By Jeff Foust on 2005 July 5 at 8:23 am ET Last week the Heritage Foundation congratulated Rep. Chris Chocola (R-IN) for introducing an amendment earlier last month to the Science, State, Justice, and Commerce appropriations bill that forbids NASA from spending any money on an “artist-in-residence” program. (See my post on this subject from June 16.) Heritage’s Michael Franc admits that the money saved was “miniscule” (even after he inflates the cost of the program from $20,000 to $50,000) but that otherwise “efforts to shrink the federal behemoth will flounder.”
So did Rep. Chocola and his colleagues just save the American taxpayer $20,000? Well, not really. First of all, the amendment does not cut any funding from NASA’s budget, but instead restricts NASA from employing “any individual under the title ‘artist in residence'”. In other words, NASA can spend the same amount of money—or more—to similar ends, so long as it uses a different title.
Second is a topic near and dear (or perhaps simply feared) by those following the space agency: full-cost accounting. That is, Congress incurred some cost to “save” $20,000. Let’s say the floor debate on the amendment lasted just 15 minutes. Given an annual Congressional salary of $162,100, and assuming the average member works 3000 hours a year (10 hours/day for 300 days), this amendment cost nearly $6,000 in member salaries alone! And this excludes salaries for staff, printing, electricity, etc. All of this is lost in the noise when debating appropriations bills that run in the hundreds of billions of dollars, but are no longer insignificant when debating a $20,000 program. (You can certainly debate the details of the accounting above, but the general theme remains.) Sometimes a penny saved is something less than a penny earned.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 July 4 at 7:51 pm ET NASA administrator Michael Griffin has said on a number of occasions that while NASA is looking to reduce the number of shuttle missions to the ISS from the currently-planned 28, in order to retire the shuttle by the end of 2010, he remains committed to completing and utilizing the station. An example is a comment he made during a House Science Committee hearing last week:
As I sit here, a team of bright and dedicated engineers with substantial experience in the business and on space station in particular are looking at all of the available options by which we might complete the assembly of the space station consistent with our obligations to our partners and our research agenda while remaining within the requirement to retire the shuttle by 2010.
However, some of our partners in Russia seem unconvinced. Writing for the state-run news service RIA Novosti, political commentator Andrei Kislyakov seems unconvinced by the remarks of Griffin and others. “Despite declarations to the contrary, it seems that the United States is likely to pull out in the near future,” he writes, although there are few specifics in the article to back up his conclusion, besides references to the study to change the shuttle schedule as well as shuttle safety concerns. (Of course, why let facts, or the lack thereof, stand in the way of a good argument?) If Kislyakov’s skepticism is shared by his bosses in the Russian government, it would seem that Griffin and the US government have an uphill battle in front of them to convince the Russians—and perhaps the Europeans and other partners—of their sincerity on the ISS.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 June 30 at 7:13 am ET A routine markup session by the House Science Committee’s on a long-awaited NASA authorization bill took a surprisingly partisan turn on Wednesday. While there is typically a strong sense of bipartisan cooperation among committee members, during Wednesday’s hearing Democratic members expressed their opposition to the authorization bill, HR 3070. Reps. Mark Udall (D-CO) and Bart Gordon (D-TN), the ranking Democrats on the subcommittee and full committee, respectively, complained both about the process of introducing the bill and its contents during the hearing. PArt of their concerns was that they did not get a chance to see a draft of the bill until last Friday, which they felt did not give them enough time to review it and suggest amendments to it. The other major concern, as expressed in a press release, was that the bill “does not address the issue of ensuring that a productive balance is maintained between NASA’s core missions”, including aeronautics and science as well as the Vision for Space Exploration. Most Democrats elected to abstain from passing the bill on to the full committee, rather than vote for or against it.
The subcommittee did, though, approve the bill, and HSC chairman Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) said the full committee would consider the bill next month, after the July 4 recess. Boehlert said he would work with Democrats on the committee to “craft a bi-partisan bill”. Even if that is accomplished, though, there is the issue that the House version of the authorization bill is significantly different from the Senate version, including a provision in the House bill mandating shuttle retirement by the end of 2010. The Senate’s version, by contrast, requires NASA to keep the shuttle flying if the CEV is not ready by that date. Subcommittee chairman Ken Calvert (R-CA) said that, despite such differences, he doesn’t “see any show stoppers” that would preclude a compromise.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 June 29 at 7:58 am ET The big news to come out of yesterday’s House Science Committee hearing featuring NASA Administrator Michael Griffin was arguably not his proclamation that the shuttle is ready to launch (it would have been news if had said anything else), but that he said that he and the administration are asking Congress to change the Iran Nonproliferation Act. Specifically, he said that he and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have submitted a letter to congressional leaders requesting an amendment that, according to the Orlando Sentinel, “maintains U.S. non-proliferation principles and objectives, while also maintaining the U.S. Russia space partnership.” This is something that some members of Congress have been pushing for months, if not years, concerned that the provisions of the INA—which prohibit NASA from purchasing ISS services from Russia unless the administration finds Russia is not aiding Iran on WMD and related technologies—could keep Americans off of Russian Soyuz spacecraft starting next year. A proposed amendment to INA that would eliminate this problem is “is still being vetted”, committee chairman Sherwood Boehlert said, and will be completed “in the short term.”
That news was music to some members’ ears, after hearing for years that no changes were needed to INA. Rep Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) called the original INA “a worthy goal” that failed because neither the Clinton nor the Bush administrations failed to develop “an overture to the Russians that would give them an alternative.” “There is no reason for us not to be realistic,” he concluded, according to the transcript of the hearing (which NASA, to its great credit, posted on its web site within a few hours of the end of the hearing Tuesday afternoon).
By Jeff Foust on 2005 June 28 at 7:25 am ET Last week I noted an Iowa newspaper column that attempted to pit NASA against funding for drug enforcement measures. Sunday’s Pittsburgh Tribune-Review featured a letter to the editor in a similar vein:
I don’t understand their decision not to transfer funds from a space program to a program that provides grants to state and local law enforcement agencies (HR 2862)!
Let’s see. Explore Mars and the moon, again, … or be sure our citizens are safe and those who protect them from terrorists and criminals have all the equipment and personnel required to serve that need.
Hmmm. Tough one.
Again, another false choice: one can fund both NASA and law enforcement, if so desired. Will these arguments gain traction over time and threaten NASA funding, or will the agency will become immune to them?
By Jeff Foust on 2005 June 28 at 7:15 am ET As announced last week, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin will be the sole witness at a full House Science Committee hearing this morning on “The Future of NASA”. The hearing will take place at 10 am in Rayburn 2318 and will be webcast. In addition, the space subcommittee has added a markup session for Wednesday afternoon at 2 pm in the same room to deal with the House version of the NASA authorization bill; it will also be webcast. Subcommittee chairman Rep. Ken Calvert also plans a “media availability” immediately after the one-hour meeting.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 June 24 at 7:06 am ET First, the Senate Approprations Committee approved unanimously the Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill. The press release announcing the bill’s approval offers no details, but since the NASA overall budget number remains unchanged at $16.4 billion, it seems the full committee did little or nothing to change the subcommittee’s work earlier this week.
What did get more attention, though, was the passage by the Senate Commerce Committee of a NASA authorization bill, S.1281. Besides the provisions originally reported, the press release about the legislation notes that the bill “also requires NASA to conduct a balanced and broad science program, including the development of a plan for a Shuttle servicing mission to Hubble after completion of the first two ‘return-to-flight’ Shuttle missions, unless such a mission would compromise astronaut safety or the integrity of NASA’s other missions.” NASA must also “ensure diverse and growing utilization of and benefits from the ISS.”
The committee pushed aside two proposed amendments to the bill, the Houston Chronicle reported. One, proposed by Sen. George Allen (R-VA), would have set minimum funding levels for aeronautics, while the other, by Sen. John Sununu (R-NH), would have set similar funding thresholds for science missions. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison opposed the amendments, according to the report, since they would “undermine the transition to the crew [exploration] vehicle.” On aeronautics in particular, the Hampton Roads Daily Press reported that Hutchison would like to see the Defense Department pick up more of the tab on aeronautics research.
The Chronicle article also quoted House Majority Leader as saying that the full House will vote on its version of the authorization bill either in July or in September, after the summer recess. The space subcommittee of the House Science Committee may take up its bill in the next week or so.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 June 23 at 7:52 am ET The energy bill currently being debated by the Senate will “probably” include a provision that could support NASA’s Glenn Research Center, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Thursday. Ohio’s two senators, George Voinovich and Mike DeWine, are backing a provision that would authorize the Energy Department to spend $300 million over five years to develop more fuel-efficient jet engines in cooperation with NASA. The House version of the bill also includes a similar provision. The Ohio senators believe that much of that research would take place at Glenn Research Center, a move that comes at a time when the center is facing significant cuts: earlier this week Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) held a “strategy session” on how to retain jobs at the center.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 June 23 at 7:44 am ET The ongoing debate on whether NASA should adopt a shuttle-derived or EELV-derived approach for a future heavy-lift launch vehicle (HLLV) or CEV launch vehicle has made its way into the FY06 Defense Department appropriations bill, according to a report in Thursday’s Deseret News. The Salt Lake City newspaper reported that Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) “also inserted language that instructs the Department of Defense and NASA to look into the benefits of a shuttle-based flight system into space, as opposed to other systems that are not as proven or capable.” I skimmed through both the text of the appropriations legislation and the appropriations committee report and could not find this particular provision.
The article also includes this quote from Bishop’s spokesman: “ATK-Thiokol believes this study will vindicate the shuttle system for which they build boosters, as opposed to other more expensive, less capable heavy lift boosters.” ATK Thiokol, of course, manufactures the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters and has a keen interest in shuttle-derived systems. It’s also a major Utah employer, hence the interest from the Utah congressman. There are already a number of studies in progress in this area, including one said to be completed soon by the Congressional Budget Office.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 June 22 at 1:05 pm ET The Senate Appropriations Committee’s commerce, justice, and science subcommittee marked up its FY2006 appropriations bill Tuesday, including $16.4 billion for NASA. That figure includes $250 million added at the behest of Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) to provide funding for any Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission NASA may approve. (NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has previously said that he would support reinstating a shuttle servicing mission assuming a successful shuttle return to flight.) The $16.4-billion top-line figure, though, falls about $60 million short of the President’s request, which did not include Hubble servicing funding. It’s not clear where the cuts took place, although the Baltimore Sun reported that both the shuttle and CEV programs were fully funded. The full appropriations committee is scheduled to take up the bill on Thursday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), who chairs the science and space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, announced yesterday that she had officially introduced a NASA authorization bill for fiscal years 2006 through 2010. The bill will be marked up during a full committee hearing scheduled for Thursday morning. The bill hasn’t made it into Thomas yet, but Hutchison’s press release offers a few intriguing details. The bill would designate the US segment of ISS as a “national laboratory facility”, something the senator has discussed at past hearings. In addition, the bill “requires completion” of the ISS and also “prohibits a gap in U.S. human space flight capability.”
Those last two positions present some potentially thorny issues. First, what does it mean for the ISS to be “completed”? If the bill refers to a specific assembly plan, that’s one thing, but given the past history of the program there may be some flexibility in what constitutes “complete”. The release notes that the bill would require NASA to inform Congress if the number of shuttle launches currently scheduled to build or supply the station changes. Second, the prohibition of a “gap” in American manned spaceflight would seem to suggest at first that the shuttle would have to continue flying if the CEV or another vehicle (like the t/Space CXV) is not ready to replace it by the 2010 retirement date. Administrator Griffin has made it clear in a number of recent statements that the 2010 date is a hard deadline for shuttle retirement, however. The release does state that NASA would have to develop “a contingency plan to address station servicing needs during any potential hiatus in U.S. capability to transport humans and cargo into space, eliminating the possibility of a gap in space access.” This might open the door for the procurement of cargo and human launch services from the commercial sector, although many may question whether commercial human access to ISS will be available by 2010. (Russia would also be an alternative, if it weren’t for that pesky INA.)
Update 6/23 12 noon: A Space News article reviews the bill and finds a provision in the legislation that does require the shuttle to continue operations until a successor is available:
In order to ensure continuous human access to space, the Administrator may not retire the Space Shuttle orbiter until a replacement human-rated spacecraft system has demonstrated that it can take humans into Earth orbit and return them safely.
|
|
