By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 7 at 9:49 am ET According to a fairly well-informed source, the House Science Committee (most likely just the space subcommittee) plans to hold a hearing next week on NASA’s Centennial Challenges program. No word yet on a specific date and time (although I think we can rule out the 11:30am-2pm time frame on Tuesday) nor on witnesses. It will be interesting to see what tack the committee takes, although I haven’t heard anything to suggest that they are anything but supportive of at least the concept of prizes.
Update 9 pm: According to another source, the hearing is scheduled for next Thursday, although it apparently is not yet on the committee’s official calendar. The witnesses currently planned to testify include Craig Steidle and Brant Sponberg from NASA, the X Prize’s Peter Diamandis, and Molly Macauley from Resources for the Future.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 6 at 6:16 pm ET The Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City has a brief article about former senator and astronaut Jake Garn’s role in promoting the Vision for Space Exploration. Garn is heading the relatively little-known organization Global Space Travelers (which the article reveals was founded several years ago by Buzz Aldrin, but has done virtually nothing in public to date) that recently joined the Space Exploration Alliance. The article notes that Garn himself won’t be participating in the Moon-Mars Blitz next week because of speaking engagements in Utah.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 2 at 4:00 pm ET The AIAA has released updated information about the commercial space forum it is organizing on July 13 on Capitol Hill. They have a document with full details, although I experienced some problems downloading (it appears to be a 1.5 MB one-page Word file). The event is scheduled for 11:30 am to 2:00 pm in Rayburn House Office Building room 2325. The purpose is to “explore how commercial space transportation activities can be utilized to enhance and facilitate the U.S. Exploration Initiative.” There is an impressive list of participants, available in the full version of this posting.
Continue reading AIAA Commercial Space Forum update
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 2 at 9:42 am ET According to a brief article in this week’s print issue of Space News (which you may be able to temporarily read here), Congress has rejected a request by NASA to transfer some FY2004 money to the new Centennial Challenges program. According to the report, NASA had asked permission to transfer $2 million from an unspecified program to fund Centennial Challenges in 2004. However, in a June 17 letter to NASA, Reps. James Walsh (R-NY) and Alan Mollohan (D-WV), the chair and ranking member, respectively, of the House Appropriations Committee subcommittee that oversees NASA, denied that request as well as another request to move $24.2 million from two space science missions. It doesn’t appear that the two Congressmen have anything against the Centennial Challenges program itself; instead, they are concerned NASA is moving too far ahead on the overall exploration program without Congressional approval. The denial of the reprogramming request probably means that NASA won’t be able to announce any prizes until FY2005. The program had hoped to announce an initial set of prizes (valued at no more than $250,000 each, the current limit NASA is authorized to offer) by the end of the current fiscal year.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 July 1 at 12:30 pm ET I chatted briefly yesterday with George Whitesides, the executive director of the NSS, who told me that about 40 people have signed up to participate in the Moon-Mars Blitz lobbying event in Washington later this month. That number close to the attendance the last year or two for ProSpace’s March Storm events, on which this event is modeled. (March Storm has attracted bigger numbers in the past, but the organization decided that having a smaller number of more motivated, experienced people would be more effective.) Some more people may still sign up; I know the Mars Society was encouraging its members to participate in an email message sent out just a few days ago.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 29 at 9:19 am ET The Kerry campaign issued a media advisory Monday about an upcoming event with Sally Ride:
On Tuesday, June 29 at 1:30 p.m. EDT, former astronaut and the first woman in space Sally Ride will hold a conference call with reporters to discuss new Kerry proposals to encourage more women and minorities to pursue careers in science and math. Kerry will unveil the proposals tomorrow morning in a speech focused on expanding opportunity in America by strengthening education and lifelong learning – keys to success in the American economy.
Not really space policy related, but it does suggest that perhaps the Kerry campaign could use a space history refresher course. (Sally Ride was the first American woman in space…)
By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 28 at 1:38 pm ET As noted in the comments to the previous entry, some news articles, like this Information Week report, claim that Kerry is backing a budget increase for NASA. As the article puts it, “Kerry also said he would increase funding for the National Science Foundation, NASA, National Institutes of Health, Energy Department, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology…” However, if you actually look at the plan itself, you’ll see something subtly different:
John Kerry will boost support for the physical sciences and engineering by increasing research investments in agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Energy, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Increasing “research investments” is not necessarily the same as increasing overall agency budgets: funding could simply be shifted from operational to research programs, for example. That snippet is also the only section of the nine-page document that specifically mentions NASA.
However, later in the same document Kerry comes out strongly in favor of one popular instrument of space commercialization advocates, prizes:
Prizes have a number of advantages as a tool for stimulating technological innovation compared to traditional grants and contracts. For example, they allow the government to set a goal, while allowing researchers and entrepreneurs to pursue different strategies for reaching that goal. The private sector’s X Prize illustrates the power of this approach. This prize has captured the public imagination, and encouraged two-dozen teams of rocket scientists from around the world to develop reusable spaceships. The Kerry plan would provide every science agency with the authority to establish prizes to foster technological advances.
While this doesn’t specifically mention NASA, this suggests that regardless of the fate of the Vision for Space Exploration under a Kerry Administration, the Centennial Challenges program would stand a good chance to continue.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 26 at 1:14 pm ET The Space Transportation Association has announced that it will be hosting a breakfast on Thursday, July 8, with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) as the featured speaker. (The details are not yet on the STA’s web site, but registration begins at 8am with DeLay scheduled to speak at 9am; the breakfast will be at the Capitol Hill Club and cost $30.) DeLay is scheduled to discuss the Vision for Space Exploration, presumably focusing on what he and his colleagues will be doing to push it through this year. His speech will also come around the time the House version of the NASA authorization legislation is scheduled to be introduced.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 25 at 6:25 pm ET I suspect many, if not most, Americans are blissfully unaware that there’s a national election in Canada on Monday. Universe Today notes that the Mars Society of Canada sent questionnaires to representatives of the major parties in the weeks ahead of the election, asking for their stand on space issues, including funding for the Canadian Space Agency. The ruling Liberal Party, as well as the Green Party, would keep CSA’s funding at its current level (about $300 million Canadian or US$225 million a year); the New Democrat Party would support CSA but only in peaceful ventures. (Bloc Quebecois, in a French-language response, declined to take any position on space policy.)
By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 25 at 1:26 pm ET The Space Exploration Alliance (SEA) has added several additional member organizations in recent days, bringing the total up to 21. In addition to the Moon Society, which announced its membership in SEA earlier this month, the new groups include:
Some of these organization are pretty obscure: Global Space Travelers is an organization being set up by Jake Garn to serve as something like the Association of Space Explorers for non-professional astronauts; he announced it at a conference in DC back in December but nothing much has happened with it since then. I don’t know if there really are very many more organizations that could join SEA at this point.
Interestingly, I could find no formal announcement of these new organizations from the SEA itself: I found out about it in an email from ProSpace, one of the member organizations, promoting next month’s Moon-Mars Blitz. It would be useful for the SEA to set up a simple web site with some basic information about the group and its members.
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