By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 24 at 2:35 pm ET The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the Bush Administration is considering a new policy that would require the Air Force to settle on one of two EELV launch services providers—Boeing or Lockheed Martin—in the next several years. The Air Force has insisted that it needs both to provide “assured access to space” in the event one vehicle family is grounded. (Never mind that both use variants of the RL-10 engine on their upper stages, and that at least for the next few years the Delta 4 is the only vehicle that can provide heavy-lift capability.) Because of the downturn in the commercial market, the Air Force has been providing additional funds to support both companies; that extra funding, which could cost as much as $5 billion through 2009, is the reason for the renewed push for an EELV downselect.
Although the article doesn’t state it, it appears that this would be part of a long-awaited space transportation policy that the administration has been working on for some time. Back in mid-2002 the administration announced that it was undertaking a “phased review” of the existing federal space policy, starting with remote sensing and space transportation. The remote sensing policy was completed and released in April 2003, but work on the space transportation policy was halted after the Columbia accident. At that time White House officials said the policy was “90% complete” (sometimes 95% complete), but they wanted to wait until the CAIB was done before resuming. Back in April Brett Alexander of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy said that they hoped to finally complete the space transportation review in a couple of months. It hasn’t been released yet, but the WSJ article suggests that it is complete enough that the administration is starting to brief industry on its contents.
What else the policy will contain isn’t clear, although the Journal reported that the policy would require NASA to use existing vehicles for its space exploration programs, rather than develop a new launcher. It doesn’t make clear whether NASA would be able to fund upgrades of EELV or other vehicles to improve reliability and/or capacity. While the Journal article states that NASA is opposed to this because it “foresees manned space flights relying on either the most advanced Boeing or Lockheed Martin rocket currently available”, I would be surprised if the policy specifically locked in NASA to the Atlas 5 or Delta 4, instead allowing it to use other commercial vehicles that may become available down the road.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 23 at 3:13 pm ET SPACE.com reports that the White House has threatened to consider vetoing the NASA budget bill unless the agency’s requested funding levels are restored. Specifically, Josh Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote to House Appropriations Committee chairman Rep. C. W. Bill Young (R-FL), telling him the cuts made earlier in the week by the VA-HUD subcommittee were “unacceptable” and would cause the President’s senior advisors to recommend a veto. The letter was dated July 22, the same day that O’Keefe also wrote Young.
While space advocates are doubtless rejoicing at the idea of a president threatening a veto unless NASA’s budget is increased, an actual veto seems quite unlikely. NASA’s budget is part of a larger budget bill (about six times larger than NASA’s budget) that includes funds for the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development. Once can imagine the spin, say, the Democrats would put on the veto of that budget bill. Instead, this letter seems to be more of a negotiating tactic: a subtle reminder to Congress that the White House is paying attention to the progress of NASA’s proposed budget.
Update 7 pm: An Orlando Sentinel article provides some well-needed perspective on the belief that the White House is motivated by the cuts in NASA’s budget alone:
Bolten also objected to the committee’s decisions to fund the AmeriCorps program at less than the president’s request and the lack of any money for a prisoner education program that was part of the proposed HUD budget.
“If the final version of this bill that is presented to the president does not include adequate funding levels for presidential initiatives, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill,” Bolten wrote.
This makes clear that the White House was prompted to send the letter by more than just the cuts in NASA’s budget. In any event, it’s unlikely Bush would veto the budget bill (given the political backlash that would likely come from vetoing a budget bill that supports veterans programs); at the same time, it’s quite possible that Congress, at some point in the budget process, will find more money for NASA and other affected programs.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 23 at 7:56 am ET MSNBC’s Alan Boyle reports that a compromise has finally been reached on HR 3752, ending a deadlock that had blocked passage of the bill for months. There had been concerns by Rocketplane Ltd. that the definition of suborbital vehicles in the bill, which refers to a rocket-propelled vehicle, might exclude their vehicle, which uses both jet and rocket engines. The details of the compromise weren’t disclosed in the article, but it does apparently assuage Rocketplane’s concerns. There had been earlier reports that a compromise was in the works, but didn’t pan out. This time there really does seem to be a deal, based on the sources quoted in the article such as a spokesman for Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who had placed a hold on the bill. The timing of the deal means that the Senate won’t be able to take action on the bill until after Labor Day, when it returns from summer recess. Hopefully the bill will not face further obstacles and, schedule permitting, be passed by the Senate.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 22 at 10:44 pm ET While many people were anticipating some sort of statement by the President this week to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, Unfortunately, no such statement was released. Bush did meet privately Wednesday morning with the Apollo 11 crew (who had been feted the night before at the National Air and Space Museum), but made no public appearance with the three former astronauts nor made a statement. In an interview after the meeting, Neil Armstrong told CNN’s Miles O’Brien that the issue of the exploration vision did not even come up during their visit with the President:
Continue reading Apollo 11, the President, and Barney
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 22 at 10:28 pm ET The full House Appropriations Committee approved the VA-HUD spending bill on Thursday. According to the press release issued late Thursday, it appears the full committee accepted the cuts in NASA’s budget made by the VA-HUD subcommittee on Tuesday without any changes: the numbers quoted look unchanged from what was announced Tuesday.
On Thursday NASA issued a press release stating that administrator Sean O’Keefe wrote a letter to C. W. Bill Young (R-FL), chairman of the committee, asking him to restore NASA’s budget to the level requested by the President. “As reported, the Subcommittee-recommended funding level for NASA would adversely affect its ongoing science and technology programs, as well as the NASA workforce, and will delay plans for FY 2005 critical technology design efforts needed to better define the architecture in support of the Vision for Space Exploration,” O’Keefe wrote. Interestingly, NASA issued this press release late Thursday, after the committee approved the bill, with the cuts intact.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 21 at 9:43 am ET An article in this morning’s Washington Post has some more details about the NASA budget cuts approved by the VA-HUD subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. The Post obtained a copy of the committee’s “as-yet-unpublished report” on the spending measure and found that the committee is not opposed to the exploration vision, only finds it to be a lower priority: “While the committee is supportive of the exploration aspect of NASA’s vision, the committee does not believe it warrants top billing over science and aeronautics.” The article also cites unnamed congressional sources who believe that although NASA’s shuttle request was fully funded at $4.3 billion, that budget may fall short by $450-760 million based on the increasing costs of return-to-flight activities. That, plus skepticism that NASA can complete the ISS by 2010 as currently planned, were the main reasons why funds for the CEV were cut, delaying the program by a year.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that $70 million was also cut by zeroing out a program “to begin developing robotic missions to the moon.” Presumably this means the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as any initial planning for a follow-up lander.
Both the Sentinel and Florida Today get comments from Appropriations Committee member Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL), whose district includes Cape Canaveral and who was formerly vice-chairman of the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee. Weldon voted for the budget bill, but that he hoped more funding could be found later. “This bill takes care of most of our needs at Kennedy Space Center, so I’m hard pressed not to support my chairman when he’s taking care of Florida,” Weldon told the Sentinel.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 20 at 10:03 pm ET The full Senate Commerce committee is scheduled to meet Thursday morning to handle a number of bills and nominations. Included in the list is S.2541, the NASA authorization bill introduced last month. Not listed is HR 3752, so I assume that bill is still tied up in a debate over definitions.
Thursday afternoon the space subcommittee of the Commerce Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing about Saturn. No witnesses have been listed yet, but NASA’s legislative affairs web site lists Orlando Figueroa as one of the witnesses. It’s a curious topic for a hearing, since there’s no legislative issues or controversy surrounding exploration of the planet. Perhaps Sen. Brownback just wants to hear some of the early results of the Cassini mission…
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 20 at 5:32 pm ET As expected, the House Appropriations Committee subcommittee for VA, HUD, and independent agencies cut NASA’s FY2005 budget request during a markup session Tuesday. Perhaps the only surprise is the depth of the cut: the subcommittee cut the $16.2-billion budget by $1.1 billion, $229 million below the agency’s FY04 budget. The cuts came from “the elimination of funding for new initiatives”, as the committee put it in a press release: $100 million was cut by accelerating the end of the Space Launch Initiative, $438 million was cut by delaying the start of the Crew Exploration Vehicle program, and $230 million was cut from Project Prometheus. The ISS budget was also cut by $100 million, according to the AP. Overall exploration programs got just $372 million of the $910 million requested. The shuttle and Mars exploration programs, though, were fully funded.
Before panicking, remember that this is just the first step of a long, arduous budget process, and a lot can, and usually does, happen. (If you remember back five years ago, House appropriators approved some significant cuts in NASA’s budget that then-administrator Dan Goldin called “devastating”; those funds were restored later in the budgetary process.) House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who previously hinted that the appropriators might cut NASA’s proposed budget, called these cuts “unacceptable” and hinted he might block consideration of the full bill on the House floor unless changes are made. This is just the beginning…
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 19 at 11:11 pm ET That’s the prediction of Rep. James Walsh (R-NY), who chairs the subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee that deals with VA, HUD, and independent agencies like NASA. That subcommittee is scheduled to meet Tuesday and mark up their FY2005 budget bill. In an article in Monday’s Syracuse Post-Standard, Walsh said that this year’s budget will be the toughest he has had to deal with in his six years chairing the subcommittee because money is particularly tight this year. As a result, the various departments and agencies included in this budget bill will likely not get all the money requested in the President’s original budget proposal. This includes NASA, which is seeking an $866 million increase over FY04:
Measured against other critical needs, “I don’t see how I can do that,” Walsh said.
The full House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up the budget bill later this week, just before recess.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 19 at 10:55 pm ET What do Senators Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) have in common? A particularly strong affinity for the shuttle, it appears, based on an essay jointly written by the two published in Sunday’s Florida Today. The essay starts as a fairly generic endorsement of the Vision for Space Exploration, but later on the two make it clear they believe the shuttle should continue flying as long as possible. “Critics have suggested shutting down the shuttle program entirely, but that would only paralyze our space program,” they write, perhaps thinking of their colleague, Sen. Sam Brownback, who has suggested in the past shutting down the shuttle program before NASA’s planned date of 2010 (or so). They also subtly suggest keeping the shuttle around after the completion of the ISS, hinting that the Crew Exploration Vehicle could be delayed by “predictable problems” and cost overruns. “Other nations are now actively targeting the moon and Mars, and if we allow our shuttle fleet to sit idle, there is no question they could bypass us,” they write. “Our nation cannot risk replacing the best spacecraft in existence with nothing.”
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