By Jeff Foust on 2006 January 9 at 6:22 am ET The big political news from over the weekend was the announcement by Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) that he would no longer seek to regain his former post of House Majority Leader. Given that DeLay was arguably NASA’s most powerful patron on Capitol Hill, this decision—and his ongoing legal troubles—raises the question of just how much influence he will have and how much attention he will be able to devote to NASA. This could prove to be particularly critical if the administration asks for another significant budget increase for NASA for fiscal year 2007. At least for now DeLay will likely still wield considerable influence despite losing his leadership post, and he plans to use it to support the space agency: the AP reported that DeLay said Saturday that “one of his new main objectives was securing more funding for NASA”. His long-term influence, though, will depend on the outcome of his legal problems, as well as what may be a bruising reelection campaign against former Congressman Nick Lampson.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 January 9 at 5:58 am ET The Wall Street Journal [subscription required] reported Saturday that the Pentagon has decided to give its seal of approval to the United Launch Alliance, the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture that would merge the EELV operations of the two companies. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) still has to sign off on the merger, a process that could take several more weeks, although according to the WSJ it is expected to follow the Pentagon’s recommendation. One open question is what conditions, if any, the government will impose on the ULA, which could make the difference regarding whether the ULA “could cross a new threshold to monopoly,” the article notes. Also still outstanding is a lawsuit by SpaceX seeking to block the merger.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 January 6 at 6:57 am ET Last week the FAA released a Notice for Proposed Rulemaking for commercial space flight passengers and crew and opened a docket for comments on that NPRM. (Go to this web site and search for docket 23449). As of this morning four comments were available for viewing:
By Jeff Foust on 2006 January 6 at 6:37 am ET Remember Triana, aka “Goresat”, the earth and space sciences satellite dreamed up (arguably literally) by then Vice President Al Gore about eight years ago? Science reports in its latest issue that NASA has “quietly terminated” the mission. Unfortunately, that’s all that the free summary provides, and I don’t have a subscription. As you may recall, Triana, to be stationed at the Earth-Sun L1 point, was designed to provide full-disk imagery of the Earth for a variety of purposes; it also has sensors to provide early warning of solar storms. The mission was sharply criticized by Republicans in Congress, although its scientific merits were eventually vindicated by a National Academy of Sciences report. The Triana spacecraft was built but put into storage since it had no ride available. Without access to the full article, it’s not clear what plans, if any, NASA has for the Triana hardware.
Update 12 pm: Several readers were kind enough to send me the full text of the Science article, although the full article doesn’t offer much more than my summary above. The principal investigator of Triana, Francisco Valero of UC San Diego, did say that he was disappointed that NASA made this decision before NOAA finished a study (due to be released next month) on potential cost-sharing for the mission. If NOAA could pay up to half the cost of launching and operating Triana (estimated to be between $60-120 million total), it would presumably be much easier to squeeze the mission within NASA’s budget, the primary reason why NASA cancelled it.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 January 5 at 7:04 am ET An AP article from earlier this week discusses an analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on federal R&D funding. The study finds that while overall federal R&D spending will increase 2.2 percent in 2006 to $135 billion, 97 percent of that increase will go to the Defense Department and NASA; NASA in general will see a 7.3 percent, mostly for CEV development and other exploration programs. Other agencies, however, will see little or no increase in funding in 2006, which is causing some complaints. An example is former NIH director Harold Varmus: “There is a battle for the future in science and technology… Not increasing investments in those areas sends a signal the country is going to regret.” To put things in perspective, although NIH is getting a 0.1 percent budget cut in 2006, its overall budget doubled from 1999 to 2003.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 January 4 at 7:39 am ET The Federation of American Scientists has posted a copy of the memo from OSTP director John Marburger from late last month that authorized NASA to develop a free-flyer Landsat spacecraft in place of including a Landsat-type instrument on the NPOESS spacecraft. Most of the details of the decision in the two-page memo were covered in the Space News article last week (see earlier post).
By Jeff Foust on 2006 January 3 at 7:53 am ET It’s tough to find critics of NASA’s robotic planetary exploration program, particularly now given the spectacular successes of the Mars rovers, Cassini, and other missions. But then there’s curmudgeonly commentator Les Kinsolving, a talk radio host and columnist for the right-of-center online publication WorldNetDaily. In a column today he lambasts NASA for the New Horizons mission to Pluto, slated for launch in two weeks. “Whoever is responsible should be fired and this outrageous waste canceled.” Well, it’s a little late now, Mr. Kinsolving. He appears to be outraged at just the general concept of sending a spacecraft to fly past Pluto, at one point referring to “NASA extremist exploration” (!) and elsewhere noting that sending a New Horizons-class mission (at $650 million a piece) to each of the estimated half-million Kuiper Belt Objects would cost a cool $325 trillion (a case, one might argue, of extremist extrapolation.)
Don’t get too hot under the collar about this essay: while he may not be intentionally humorous, this, like his occasional appearances at White House press conferences, is worth a chuckle or two.
By Jeff Foust on 2006 January 3 at 7:41 am ET In the run-up to September’s release of the results of the Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS) there was considerable debate regarding whether NASA should develop a shuttle-derived or EELV-derived heavy-lift launcher—or none at all. While NASA now plans to build the shuttle-derived heavy-lifter, Grant Bonin reexamines the case for relying instead on “medium-lifters” (where “medium” here means EELV-Heavy class vehicles, or even the SRB-based Crew Launch Vehicle) in this week’s issue of The Space Review. (This is the first of a two-part report; part two will appear next week.) Using several medium-lifters instead of a single heavy-lifter offers economies of scale and other benefits not possible with a single heavy-lifter, he argues.
While the point may seem academic now that NASA has signed off on a shuttle-derived heavy-lift launcher, keep in mind that most of that vehicle’s development will be done only after 2010, once the shuttle is retired and the CEV and CLV enter service: NASA can’t afford to develop the heavy-lifted any sooner. If there are cost overruns on the CEV and CLV, not to mention shuttle and station, don’t be surprised if NASA—particularly at some point after Griffin leaves the agency—reexamines this issue.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 December 31 at 9:33 am ET An editorial in Saturday’s New York Times reviews the situation NASA faces in the new year, primarily the predicted funding shortfall in the shuttle program (which the Times pegs at $3 billion, at the low range of estimates that go as high as $6 billion). The editorial notes that the new authorization legislation endorses (but obviously does not fund) additional money for the agency, and the Times likes the provision of the bill that requires NASA spend at least 15 percent of ISS research funding on non-exploration programs. However, the Times makes it clear where its priorities lie should additional money not be approved: “From our perspective, the costly shuttle and the space-station complex look more expendable than pathfinding robotic probes of the solar system and a transition to new manned space vehicles.”
By Jeff Foust on 2005 December 30 at 6:47 pm ET The White House announced today that President Bush has signed into law HR 2863, the DOD appropriation bill (which includes supplemental funding for hurricane relief) and S. 1281, the NASA authorization bill.
Jim Muncy passed along to me earlier today an interesting bit about HR 2863, which provides NASA with $350 million to begin repairs to Stennis and Michoud: to help pay for the hurricane relief bill, Congress included a one-percent rescission for all non-Defense agencies, which meant NASA had to give up about $170 million, for a net increase of only $180 million, even though NASA has estimated its hurricane repair costs to be $760 million. This has caused some juggling of NASA’s budget, including the transfer of $85 million from the commercial ISS resupply program in 2006 to cover hurricane costs; it helps explain why the funding profile for the program is backloaded.
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