By Jeff Foust on 2005 November 16 at 7:45 am ET RIA Novosti has published a summary of an article from the Russian newspaper Novye Izvestia about concerns that NASA and Roskosmos reportedly have regarding the numerous private claims of ownership of the Moon, claiming that these “owners” would sue for “moral and material damage” if these agencies established bases on their property. According to the article Roskosmos officials are a bit flummoxed:
“Our legal experts have been checking the validity of owners’ claims but have not been able to come up with definite answers so far,” Igor Zatula, a Roskosmos spokesman, said. “A large number of international laws and agreements have to be worked through. In any case, only courts can confirm the legitimacy of ownership of the Moon and other planets.”
The article also claims that NASA would void any claims by citing a law dating back to colonial times that “if a person failed to cultivate his land or appear on it for more than 12 years, the plot was to be confiscated.” Regardless of whether such a law currently exists, it seems unlikely NASA would invoke it, since the agency and the US government in general have denied the validity of any claims to ownership of the Moon or other celestial bodies. Where’s a space law expert when you need one?
By Jeff Foust on 2005 November 16 at 7:37 am ET NASA administrator Michael Griffin, speaking at the American Astronautical Society’s annual conference Tuesday in Houston, took some time to discuss his plans to involve the private sector in the exploration architecture, the Houston Chronicle reports. He covered some familiar ground about commercial ISS cargo and crew transport, but also added that, down the road, “NASA would purchase propellant from commercially operated fuel stations in Earth orbit.” An interesting idea, to be certain, but on-orbit fuel depots don’t seem to fit into the current exploration architecture, which relies on heavy-lift vehicles to launch fully-fueled spacecraft and upper stages for carrying out human lunar missions—unless, perhaps, NASA is planning for the case where the heavy-lift capacity currently envisioned doesn’t materialize or is insufficient to carry out planned missions.
One thing Griffin does not address, at least in this article, is the overlapping roles of CEV and commercial transport providers for servicing the station. If, by the time the CEV enters service around 2012, NASA has already contracted with commercial providers for crew and cargo transport to the station, what does the CEV do: elbow out the commercial transport companies or find another mission to do?
By Jeff Foust on 2005 November 15 at 7:20 pm ET The House Science Committee plans to hold a hearing of the full committee on Wednesday morning to discuss the status of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Earth Satellite System (NPOESS), a weather satellite program that has encountered serious delays and cost overruns. (The link to the media advisory announcing the hearing isn’t working as of this writing.) The hearing, at 10 am in Rayburn 2318, will feature Conrad Lautenbacher, the head of NOAA; Ronald Sega, undersecretary of the Air Force; David Powner of the GAO; and Alexis Livanos, president of Northrop Grumman Space Technology, the prime contractor for NPOESS. Earlier today the Defense Department released details of a “selected acquisition report” on the NPOESS program, reporting that the program’s cost has increased from $6.8 billion to nearly $8.3 billion, “due primarily to technical issues arising during the engineering and manufacturing development portion of the program.” That increase is enough to trigger a Nunn-McCurdy review of the program; while there’s no sign that the program is in jeopardy (it got over $300 million in the FY06 budget), it will likely be restructured in some manner.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 November 15 at 12:59 pm ET The Mars Society and the NSS are jointly sponsoring a talk by former astronaut Scott Horowitz, the new associate administrator for exploration at NASA, on Tuesday, November 29 at 2 pm in room 2325 of the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington. Not surprisingly, Horowitz will speak about ESAS. To RSVP, please contact George Whitesides at the National Space Society at (202) 429-1600 or e-mail george [at] nss.org.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 November 12 at 9:43 am ET I’m at the University of Illinois this weekend for the SpaceVision2005 conference, the national conference of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS). Friday afternoon featured a presentation on the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) by two representatives of Northrop Grumman: Alan Ladwig and Mike Lembeck, who recently joined Northrop from NASA. Lembeck had some interesting things to say about the development of a precursor to the CEV, the Orbital Space Plane (OSP):
Orbital Space Plane really didn’t make sense. Again it was another program that NASA was trying to do that you couldn’t build a good business case for. It was my job to go forward and try to put that business case together, and I couldn’t. Myself, a couple of folks from the Chief Engineer’s office, and a number of astronauts, got together and we laid this out, and we basically showed Mr. O’Keefe that this was a bum program, and we needed to do something different.
Lembeck also recalled the development of the Vision for Space Exploration, and the role that President Bush played:
And about the same time [as the OSP study], President Bush came over to NASA and said, “You know, I don’t know what you guys do.” Because he looked at NASA and NASA had been going around in circles for a number of years, just sitting in low Earth orbit. And he wanted to do something more. A lot of you might think that the President’s not been engaged in this, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that the President was very engaged in the generation of the Vision.
Lembeck also took credit for the creation of the name “Crew Exploration Vehicle” itself, saying it same out of a November 2003 meeting as an alternative to a hodgepodge of terms and acronyms being used for that planned manned spacecraft.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 November 10 at 5:55 am ET The Senate approved by unanimous consent late Tuesday the amended version of S.1713, the legislation that allows NASA to purchase Russian hardware and services for the ISS. The Senate had previously approved the bill—also by unanimous consent—back in September, but had to go through the process again after the House amended the legislation somewhat when it approved it last month. The passage of the bill removes any uncertainty about the US presence on the ISS, which was in jeopardy if NASA didn’t have the ability to purchase flights on Soyuz missions to the station, something prohibited under the original Iran Nonproliferation Act. As NASA administrator Griffin put it in a statement, “The legislation passed by Congress reflects the U.S. government’s continuing commitment to nonproliferation objectives but also recognizes the value of international cooperation in space exploration.”
By Jeff Foust on 2005 November 9 at 1:20 pm ET For any readers who will be in Toronto Thursday night: there will be a panel discussion of space weaponization at the Univ. of Toronto. An excerpt from the announcement:
Haven’t heard much about weapons in space since the end of the missile defence debate? That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to worry about. Join us for a panel discussion of recent developments, the Department of Foreign Affairs Space Security Index project and the little known environmental threat from orbiting space debris.
Given this announcement, the list of speakers, and the fact that this is part of a “Peace Week” event at the university, don’t expect too much discussion in favor of space weapons.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 November 9 at 12:43 pm ET A reader was kind enough last night to send me an excerpt from the NASA section of the C-J-S appropriations bill conference report. (The full report is now available online; the NASA section is about two-thirds the way down the page.) Some highlights that stood out after a cursory reading of the report on the subway this morning:
- A quote about the level of detail, or lack thereof, in the original budget request: “The conferees are extremely disappointed in the lack of detail provided in the fiscal year 2006 congressional budget justification… In order for the budget justifications to be of value to the Committees, NASA shall present the fiscal year 2007 budget justification with detailed information on the prior year, current year, and requested funding levels for each program, project or activity funded within each division and directorate in each account, and provide detailed information on all proposed changes being requested.”
- The conferees did not agree to extend the authority granted in the FY05 bill that allowed NASA wide latitude to transfer funds among its accounts. However, they did state that NASA is free to transfer funds within each account “after first consulting with the Committees on
Appropriations.”
- If NASA does decide to reprogram funds, it is directed to tell Congress the effects of such reprogramming on budgets in the out-years of the affected programs. Also, NASA is asked to perform “independent cost verification” for contracts exceeding $100 million. “This process should be a valuable guide for assessing when costs have exceeded expectations and will help identify projects for termination.”
- While the budget includes funding for the CEV and crew launch vehicle (CLV), Congress is concerned what effect the new, accelerated schedule for these programs will have on other programs at NASA, and directs the agency to “find an approach that will, to the maximum extent possible, mitigate the impacts within NASA of this planned redirection of funding in fiscal year 2006 and beyond.”
- The budget includes $198 million for commercial ISS crew and cargo services, including $98 million carried over from 2005. The conference report specifically states that “NASA is encouraged to utilize, to the fullest extent possible, commercially developed domestic cargo resupply and, ultimately, crew rotation capabilities for the International Space Station.”
- The conferees elected not to include any funding for Centennial Challenges in the FY06 budget, instead adopting language from the Senate report that the program’s unexpended balances from FY05 should be applied to 2006, and that future budget proposals provide specific details on the prizes that the money will be used for.
- The budget includes $271 million for a shuttle repair mission to Hubble, asking the NASA administrator to “continue to take all appropriate steps to ensure Hubble’s continued safe operations.”
- The budget also includes $10 million more for the Space Interferometry Mission and $60 million for the Glory earth sciences mission, which had been in danger of termination. $5 million is added to begin “development and planning” for the heavy-lift launcher proposed in the ESAS report.
- The budget cuts $25 million from the Discovery program and directs NASA to place a cost cap of $425 million on all future Discovery missions.
- Because of the redirection of Project Prometheus (which had its budget cut by $200 million), NASA had already indicated it was not planning to fly the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission for the indefinite future. However, the conferees, citing the scientific interest in a mission to Europa, directed NASA to include a “conventionally powered” mission as a new start in its 2007 budget request, noting that such missions “usually take a decade to complete from design to orbit.”
- In aeronautics, the conferees added $60 million, including $25 million specifically for continued hypersonics research, for a total of $912.3 million. Congress also directed the President to esablish a “National Aeronautics Policy” no later than one year after passage of this budget.
- And yes, there are plenty of earmarks.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 November 9 at 7:38 am ET Rarely do you see NASA’s fiscal management proclaimed as a good example of how to run an agency. Yet, in an op-ed piece in today’s Seattle Times, Norton R. Nowlin compares funding for AIDS research efforts—scattered among various local, state, and federal programs—to the approach at NASA:
The money appropriated by Congress for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the international space station and other such efforts goes into one large disbursement pot. NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have intertwined working budgets, centrally controlled for all aspects of the international manned space program. This allows for a centralized focus on the primary technical objectives.
Um, yeah, okay.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 November 8 at 10:09 pm ET According to a report by Congressional Quarterly (hidden far behind a subscription wall) conferees have finished up work reconciling the House and Senate versions of the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, which includes NASA; it could be voted on in the House as early as Wednesday. No details yet about what the bill contains for NASA, other than it does specifically fund a shuttle repair mission to Hubble.
Update 11/9 7:30 am: The Huntsville Times has a few more details, but primarily focuses on local programs and earmarks, including $25 million for an office building at MSFC. The top-level budget figure, $16.5 billion, is what most everyone expected given what the House and Senate approved earlier this year.
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