Space Politics

Kerry space discussion group

By Jeff Foust on 2004 February 22 at 5:54 pm ET

For those interested in discussing Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s positions on space policy, there is a new discussion group at Yahoo called, logically enough, kerryspace devoted to the topic. The group apparently just formed and has only a handful of members and messages to date, but it may be a place to turn with any burning questions or insights about Sen. Kerry’s stands on the issues.

House vote on HR 3752 expected next month

By Jeff Foust on 2004 February 21 at 11:02 am ET

According to ProSpace, HR 3752, the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004, will go to the floor of the House for a vote the first week of March. It appears unlikely the bill will face any serious obstacles to passage: it’s considered relatively non-controversial and has the support of the leading Republicans and Democrats on the House Science Committee. It would then likely be reconciled with a similar Senate bill, S.1260, which also deals with suborbital RLV regulation and launch indemnification, although not at the same level of detail as the House bill. S.1260 was introduced last year by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and has passed through that committee but has not yet been voted upon by the full Senate.

Interestingly, the House will take up HR 3752 the same week that ProSpace conducts March Storm, its annual citizen lobbying effort. It’s not too late to register for March Storm, although the registration fee increases from $75 to $100 after Sunday February 22.

Ten myths about the Bush space plan

By Jeff Foust on 2004 February 20 at 10:00 am ET

At a panel discussion Tuesday night at Georgetown Law School, Jim Muncy of PoliSpace provided a top ten list of myths about the Bush space plan, provided below in a slightly-paraphrased form from my notes:

10) The Bush agenda is responsible for killing Hubble.
9) It leaves us dependent on the Russians.
8) It’s a scheme to channel more money to Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
7) It kills ISS.
6) It’s a political ploy to benefit the President in Florida.
5) The Moon is boring.
4) This will cost $1 trillion / Bush hasn’t budgeted enough.
3) Robots can do this better and cheaper.
2) This is about science.
1) It’s about NASA.

In his presentation Muncy debunked each of those myths in detail, too much so to include here. Nonetheless, this is interesting food for thought, since we have probably heard some or all of those reasons invoked in opposition to the plan. (In a speech last week, NASA comptroller Steve Isakowitz offered just four rebuttals to complaints about the policy; I’ll post those when I get the chance.)

Privatizing space exploration

By Jeff Foust on 2004 February 19 at 11:50 am ET

Yesterday a Senate subcommittee, holding a hearing in Houston, heard testimony from people who advocated privatizing, at least to some degree, NASA’s space exploration programs. A Houston Chronicle article includes this passage:

So far, NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity robotic missions to Mars have produced a record 6 billion “hits” on the agency’s Web sites since early January. If only 5 percent of the Web site visits spurred the purchase of a $1 screen saver featuring an image of the Martian landscape, NASA would have earned $300 million.

This analysis, apparently provided by advertising executive Robert Lorsch, has some significant problems with it. The biggest problem is the confusion between “hits” and visitors: a hit is recorded each time a file (an HTML page as well as each of its components, be they images, Flash animations, style sheets, and the like) is downloaded. A single visitor can rack up hundreds of hits, depending on the number of pages he views and the number of files required for each page. As this Speedera press release from late January notes, NASA’s web sites had recorded a total of four billion hits through late January, but “only” 33 million unique visitors. (This makes sense when you think back to the six billion number above and recall that the total world population is only slightly larger than six billion.) Under the five-percent formula applied above, NASA would have grossed just $1.65 million through the end of January, and probably closer to $2.5 million by now. Moreover, transaction fees would have eaten away at a huge part of that revenue, because credit cards simply are inefficient for small purchases.

This doesn’t mean that privatizing at least some aspects of space exploration isn’t a good idea: there are some major roles the commercial sector could play, such as in the precusor lunar robotic missions planned for later this decade. However, the public and media have to be wary of promoting schemes that simply don’t make sense.

Aldridge Commission confirms meeting dates

By Jeff Foust on 2004 February 18 at 6:18 pm ET

As noted here earlier today, the Aldridge Commission is planning a series of public hearings around the US. The commission issued a press release today confirming those plans, including both the dates and locations. Interestingly, the press release is dated February 16—Monday, and also a federal holiday—but the press release didn’t appear on its web site, along with some other updated information, until some time between mid-morning and mid-afternoon Wednesday.

Yet another Washington space policy event

By Jeff Foust on 2004 February 18 at 9:48 am ET

Women in Aerospace is hosting a panel discussion next week titled “The President’s New Vision: The U.S. Civil Space Exploration Program”. Confirmed speakers include people from the National Research Council and Senate Appropriations Commitee, with NASA and OMB officials also invited but not yet confirmed. The event is scheduled for Thursday, February 26, from 5:30-7:30pm in Room 385 of the Russell Senate Office Building. There’s also a space industry “happy hour” scheduled for approximately the same time nearby in downtown Washington, unfortunately, but the happy hour should last long enough for people to attend both events.

The Aldridge Commission’s US tour

By Jeff Foust on 2004 February 18 at 9:39 am ET

The Dayton Daily News reports Wednesday that the next public hearing by the Aldridge Commission will take place in that Ohio town on March 3-4. Dayton, home of the Air Force Museum, was selected because it is a Midwestern city that can “reach a cross-section” of the US population, according to a spokeswoman. The article also provides the dates and locations of future public hearings by the commission:

Atlanta – March 24-25
San Francisco – April 15-16
New York – May 3-4

Other than the New York event, which will take place at the Hayden Planetarium, no specific locations for these hearings have been reported. It’s interesting that some locales with close ties to NASA—Houston, Huntsville, and Florida’s Space Coast—are not on the itinerary. The schedule of events is not yet up on the commission’s web site.

Video of first Aldridge Commission hearing available

By Jeff Foust on 2004 February 17 at 4:17 pm ET

The Aldridge Commission now has on its web site video from the first public hearing last week in Washington. The video is all in RealPlayer format and is divided into several segments. So, if you couldn’t attend the hearing or watch the live webcast, you can catch what you missed.

Space hearings on the road

By Jeff Foust on 2004 February 17 at 10:02 am ET

On Tuesday night the NBA’s Washington Wizards will be in Houston to take on the Rockets. On Wednesday morning another group of visitors from Washington will be in Houston to deal with rockets and other space issues. The Senate Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on science, technology, and space will be holding a hearing Wednesday morning in Houston on the President’s new space initiative. The hearing, to take place at the Nassau Bay City Hall not far from the Johnson Space Center, will have two panels: one with just William Readdy, NASA associate administrator for human spaceflight, and another panel with several people from the commercial sector, including Charles Chafer of Team Encounter and Courtney Stadd. The hearing will also feature opening remarks from Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, whose district is in the Houston area. Unlike the hearings that take place on Capitol Hill, there appears to be no webcast available for this hearing.

Dennis Kucinich and Mars

By Jeff Foust on 2004 February 15 at 5:47 pm ET

An brief “article” from the satricial publication The Chortler proclaims “Dennis Kucinich Takes Commanding Early Lead in Mars Primary”. The idea isn’t that novel: a cartoon in a recent issue of The New Yorker portrayed the results of the “Mars Primary”, with Kucinich taking 93% (the other candidates all got 1% or less in the cartoon save for Howard Dean, who managed to get 3%.) The irony of these comic exercises is that Kucinich is hardly a big fan of Mars exploration. After all, in a dabate in Washington last month, after rumors of the new Bush space policy leaked out, he was critical of the plan, saying that while he is a “strong supporter” of NASA, he also wanted to explore “planet Earth and planet D.C.”