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You might remember during the frenzied effort last fall to pass HR 5382, the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act, opposition to the bill from some members of Congress who thought the legislation didn’t do enough to protect the safety of passengers. Their effort to insert new language into the bill, or simply block its passage, eventually failed. However, the leader of that effort is back at it again. As expected, the House Appropriations Committee announced Wednesday a proposed change to its subcommittee structure that would eliminate three subcommittees, including the VA-HUD subcommittee that currently includes NASA. The proposed restructuring is somewhat different than what was previously reported: NASA (along with NSF) will not be moved to the Energy subcommittee but instead to the Commerce, Justice, and State subcommittee, which will be renamed the “Science, State, Justice and Commerce” subcommittee. According to CongressDaily, the change stemmed from concerns raised by senators (who have been in negotiations with the House on the topic) that NASA “would not be served well by having to compete for funds with nuclear programs and popular Army Corps of Engineers water projects.” As the new subcommittee title suggests, NASA would be a much bigger player in this subcommittee than in the existing VA-HUD subcommittee: the Commerce-Justice-State subcommittee had a budget allocation of around $40 billion in FY05; adding NASA and NSF would bring that closer to $60 billion, still less than the roughly $90-billion VA-HUD subcommittee allocation. The new subcommittee will be chaired by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA). From here, the full House Appropriations Committee has to ratify the change, most likely during a reorganization meeting next week. The Senate, which had not been enthusiastic about the original reorganization plans, now seems more willing to accept the revised version, according to the CongressDaily article. Bart Gordon, the ranking Democrat on the House Science Committee, has tapped Rep. Mark Udall (D-CO) as the new ranking minority member of the space subcommittee. Udall succeeds Nick Lampson, who lost his bid for reelection in November. Udall was one of the leaders last year of Congressional efforts to restore some kind of Hubble servicing mission after NASA canceled the SM5 shuttle servicing mission; his district includes Ball Aerospace, which built the two instruments that would have been installed on the telescope. Udall said that he hopes the subcommittee will address “the life of the Hubble Space Telescope” as well as “the President’s Moon-Mars proposal and how it should be funded”. Trivia: Mark Udall is the son of Morris “Mo” Udall, the longtime Congressman who made a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976. Sean O’Keefe’s time at NASA is just about up. O’Keefe, who announced his resignation in December, said he would stay on until shortly after the FY06 budget proposal was released. The budget came out Monday, and according to this summary of a White House “press gaggle” Wednesday, O’Keefe will be leaving on Friday. In his “In the Loop” column in Wednesday’s Washington Post, Al Kamen said that O’Keefe would stay “into next week”, but definitely plans to be in Baton Rouge by Monday, February 21. Fred Gregory, the current deputy administrator, will be acting administrator until a replacement for O’Keefe is nominated and confirmed. Gregory has already been tapped to appear before the House Science Committee next week in that acting administrator role to answer questions about the FY06 budget proposal. Tuesday Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison made it official, issuing a press release stating that she had been named to chair the science and space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee. The press release included an interesting (if not entirely surprising) quote: “I strongly believe in the value of the manned space program and I am committed to returning the shuttle to flight and keeping it operable until another vessel can replace it.” Of course, under current plans, the shuttle would be retired around 2010, but the Crew Exploration Vehicle will enter service as late as 2014. Hutchison and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), who will be the ranking minority member of the subcommittee, have both previously stated their preference to keep the shuttle operating as long as possible, such as in this Florida Today op-ed they jointly authored last year. The media’s reaction to the FY06 NASA budget proposal can best be summarized in the headline of this Dallas Morning News article: “Budget signals death warrant for Hubble: Moon, Mars plans trump rescue mission for 15-year-old telescope.” (A runner-up is from the Baltimore Sun: “Manned-flight programs to gain at other NASA efforts’ expense”.) Even though there is not a direct link between exploration funding and the cancellation of a robotic repair mission (which got the axe because of concerns the mission couldn’t be completed in time, not because of its expense), the two have become indelibly linked in the media, just like last January when NASA announced the cancellation of the shuttle Hubble servicing mission just days after the VSE was announced. The second major theme has been the effect of NASA budget on jobs at the field centers. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that the budget would result in the loss of 700 jobs at NASA Glenn, while the Hampton Roads Daily Press reports that 1,000 of the 3,900 positions at NASA Langley would be lost. Meanwhile, members of Congress are speaking out. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), chair of the House Science Committee, called the budget “reasonable and balanced overall”. “I would love to save the Hubble, but the decision needs to be made in the context of the overall NASA budget,” he added. Others were less complimentary towards NASA. In a press release critical of R&D funding in general in the budget proposal, Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN), ranking Democrat on the science committee, noted that the proposed budget is actually $546 million less than what was planned for 2006 last year. Not surprisingly, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) spoke out about the lack of Hubble repair mission funding in the budget, vowing to “fight in the United States Senate this year to fund a servicing mission to Hubble by 2008.” While most of the media attention on the space-related aspects of the FY06 budget proposal has been on NASA, there are also some significant military space developments. According to the Washington Post, the ’06 defense budget includes $864 million—an increase of $340 million—to support the two EELV contractors, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The money will be used to support the fixed costs of both the Atlas 5 and Delta 4, in accordance with the new space transportation policy released last month. This support became necessary in recent years because of a drop in demand for commercial launches as well as a desire by the Air Force to maintain “assured access” to space by maintaining two different launch vehicle families. A “senior defense official” told the Post that “Maybe the commercial market will come back,” allowing the DoD to reduce the amount of money it has to pay to support the vehicles. This seems more like wishful thinking than anything: while commercial launch demand is expected to increase slightly through the end of the decade, there will remain strong competition from non-US vehicles; moreover, Boeing doesn’t make the Delta 4 commercially available. (The article states that there were “55 rocket launches” in 2004; in fact, there were 54 orbital launch attempts, plus a number of suborbital launches, and only 15 of those 54 were commercial.) The aviation subcommittee of the House Transportation Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday afternoon on “Commercial Space Transportation: Beyond The X Prize”. The list of witnesses scheduled to testify features:
The hearing is scheduled for 2pm in 2167 Rayburn, and will be webcast on the committee’s web site. This is notable for a couple reasons. First, the hearing is being held not by the House Science Committee, which has hosted previous hearings on commercial space transportation, but in the Transportation committee. (Many commercial space advocates will argue that this makes perfect sense: this is about commercial transportation, not rocket science.) Second, the ranking minority member of the transportation committee is Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), who many may remember as one of the staunch opponents last November of HR 5382. As an ex officio member of the aviation subcommittee, it will be worth noting if he attends the hearing and participates. The Bush Administration released its proposed FY2006 budget this morning, and for those following the reports and rumors floating around in recent weeks, there are few surprises for the NASA budget. Space News has perhaps the most detailed article, noting in particular that there is no funding for a Hubble repair mission (human or robotic), nor for JIMO. The budget does include $75 million to work on a Hubble deorbit module, and will maintain funding for Project Prometheus, the nuclear power initiative that JIMO was part of. The other major programs in NASA, including shuttle, ISS, and Exploration Systems, all get funding that is at least adequate enough to keep things on schedule. The OMB summary of the NASA budget includes some interesting language: “NASA is examining configurations for the Space Station that meet the needs of both the new space exploration vision and our international partners using as few Shuttle flights as possible.” Since the budget document indicates that NASA is still committed to finishing the station and retiring the shuttle by 2010, this suggests that fewer than the currently-forecast 25-30 shuttle flights may end up flying. Florida Today also notes that NASA is planning to look into whether it needs all of its existing facilities, opening the possibility of a closure of one or more centers in a BRAC-like arrangement. Members of Congress, particularly those representing districts and states home to NASA centers, have long been on the record in opposition of such a move. When the Congress takes up the FY 2006 budget proposal due to be released today, it’s still uncertain what subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee will deal with NASA’s budget. As previously noted, the House is considering a proposal, backed by majority leader Tom DeLay, that would eliminate three of the existing 13 appropriations subcommittees, including the VA-HUD subcommittee whose jurisdiction includes NASA; the space agency would be moved to the energy subcommittee. The Senate, however, shows no desire to make a similar change, which could make it difficult to reconcile House and Senate versions of budget bills. Monday’s Huntsville Times reports that one of the affected members, Rep. Bud Cramer (D-AL), is as unclear as anyone about the fate of the reorganization and his place in it. Cramer, whose district includes MSFC, is on the VA-HUD subcommittee as well as two others, and assumes that under a reorganization he would lose his post on one subcommittee. The article notes that the full committee is slated to appoint subcommittee chairs this week, which should offer the best clue yet whether and how this reorganization will occur. |
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