By Jeff Foust on 2005 February 4 at 6:37 am ET Wednesday’s House Science Committee hearing about the options for Hubble was rather interesting: there was no consensus among the members regarding whether and how Hubble should be serviced. Moreover, there was a fair amount of sparring among the witnesses regarding the viability of some options; it was all polite, but they made it clear when they disagreed with one another’s assessments. (That was particularly the case of Paul Cooper of MD Robotics, who strongly defended the case for robotic servicing in light of the conclusions of both the Aerospace Corporation study and the National Academies report, which found robotic options particularly risky compared to shuttle repairs or a new spacecraft.) Few members of Congress expressed a strong opinion one way or another: Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said he supported a robotic mission, while in a statement, Bart Gordon (D-TN) appeared to back restoring the shuttle servicing mission canceled over a year ago.
One complicating factor discussed at the hearing is just how much a shuttle mission to Hubble would cost, and who within NASA would pick up the tab. UPI and Florida Today noted that witnesses said NASA used to charge its science programs on the order of $100 million for a shuttle Hubble mission, but would charge the “full price” of about $1 billion for a new shuttle mission. “There is some accounting here that does not compute,” Louis Lanzerotti, who led the National Academies report, said. That, no doubt, will attract the attention of Congress.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 February 4 at 6:14 am ET Reader John Malkin points out that NASA’s Office of Legislative Affairs has updated its list of upcoming hearings, which will focus on the FY2006 budget proposal and the future of the Hubble Space Telescope. The House Science Committee has planned a “FY06 Posture Hearing” about the NASA budget on February 17, while the Senate Commerce Committee will hold a similar hearing in February or March. Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce Committee plans to hold a hearing some time this month on servicing options for Hubble, similar to the one the House Science Committee held this week; the Senate Appropriations Committee’s VA-HUD subcommittee plans a similar hearing in March (if, of course, the committee still exists by then.)
By Jeff Foust on 2005 February 3 at 7:56 am ET The House Science Committee announced this week that, as expected, Ken Calvert (R-CA) will be the new chairman of the Space and Aeronautics subcommittee. Calvert replaces Dana Rohrabacher, who had to step down because of term limits. The Democrats have yet to name a ranking minority member of the subcommittee; Nick Lampson, who previously held that position, lost his reelection battle in November.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 February 2 at 6:50 am ET While the House is grappling with a potential reorganization of appropriations subcommittees, the Senate Commerce Committee has quietly completed a reorganization of its own. Of note is that the former “Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space” is now the “Subcommittee on Science and Space”; technology gets its own subcommittee where it is coupled with “innovation and competitiveness”. Although I have not seen a formal announcement, it’s my understanding that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) will chair the science and space subcommittee. Given that Hutchison is considering a run for Texas governor, it’s not clear yet how much attention she will be able to devote to the subcommittee.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 February 1 at 7:40 pm ET Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) announced Tuesday that she has introduced legislation to establish memorials to the shuttle Columbia tragedy in four Texas towns. The memorials would be part of the National Park System, and the Secretary of the Interior would have the option to select additional memorial sites if desired. Hutchison introduced similar legislation last year (S.2014) but the bill never got out of committee. The major difference between the two is that the new version doesn’t set a specific funding level for the memorials, while the old version authorized $5 million. Hutchison said in her press release that leaving the funding decision to the Senate Appropriations Committee “could increase the chances of Senate passage.” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is a co-sponsor of the bill.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 February 1 at 1:02 pm ET The latest news from the rumor mill: NASA will include no funding for the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission in its FY2006 budget proposal, effectively killing the program. For those who are following the mission (which in recent months was quietly renamed Prometheus 1), this should not be much of a surprise: there has been considerable internal and external criticism of the mission, given its giant size and stretched-out schedule. NASA plans to press ahead with space nuclear power and propulsion research under the overall Project Prometheus program, but whether this will be used in the foreseeable future for outer planets missions (versus Moon or Mars applications more closely tied to the VSE) is unclear.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 February 1 at 7:51 am ET Late Monday NASA announced its plans for a press conference on February 7 to unveil its proposed FY2006 budget. (I have heard rumors that NASA may try to move up the release of its budget to as early as Thursday to avoid linking it to O’Keefe’s planned departure, but that would be highly unusual: the whole FY06 federal budget proposal is scheduled for release Monday, and agencies usually wait until that day to offer more details about their budget.)
In any case, the proposal budget will apparently include a budget increase for the agency of as much as five percent, which would bring the agency’s overall budget to about $17 billion. O’Keefe, speaking at the Space Exploration Conference in Orlando on Monday, said that NASA will be a target in Congress because the agency is one of the few that will be getting a budget increase of any size in FY06, the Houston Chronicle reported. The Chronicle and Florida Today also reported that O’Keefe warned that industry will have to be united to help convince Congress to fully fund the agency. “There are lots and lots of folks outside of this community who view this as, ‘If you cannot get your act together, we have other things in mind to spend these very scarce resources on,'” O’Keefe said, according to the Chronicle.
The proposed restructuring of the House appropriations subcommittees, moving NASA from the to-be-abolished VA-HUD subcommittee to the Energy subcommittee, would help NASA if it goes through. “I think it will be an easier fight for the NASA dollar,” Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL), told the Orlando Sentinel.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 January 31 at 7:02 pm ET The full House Science Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing Wednesday morning (10am, Rayburn 2318) on “Options for Hubble Science”. The witness list currently stands as follows:
- Dr. Lou Lanzerotti, Chair, Committee on the Assessment of Options for Extending the Life of the Hubble Space Telescope, National Academy of Sciences;
- Dr. Steve Beckwith, Director, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD;
- Dr. Colin Norman, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University;
- Dr. Joseph H. Taylor, Jr., James S. McDonnell, Distinguished University Professor of Physics, Princeton University;
- Mr. Gary Pulliam, Vice President, Aerospace Corporation; and
- Dr. Paul Cooper, General Manager, MD Robotics.
A notable omission is any representative from NASA. This is not surprising: the agency doesn’t want to be forced to tip its hand (and face stiff questioning about it) in advance of its February 7 budget release, allowing NASA to describe its plans for Hubble on its own terms.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 January 31 at 6:12 am ET Undergrads who are looking for a summer job and have an interest in space policy should check out the Space Policy Internship sponsored by the National Academies’ Space Studies Board. The intern will have the opportunity to work on one or more projects over the summer, ranging from “future human exploration of space” to “a decadal strategy for Earth science and applications from space”. The application deadline is February 18.
By Jeff Foust on 2005 January 28 at 8:23 pm ET CongressDaily (via GovExec.com) offers some more details Friday about a potential reorganization of the House appropriations subcommittees. The report confirms that the VA-HUD subcommittee, which includes NASA, would be eliminated under the DeLay/Lewis plan, with NASA and NSF being reassigned to the Energy subcommittee. This would have the effect of making NASA a much bigger fish in a smaller pond: instead of being a $16-billion agency in a $90-billion appropriation, NASA would be an appropriations bill of about half that size. The article also notes that, not surprisingly, the Senate is in no rush to make similar changes in its own appropriations committee structure.
Meanwhile, News 10 Now, a cable news channel in upstate New York, reports that Rep. James Walsh (R-NY), the current chair of the VA-HUD appropriations subcommittee, confirmed that a reorganization that would eliminate his committee is being considered. Walsh said he believes he would remain a chair of a subcommittee, although he did not know which one. He said a decision about his future—and presumably of the reorganization plan—will come in about a week.
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