Space Politics

It’s official

By Jeff Foust on 2004 January 14 at 4:03 pm ET

Bush announced the new space initiative for NASA and the nation this afternoon. Not too many surprises for those who have been following the discussion over the last six days. Read it and weep (or cheer). Discuss…

Watching the President’s speech

By Jeff Foust on 2004 January 14 at 10:42 am ET

For those of you (like me) who will be stuck in the office this afternoon when the President speaks, note that the speech will be broadcast on NASA TV (which can be viewed on the web) as well as C-SPAN (also webcast). It’s possible one or more of the cable news networks will also pick up the speech, unless some celebrity does something stupid again…

Moon and Mars on a budget?

By Jeff Foust on 2004 January 14 at 10:25 am ET

An AP article this morning suggests that the President will ask for far less for NASA than earlier reports indicated: $1 billion over five years, as opposed to 5% budget increases per year over five years, which give a total increase of a little over $12 billion over that time. See this Spacetoday.net summary for some additional details and links.

One interesting facet of this development is that both AP and Reuters report that the plan would include landing a robotic mission on the Moon by late this decade. It’s made to sound like a new development, but in fact NASA had previously been considering a sample return mission to the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin for some time as part of its New Frontiers program of medium-cost planetary missions. This SPACE.com article from August 2002 notes that such a mission ranked highly among planetary scientists, somewhat to NASA’s dismay. Nonetheless, it was included as one of four “strawman” missions in the Announcement of Opportunity for the New Frontiers program issued in October 2003.

The public and a new space policy

By Jeff Foust on 2004 January 13 at 1:28 pm ET

Getting the American public on board any new space policy will be critical to its success. A recent AP poll suggests that this will be a bit of a challenge, given the lukewarm response from the public about new human missions to the Moon or Mars. (For a quick summary, see my Spacetoday.net writeup.)

One interesting aspect of the poll is that some people will be opposed to the plan simply because it is linked to President Bush. The poll results show that respondents are split 48-48 on supporting the plan when the question asked uses the phrase “the United States is considering expanding the space program”. However, that split shifts to 43% in favor vs. 52% opposed when the question uses the phrase “the Bush administration is considering expanding the space program”.

LaRouche and Mars

By Jeff Foust on 2004 January 13 at 12:51 pm ET

Perennial presidential candidate and gadfly Lyndon LaRouche has some words of wisdom regarding the exploration of Mars. Quote: “When you go from Earth to Mars … it’s not like taking the train, from someplace to someplace. You’re actually going through a very large part of the Solar System…. There are a lot of things going on there. This is not simply empty space.”

If you (dare to) read on, you’ll find he criticizes Beagle 2 for taking the “el cheapo” approach as well as push for his own 40-year plan to establish a human base on Mars. No doubt there are a few people out there who would like to send him to Mars…

Cooperate or be cooperated

By Jeff Foust on 2004 January 13 at 10:06 am ET

UPI reported Monday that any new space initative the administration will pursue will include international cooperation. There’s just one problem: as of last Friday none of the major existing partners on the International Space Station had been contacted about this new plan, according to UPI. The report also notes that Russia’s role in any new plan would likely come under strong Congressional scrutiny, given what happened with the ISS after Russia joined. (Of course, without Russia the ISS would likely have been abandoned after the Columbia accident.)

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), chair of the space subcommittee of the House Science Committee, tells Aerospace Daily that he has no problem including Russia in the new plan. However, he is opposed to any Chinese participation in such a program (which should be no surprise to anyone who has followed Rohrabacher and heard his frequent criticism of China.)

Damned if you do…

By Jeff Foust on 2004 January 12 at 5:29 pm ET

One of the key criticisms of the (unofficial) new Bush space initiative is its cost: a number of reports, including some quotes by Democratic candidates, have pegged the cost of the mission at up to $1 trillion. The source of the $1 trillion seems unclear (Gregg Easterbrook, political and sports writer and amateur space analyst, provided some rationale for the $1 trillion figure, but the problem is that he forgets that the original SEI plan included both Moon and Mars missions, not just a Mars mission.)

Now criticism is coming, oddly enough, from the other direction. Monday’s New Dem Daily included a piece about the proposed new initiative. It quoted a USA Today article that noted that duplicating Apollo would cost $150-175 billion, but the President is expected to include only $800M more in NASA’s FY05 budget. The column’s conclusion: “…the shoot-the-moon announcement illustrated another maddeningly familiar aspect of the Bush administration’s policy initiatives: a habit of establishing big, showy goals but then refusing to make the investments necessary to make them possible.” What, you expected Bush to budget the full amount in the first year?

One point to mull over while contimplating cost figures, be they $800M or $1T. According to early reports, the President plans on asking that Congress increase NASA’s budget by 5% through FY09 (the last budget of a hypothetical Bush 2nd term.) This means that NASA’s FY09 budget will be almost $20B (using 2004 dollars), with a total funding wedge of a little over $12B from FY05 to FY09 over and above NASA’s current $15.5B budget. What can $12B buy you? According to a SpaceRef article from back in October, NASA was estimating that the cost of developing the CRV-only version of the Orbital Space Plane would be about… $11-12B. Given that the OSP CRV was supposed to be ready by the end of 2008 anyway (a plan now uncertain), NASA would have needed a significant budget increase anyway to pay for its development regardless of any new policy initiative.

Gephardt: ISS first

By Jeff Foust on 2004 January 12 at 10:44 am ET

On Face the Nation Sunday, Rep. Dick Gephardt answered a question about Bush’s expected new space policy by saying not only he preferred an emphasis on alternative energy programs, which he has previously mentioned, but that NASA should focus first on the International Space Station:

I think that before we make that decision, we’ve really got to decide what we’re doing with the present space program, which is revolving around the space station. I think we need to do a—a real analysis by our scientific community on what the best thing is to do. I don’t think—I haven’t looked at the numbers lately, but I don’t know that we can go off on a new moon mission or Mars mission, if that’s the suggestion, and—and just have the money to do something in addition to completing the space station. I think we’re pretty far down the road on the space station and we need to complete it and have the success from it that we need. One of the good aspects of the space station is that we get to work with the Russians, and we give them an important role, and other countries in the world. I think that’s very important. And maybe down the road we can look into—into other projects.

Dealing with the future of the station will likely be one of the big issues for this new policy: not only is there interest and concern among lawmakers and the US public about the station’s future, there are international partners whose interests and expectations will have to be taken into account.

A guide to the candidates’ views on space

By Jeff Foust on 2004 January 12 at 10:36 am ET

Over at The Space Review I’ve written an article that provides a guide to what most of the major Democratic candidates for President have said regarding space policy. Don’t expect too many specific details, but there are some general viewpoints, as well as some initial reactions to the expected Bush announcement this week.

More on Lieberman and space

By Jeff Foust on 2004 January 11 at 4:37 pm ET

Joe Lieberman discussed in a bit greater detail his opinion of the President’s rumored new human space initiative during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s Late Edition show Sunday afternoon. Asked by Blitzer if such a program was a wise expenditure, Lieberman responded:

You know, I have very mixed feelings about it, but I’ll make clear where I end up. Remember, I was attracted into politics by President Kennedy, so the moonshot program thrilled me, and I’ve always supported the space program. But if you ask me whether the best use of $1 trillion of American taxpayer money in the coming years is to land a mission on Mars or the moon, I’d say no. We need it right here on Earth to give health care that’s affordable to everybody, to improve our education system, and do better on veterans’ benefits and homeland security.

Lieberman went on to discuss a plan for “an American center for cures” to research cures to major diseases. “[F]rankly,” he concluded, “I think that’s more important to the American people than that kind of space voyage at this point in our history.”