By Jeff Foust on 2005 December 30 at 6:20 am ET If you’re bored of football games and parties this New Year’s holiday weekend and looking for some alternatives, you may want to read the new Notice for Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on crew and passenger requirements for commercial vehicles released Thursday by the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST). This NPRM was developed by AST, with industry input, as a requirement of the Commercial Space Transportation Amendments Act, signed into law a year ago. I have not had a chance to read the document (about 120 double-spaced pages long) yet, but an AP article summarizes some of the key points of the document, many of which are simply common sense: safety training for passengers, FAA pilot certificates for pilots, and no weapons allowed on board the spacecraft, among other things.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 December 29 at 6:41 am ET I stumbled across a transcript from a press conference held Tuesday by Anatoly Perminov, head of Roskosmos. If you skim past the introduction, where Perminov goes through some launch statistics from 2005, Perminov had a few interesting things to say about Russia’s space program and its plans for the future:
- Roskosmos plans to issue a request for proposals for the Kliper spacecraft on January 18. Only three organizations will be allowed to bid for the project: Energia, Khrunichev, and NPO Molniya. Since Kliper has been an Energia project, and since Roskosmos effectively controls Energia, this bidding process may be little more than a formality.
- This year was the first year when the government fully funded all of Roskosmos’ programs “in spite of the lag in financing over the past years”.
- Roskosmos and NASA signed an agreement late last week to cover NASA’s purchases of Russian flight services. NASA will pay cash for seats on Soyuz flights and cargo on Progress spacecraft, but Perminov declined to state how much NASA is paying: “we too have our commercial secrets.” He added that he hopes in the first half of 2006 to reach “a comprehensive agreement with NASA on ISS until the year 2011″.
- A “waiting list” of space tourists and astronauts from other countries who want to fly on Soyuz spacecraft has formed. Perminov said Russia is looking at ways to increase the Soyuz production rate.
- Perinov said that Roskosmos can meet the accelerated deadline for the replenishment of the GLONASS satellite navigation system requested by President Putin earlier this week, but that this “will require additional funding and we are going to make relevant proposals.”
- The Russian Defense Ministry is in the process of handing over all the infrastructure at the Baikonur Cosmodrome to Roskosmos, a process that will be completed by the end of 2007.
While Perminov put the best spin possible on these developments, one thing he said made it clear that the Russian space program is far from the glory days of the old Soviet era:
I repeat, we can no longer engage in competition. It is impossible to compete, given the current level of financing. We are lagging behind in many spheres such as unmanned spacecraft, interplanetary research, exploration of other planets. Nothing can be done about it.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 December 28 at 6:51 am ET There were a few space policy-related items published over the holidays:
In an op-ed in Tuesday’s Washington Post, Paul Spudis restates the case for going back to the Moon. His commentary is summarized in these sentences from the introduction: “The moon is important for three reasons: science, inspiration and resources. All three are directly served by the new lunar return architecture. This program has the potential to make significant contributions to our national economy and welfare.” There’s nothing necessarily new here, but it’s a good restatement of the arguments for human lunar exploration.
On the other hand, the Toledo Blade dropped a lump of coal in the stockings of space supporters in a Christmas Day editorial. Rather than focus on human exploration of the solar system, Mars in particular, the Blade argues that NASA should focus on safely flying the shuttle and completing the ISS (which is exactly what NASA is focused on, many would argue.) “Right now, most Americans would rather NASA and the Bush Administration limit their horizons in the short term,” the editorial claims. Later: “Many Americans, we feel sure, would say that first we help our hurricane victims, then we think about colonizing Mars.” Given that “colonizing” Mars is relatively far in the future, regardless of spending on hurricane relief, the Blade’s argument is a little dull here.
The Blade editorial also notes the gap of potentially $6 billion between the expected costs to fly out the shuttle and what has been budgeted for the program through 2010. The Palm Beach Post examines this issue in more detail,including the possibility of flying the shuttle after 2010. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) told the Post that he would support extending the program if the ISS is not complete by 2010 or if the CEV is not expected to fly until after 2012. Nelson’s colleague, Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), agreed with him, saying she would also support a shuttle extension “even if it means expanding NASA’s budget.” Hutchison: “We can’t continue to cut, cut, cut NASA’s budget and expect to make it to the moon and Mars.” However, NASA’s budget has not been “cut, cut, cut” in the last few years—far from it, especially when compared to many other non-defense discretionary programs. The problem lies elsewhere, perhaps with NASA’s cost estimation processes.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 December 28 at 6:23 am ET Space News reports online [subscription required] late Tuesday that the White House has changed course and endorsed a dedicated Landsat mission. A December 23 memo from OSTP director John Marburger (not yet available on the OSTP web site) directed the NPOESS program to remove a Landsat-type instrument and instead gave NASA responsibility for building a new Landsat spacecraft. The decision comes after a confluence of events, including problems with the existing two Landsat spacecraft (one of which is over 20 years old and recently suffered a solar array problem), general problems with the NPOESS program, and concerns that NPOESS was not a suitable platform for a Landsat-class imager. The report doesn’t give any indication of the expected cost of the new Landsat spacecraft or its scheduled deployment.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 December 22 at 11:18 am ET The Senate approved by unanimous consent yesterday the compromise version of the NASA authorization legislation (S. 1281) hashed out last week in conference and approved Saturday by the House. The bill had been held in the Senate for several days by Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO), reportedly over hypersonics research funding; the Reuters article linked to above doesn’t mention the hold or how it was resolved. The bill now goes to the president for his signature.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 December 20 at 6:37 am ET Postings here will be less frequent through the end of the calendar year, as I’ll be taking some time off. I’ll make note of any major developments during the next couple of weeks, but otherwise keep a lower profile until after the New Year.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 December 20 at 6:33 am ET The House passed very early Monday a defense spending bill, attached to which was $29 billion in Hurricane Katrina relief spending. That includes $350 million for NASA to begin repairs at the Michoud Assembly Facility and Stennis Space Center. The OMB had asked for $325 million for such efforts in its FY2006 reallocation package request back in October. However, NASA had originally requested $760 million, and some state legislatures, as well as the Aerospace Industries Association, fought to try and get the full amount funded. “It is vital that Congress addresses the need to repair these two facilities because of their importance to our space program,” the AIA’s John Douglass said earlier this month. “We cannot continue the nation’s international leadership in space exploration when hampered by facilities that are not operating at 100 percent.”
By Jeff Foust on 2005 December 20 at 6:14 am ET It would seem that the federal government is in no hurry to give its seal of approval to the United Launch Alliance, the Boeing-Lockheed Martin EELV joint venture. When the deal was announced in early May, the companies expected to close the deal by the end of the year, but required approvals from the Federal Trade Commission and the Defense Department have not been obtained yet, and Lockheed officials told AP and Reuters on Monday Lockheed officials said they don’t expect those approvals to come in the final two weeks of this year. The Decatur (Ala.) Daily reported Tuesday that Boeing and Lockheed officials had hoped that the DOD would recommend to the FTC that they approve the ULA after a “high-level meeting” on Friday, but afterwards instead asked for yet more information about the joint venture.
Besides the regulatory approvals, the ULA is still facing a lawsuit from SpaceX, who wants to block the venture as anti-competitive. Meanwhile, on Monday the National Taxpayers Union issued a press release saying that the ULA “unfairly strand[s] taxpayers with a half-billion-dollar-a-year subsidy.” NTU Director of Government Affairs Paul Gessing: “Over the past decade, the Air Force’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) initiative has moved from the best of intentions to the worst of results, and now the EELV is poised to go where no rocket program has gone before – toward a near-permanent government bailout of Boeing’s and Lockheed’s launch businesses.”
By Jeff Foust on 2005 December 19 at 5:53 am ET In some respects, it can seem like the Vision for Space Exploration sprung forth in January 2004 with little advance notice: other than rumblings and rumors that a new space policy was in the works in the months and weeks leading up to the announcement, there was little substantial indication that NASA and the administration were actively working on a new exploration initiative. However, as Dwayne Day and I write in the latest issue of The Space Review, NASA’s planning for a new exploration plan started in earnest back in 1999, when administrator Dan Goldin gathered some of his top executives and quietly started the Decadal Planning Team (DPT). This effort, with the backing of Goldin and later Sean O’Keefe, worked primarily behind the scenes developing architectures for human exploration of the Moon, Mars, and other destinations in the solar system (one particularly far-sighted proposal that was considered called for a human mission to Callisto, the outermost of Jupiter’s four large Galilean moons.)
One of the major outstanding questions in the article that neither we nor the NASA historians whose research on the DPT formed the basis of our article could answer is what impact did the DPT (and, later, the NASA Exploration Team, or NEXT) have on the ultimate VSE. The DPT’s efforts were intended to be “science-driven” and “destination independent”, yet the Vision is focused clearly on one particular destination—the Moon—with science a secondary concern. When, and whether, these questions get answered may depend on the ultimate success of the Vision: “if Americans once again return to the Moon late in the next decade, scholars will examine the 2003 decision that started the process. If the plan falters under budget cuts or due to changes in political winds, it may never be researched in depth. Few people pay attention to failed policy initiatives.”
By Jeff Foust on 2005 December 19 at 5:38 am ET It’s an argument we have all heard many times: why should we spend money on space when we can spend it on X (where X is education, health care, medical research, etc.) That’s an issue that Eric Hedman tackles in this week’s issue of The Space Review, looking at the struggles for funding NASA versus other agencies, and the battle for funding within NASA itself. Perhaps the best piece of advice is the following passage:
Proponents of space exploration need to continuously improve the ability to communicate their ideas and explain why we need NASA to have a clear mission and a sufficient budget to carry it out. We need to be able to explain the benefits in ways that people who do not regularly follow what the space program is doing will understand. We need to be able to explain to lawmakers what the benefits are not only to specific congressional districts but also to the country and the human race as a whole. We also need to be able to sell it without overselling individual points and losing credibility.
While Hedman is talking about NASA specifically, his arguments also apply to state-level space efforts. This is something backers of a New Mexico spaceport may want keep in mind, particularly given an editorial in Sunday’s Albuquerque Tribune, where managing editor Kate Nelson lays into the spaceport plan with all the subtlety of a chainsaw. “I know, I know, we have this gaping hole in our Medicaid program,” she writes at one point. “And, sure, our schools are some of the worst in the nation,” she adds elsewhere. Sound familiar?
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