Yomiuri Shimbun notes that Daichi fits into a new JAXA philosophy that favors “utilizing the fruits of space development widely in people’s day-to-day life” over pure technology development. “[I]t is difficult to win people’s understanding of space development if it is solely for the purpose of technological development. We hope Daichi’s performance will make outer space more familiar to us.” Of course, it helps if this and upcoming missions—JAXA has two more launches planned in the next month—are successful, Asahi Shimbun argues. “If everything goes well, Japan will impress the rest of the world. It will show that it has hit its stride in space exploration technology again after a flurry of problems in its satellites and rockets in preceding years. Success must be achieved by all means.”
By Jeff Foust on 2006 January 30 at 7:35 am ET Orlando Sentinel aerospace editor Michael Cabbage has started a new blog, The Write Stuff, and has kicked it off with the transcript of a recent interview with NASA administrator Michael Griffin. The interview covers a broad range of subjects, from the shuttle to space science. On the budget, Griffin has this to say:
NASA is very fortunate not to receive outright cuts. I believe that. I take that as a sign of support from the administration. But at the same time, we at NASA – the 2006 budget showed this and the 2005 budget showed this – are not expecting major growth at the top line. Sub-elements like shuttle don’t need to grow. It just needs to do what it needs to do. But exploration is not going to get major growth in its sub-line. Science is not going to get major growth in its sub-line. Aeronautics is not going to see major growth in its sub-line, because if there is no growth at the top line, the elements can only grow by eating each other, and frankly, I won’t support that. I’ll take an order, of course. I’m only an agency head. I’m not a czar. But what I have said since coming on board is that I’ll do everything I can to make sure that our major themes don’t cannibalize each other. So if we’re not rationally expecting major growth in the top line, then you will not see major growth in any sub-element. That’s the strategic picture.
This is not terribly surprising, given recent indications (and other statements by Griffin) that NASA would not get a major increase in the FY07 budget proposal, unlike the past two years.
Later, he had this to say about the schedule for carrying out the Vision for Space Exploration and how that is tied into the budget:
So the nation seems to have decided, if you’ll forgive me for putting it this way, on about what level they want NASA to operate at. Currently, that’s around 17 billion dollars in constant dollars and, of course, as was said last year at the 2006 budget rollout, NASA can expect inflationary growth, not cuts, but essentially constant dollars. So if that’s true, if we have constant dollars for the foreseeable future, then my answer to your question is unequivocally yes. There is money there. There is enough money there to accomplish the goals of the vision for exploration. People keep asking me “Why are you taking until 2018 or whatever it takes us to get back to the moon when we did it in eight years the first time?” The reason is that we’re not being given the kind of money necessary to do that in eight years, but we are being given the kind of money necessary to do that in 12, 13, 14 years. We can meet the president’s goals of not later than 2020 for the moon and not later than 2014 for the CEV [Crew Exploration Vehicle]. We hope to be able to improve upon those goals but those goals were stated as “not later than” and we can meet those with the funding that the nation seems to be willing to allocate to the space program. More would always be nicer. I certainly hope that we don’t get less.
(Side note: an article in this week’s issue of Space News reports that NASA is considering a streamlined version of the exploration architecture, called “Lunar Sooner”, that would move up the first manned lunar landing a year to 2017.)
Also, Cabbage asks Griffin if he will go out and campaign for Congressional candidates in 2006, noting that Sean O’Keefe did some campaigning while administrator. (I’m not sure that he actually did; I recall that he did try to go down to Florida in a personal, not official, capacity in 2002 to appear at an event for Tom Feeney, but airline delays canceled that trip. [Update: Michael Cabbage was kind enough to email me this morning and confirm the cancelled Feeney campaign trip, but added that O’Keefe did put in a campaign appearance in the Alabama governor’s race in 2002 as well as some other, less visible work.]) Griffin, citing the Hatch Act, said that he “certainly will not be doing that.”
There are a lot more interesting items in the interview beyond what I’ve cited here; it’s worth a full read.
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