By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 18 at 10:47 am ET In his keynote speech at the Return to the Moon conference Friday, Paul Spudis, a lunar scientist and one of the members of the Aldridge Commission, made some insightful comments about the relationship of space policy and presidential politics while talking about the reaction to President Bush’s January 14th speech:
Basically, he’s gotten a lot of abuse, and a lot of ridicule, and a lot of fairly nasty commentary. I find it laughable that some people think this was a political stunt. If it was a political stunt, it was the dumbest political stunt of all time, because the one lesson we should have learned from the first Bush announcement was that space, for a politician, is a political loser. No politician, aside from John Kennedy, has ever made a policy declaration on space and benefited from it politically… Talking about space for a politician is very, very risky, and I for one am not going to take away from President Bush the credit that he deserves, because I honestly believe he felt, fundamentally, that it was the right thing for the country.
While space may be a “political loser”, I don’t know how strong of one it really is. There was some negative reaction to Bush’s announcement, but that was short-lived and largely faded away to a more natural state of apathy after a few weeks, at most. I do agree, though, that Bush did not do this for political gain: as others have pointed out, you don’t go into an election year, with a key state like Florida hanging in the balance, and announce that you plan to terminate a program (the shuttle) that employs thousands of people there for political gain.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 17 at 10:27 am ET During an opening address Friday morning at the Return to the Moon 5 conference in Las Vegas, Space Frontier Foundation cofounder Rick Tumlinson mentioned in passing that there may be problems in the Senate for NASA’s Centennial Challenges program:
You realize that Centennial Challenges are basically dead right now. Does anybody realize that? It’s kind of quietly being killed, because some people in the Senate, I think, see it as sort of the camel’s nose leading to the President’s vision.
He didn’t go into greater details about this issue, and I wasn’t able to track him down later Friday to get more specifics. I talked with several people at the conference and they, too, were unfamiliar with any problems facing Centennial Challenges in the Senate. It’s possible he was referring to a decision by House appropriators last month to turn down a NASA request to reprogram $2 million in FY04 funds to kickstart the program this fiscal year.
Update: I did manage to talk with Rick late Saturday and, indeed, he had meant the House decision to turn down the reprogramming request, and not something different in the Senate. Move along, please, nothing to see here…
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 16 at 10:41 am ET The House Science Committee has issued a press release about the hearing it held yesterday on NASA prizes. Overall the hearing seemed quite positive (I wasn’t present but watched the webcast). The hearing did reveal that issue that prize proponents will have to deal with, beyond issues of how to structure prizes and run competitions, is to prove that prizes will not somehow shut out minority businesses, universities, and other groups that might not be well-equipped to fund efforts to compete for prizes. Both Reps. Johnson and Jackson-Lee made comments along these lines, and even Rep. Lampson seemed a bit lukewarm on the prize concept, concerned that prizes might draw money away from conventional R&D efforts. These concerns may not be well founded—Diamandis noted that nearly all the X Prize competitors are small entrepreneurial efforts—but NASA prize proponents will have to be prepared to address them.
In a related note, NASA has also issued a report on the workshop it held last month on the Centennial Challenges prize program. The report is primarily a summary of the various conference sessions that either brainstormed ideas for prizes or discussed how to structure specific prize concepts.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 15 at 1:53 pm ET There have been a few comments here and here about this week’s Moon-Mars Blitz organized by the Space Exploration Alliance here in DC. I didn’t participate in the event, but I talked Tuesday with several people who did take part, and they were, in general, quite positive about their efforts. I’ve included below a report from the Mars Society (not on their web site) about the event. I suspect George Whitesides of the NSS will discuss the event tomorrow afternoon during his talk at the Return to the Moon conference in Las Vegas.
Continue reading Moon-Mars Blitz wrap-ups
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 15 at 10:08 am ET NASA issued a press release Wednesday noting that legislatures in seven states have passed resolutions in support of the Vision for Space Exploration. In three cases—Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi—the resolutions were passed by both houses of their respective legislatures, while in three others—Kansas, Ohio (which was previously noted here), and Texas—only the state senates passed such resolutions. (In the case of the seventh state, California, both the Assembly and Senate have passed slightly different resolutions.) The press release doesn’t provide specifics on the resolutions, but here are links to the various resolutions:
Continue reading State support for the Vision for Space Exploration
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 14 at 12:36 pm ET That’s the suggestion made in a UPI article by Frank Sietzen published late Monday. He notes that the Apollo 11 crew is scheduled to meet with President Bush on July 21—one day after the 35th anniversary of the historic lunar landing—and that this private meeting might be followed by some kind of public statement by the President on space policy. “Sources close to some of the astronauts hinted that a public statement urging support for the president’s new moon-Mars space plan might follow the meeting, but there has been no official confirmation of that prospect,” Sietzen writes. In an interview on The Space Show last night, Sietzen made similar comments. If the President is looking for a hook to attract attention to a space policy statement, the Apollo 11 anniversary is probably as good as any in the near future, although no guarantee to attract that much media attention.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 14 at 10:15 am ET A front-page article in today’s Washington Post describes the gaggle of advisors—”a cast literally of thousands”, the article notes—associated with John Kerry’s presidential campaign. With that many people they seem to have found some who have, or at least claim to have, some space expertise:
And experts have been enlisted to draft policy memos on issues — from the technical to the obscure — that just may crop up between now and November. Advisers have crafted briefings on Microsoft billionaire Paul G. Allen’s private spacecraft, African trade agreements, a manned mission to Mars and federal tax deductibility of state sales taxes.
I don’t know what effect the briefing on a manned Mars mission has had on the Kerry campaign, but one wonders if the briefing on SpaceShipOne may have influenced some of the language in the Kerry campaign’s technology policy released last month that advocates increased use of prizes by government agencies, mentioning the X Prize by name.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 14 at 10:03 am ET For whose who missed the discussion about this hearing last week, the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee is holding a hearing Thursday morning about the role prizes and competition can play in space exploration. The lineup of witnesses is slightly different than what was reported last week, with Robert Walker and Douglas Holtz-Eakin (director of the Congressional Budget Office) added to the panel, with Craig Steidle as the only NASA representative.
During yesterday’s AIAA Commercial Space Roundtable, the prize concept was a popular topic of discussion. Most of the participants were in favor of increased use of prizes (and “prize-like” contracts that pay only on delivery). There was also some discussion of offering tax incentives for people who contribute to private prize efforts as well as creating an external foundation of some kind that would oversee prize efforts, both as ways to get around potential issues with direct government prize awards. Congressman Rohrabacher, chairman of the space subcommittee, was in attendance during for the full duration of the roundtable, and showed a particular interest in prize issues.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 13 at 11:54 pm ET Space News notes in its print edition this week that Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), who placed a hold on HR 3752 in the Senate, plans to lift that hold by July 23 regardless of whether a compromise is reached on the language in the bill. The article—which mostly provides background about the bill’s odyssey since the House approved it four months ago—quotes Kevin Kelly, a lobbyist for Rocketplane Ltd., as saying that a deal was close. (Of course, the parties involved were saying something similar back in late May, so take those comments with caution.) There is hope, though, that a deal can be reached by July 20 so that the Senate Commerce Committee can include it in a markup session planned for that date. July 23 is the last day Congress is scheduled to be in session until after Labor Day.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 13 at 9:22 am ET Tonight’s episode of the radio show The Space Show is scheduled to feature Keith Cowing and Frank Sietzen, authors of New Moon Rising, the behind-the-scenes account of the formation of the Vision for Space Exploration. The book itself is being published this month, with a rollout event at the Return to the Moon conference in Las Vegas this weekend. Check The Space Show web site for listening options, including webcasts.
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