By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 24 at 5:01 pm ET The California State Assembly last week passed a resolution in support of the Vision for Space Exploration. Assembly Joint Resolution (AJR) 86, introduced last month by Assemblywoman Sally Leiber (D-Mountain View), calls on the US Congress to fully fund the proposed NASA FY2005 budget. The text of the resolution calls on the old standbys for supporting the exploration plan: the nation’s history of exploration, spinoffs, and economic impacts (nationally and within California). The full assembly passed the resolution 78-0 on June 17; it has since gone to the California Senate. The California Space Authority has worked up some talking points in support of the bill (although someone should tell them the institution that operates JPL is “Caltech”, not “CalTech University”).
This is at least the second case of a state legislature passing a resolution supporting the exploration plan: last month the Ohio Senate unanimously passed a similar resolution. I haven’t heard of any other state legislatures that have made similar efforts, although Alabama, Florida, and Texas would be obvious candidates.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 23 at 12:45 pm ET An unlikely trio, no? On Monday Kerry kicked off what he said would be a week of focusing on “his plan to make the American economy stronger at home through scientific discovery, technology and innovation” with a speech in Denver. Kerry claimed that the current administration has politicized science (the campaign also issued a letter signed by 48 Nobel laureates endorsing that claim) and that a Kerry Administration “will put America back on the path of scientific excellence with a commitment to scientific research based on fact.” The response from Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt: “Only John Kerry would declare the country to be in scientific decline on a day when the country’s first privately funded space trip is successfully completed.” Critics, I think, would argue that SpaceShipOne has little to do with science per se, but it was an interesting comeback.
While the Kerry press release didn’t mention space specifically, it did note that a President Kerry “turn to our nation’s scientific leaders and make decisions based on expert advice.” This should sound familiar: he has previously said that he would “work with the best scientists” to determine in what direction NASA should proceed. Kerry plans more announcements “in the coming days” on science and technology policy, so perhaps he will share some more specifics.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 23 at 7:41 am ET This is late notice (I’m still catching up on work from being in Mojave the last couple days), but the House Science Committee has postponed a hearing scheduled for this morning on the Aldridge Commission’s final report. No reason for the cancellation, nor any information on a rescheduled date/time, was announced.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 19 at 2:49 pm ET I refrained from commenting on the Aldridge Commission’s final report because so much had already been said about its (leaked) contents before its release. (Also, I have been very busy the last several days.) There were a few tidbits about the release I wanted to point out:
- If you haven’t already watched it, check out the introductory video shown at the beginning of the press conference (available in Real and Windows Media formats.) Recognize the narrator? Hint: Buzz Aldrin was not in attendance at the press conference.
- Perhaps the most telling comment during the press conference was made by Pete Aldridge, when he was asked why the commission recommended converting NASA centers into FFRDCs instead of closing one or more centers: “We thought about it a long time, and our view was that if we put into our report that the Congress and NASA should undertake a base realignment and closure action, the report would probably have burned on the first day.”
- In addition to handing out copies of the report (both hardcopies and CDs), there were some other giveaways at the press conference, like lapel pins with the commission’s logo. Also, bizarrely, were miniature astronauts: foam rubber figures, about 12 cm tall, of a spacesuited astronaut clutching a wrench in his (her?) right hand, with the NASA logo and URL on the backpack. (See pictures of the front and back of the figure.) At one point dozens of these figures were lined up on a table, like soldiers standing in formation, free for the taking. (There were also several on another table, standing guard over a stack of press releases from organizations like the NSS and Space Foundation endorsing the commission’s report.) Perhaps if we can miniaturize astronauts, we won’t need a heavy-lift launch vehicle…
By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 19 at 12:54 pm ET John Marburger, the President’s science advisor, was the luncheon speaker Tuesday during NASA’s Centennial Challenges workshop in Washington. During his talk he touched upon the rationale for sending humans into space, and had some interesting comments:
We’re pretty sobered by the Columbia experience and the Challenger experience. They made it clear that we have to have a darn good reason to put humans up there… Governments do have a responsibility to protect people from dangers that they might not fully understand.
While Marburger didn’t explicitly mention private human spaceflight in that passage, the implication that a number of people in the audience (which had a number of representatives of the “alt.space” community) got was that Marburger wasn’t terribly fond of space tourism. I don’t know if that’s a fair assessment (or if Marburger has even given any thought to it), but that was the impression he left.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 18 at 11:18 pm ET The House Appropriations Committee is having second thoughts about the Defense Department’s decision to fund two EELV providers, Space News reported Friday. (subscription required) According to a committee report accompanying the Defense Department appropriations bill, “the Committee believes fully funding one contractor may be a wiser approach to assured access than the current approach of underfunding two contractors.” The Air Force has insisted that only by having two independent EELV providers, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, will it have its desired “assured access to space”. The committee argues that this approach underfunds both companies, and “could be motivating the contractors to cut corners in a way that could hurt launch reliability.” It seems unlikely that there will be any major changes in the near term, given the opposition a downselect would face from the Air Force as well as the two companies, but it is something to keep an eye on as the Air Force reevaluates its launch strategy.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 17 at 7:11 pm ET At this afternoon’s hearing of the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, subcommittee chairman Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) announced that he was introducing today NASA authorization legislation for FY 2005. (The legislation hasn’t yet shown up on Thomas.) Brownback said the legislation “would provide the necessary authority for NASA to implement the exploration commission’s recommendations.” A few highlights of the legislation he pointed out during the hearing:
- The bill would call on NASA to implement a “private sector managed robotic mission to the Moon in three years”;
- The bill also asks the administration “to clarify US positions on private property rights for those seeking to develop space resources and infrastructure”;
- It includes provisions to enable NASA to offer prizes (presumably to allow NASA specifically to award prizes bigger than the current $250,000 limit it currently has). Brownback also said he would suggest that NASA’s first “big” prize would be a manned orbital flight; he has previously suggested a “Glenn Prize” like that with a purse of $100 million.
Brownback also said that he and his colleagues in the House have asked the GAO to investigate the possibility of commercial ISS resupply, saying that he had not, in his opinion, received a sufficient response on that topic from NASA.
Of course, actually getting this legislation passed will be a major challenge, given the limited schedule and the host of other legislation Congress has to deal with it; it’s been several years since Congress has approved a NASA authorization bill. At the COMSTAC meeting last month, Pete Worden, the retired Air Force general currently working in Brownback’s office on space issues, said that he felt there was a “pretty good shot”, or at least a 50-50 chance, of getting the legislation passed. We shall see…
By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 17 at 11:53 am ET The science subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee has a hearing scheduled for Thursday afternoon at 2:30 pm (room SR-253) regarding the final report of the Aldridge Commission, with Pete Aldridge himself scheduled to testify. (I did not see this hearing on the committee’s web site earlier this week, so either it is a late addition or else there was a technical glitch somewhere along the line.) Yes, the hearing will be webcast.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 17 at 11:25 am ET Lost in all the media attention surrounding the Aldridge Commission’s final report was this short editorial in Wednesday’s edition of the Christian Science Monitor. The editorial comes out in favor of incentives like tax breaks for commercial space ventures, something that was recommended by the commission. It was interesting, and pleasantly surprising, that the Monitor would take even just a few paragraphs to promote it in its pages.
Unfortunately, the editors of the paper could have done a better job with this editorial. The editorial noted parenthetically that “Congress will need to pass a pending bill that would allow private spaceports,” ignoring that there are several facilities in the US today with commercial spaceport licenses from the FAA. Moreover, while the article endorses the concept of tax incentives to promote commercial space activity, it fails to point out that such legislation has already been introduced in Congress, notably the Invest in Space Now Act of 2003 (HR 2358), also known as the Calvert-Ortiz bill, as well as Dana Rohrabacher’s Zero Gravity, Zero Tax Act of 2003 (HR 914). Both bills, introduced over a year ago, haven’t gone very far in the House; it remains to be seen if the Aldridge Commission report, or editorials like the Monitor’s, will do much to further them.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 June 16 at 7:15 am ET SPACE.com has published an “exclusive” report on what Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry thinks about the Vision for Space Exploration and other space policy issues. The answers are somewhat predictable: while strongly supportive of NASA (calling it “an invaluable asset to the American people”), he is skeptical of the exploration plan, saying Bush has not allocated enough resources for it to succeed. Kerry said he supported microgravity and related research on the ISS that would be largely discontinued under the vision, and added that the “most critical element” of the space program should be reliable, low-cost space access. Kerry also gave a noncommittal answer when asked what a Kerry Administration would do to NASA’s budget: “While reducing the Bush Administration’s reckless deficits will be one of our early challenges, continued investment in a reinvigorated NASA that is innovating, creating jobs, and returning real value to the American taxpayer is what you can expect under a Kerry presidency.”
If these answers sound somewhat familiar, they should: Aerospace Daily published an article over a month ago where Kerry campaign staffer Jason Furman said Kerry did not support the exploration plan, calling it too expensive. That article also noted that Kerry would “work with the best scientists” to determine what the appropriate goals of NASA would be in a Kerry Administration.
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