By Jeff Foust on 2011 February 10 at 7:35 am ET
NASA administrator Charles Bolden made a surprise appearance Wednesday morning at the 14th Annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference at the Washington Convention Center. Bolden was not on the conference agenda, but he was squeezed in between FAA administrator Randy Babbitt and keynote speaker Robert Bigelow. Given the audience, Bolden focused his remarks on commercial spaceflight and how important it is to NASA.
“We cannot survive without you,” he said to the approximately 400 people at the conference, representing a wide range of orbital and suborbital vehicle developers as well as others involved with the industry. “I can’t tell you any stronger. We are big fans of commercial, we are huge fans of commercial space.”
He sought to emphasize NASA’s dependence on commercial providers, particularly for crew transportation to LEO once the shuttle is retired. “When I retire the space shuttle… that’s it for NASA access to low Earth orbit,” he said. “The sooner that everyone in this room and around the world understands that, the better off we’re going to be.”
He added that NASA had no interest in competing with commercial providers for crew transportation to LEO, even though the Space Launch System and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (aka Orion) included in the NASA authorization act are intended to at the very least provide a government-operated backup to commercial entities. “There’s got to be two people in the ring to have a fight. I’m not in the ring for access to low Earth orbit,” he said. “We explore.”
He also hinted, obliquely, at some congressional criticism or skepticism about commercial crew developers. “We have a difficult road ahead. I don’t want to kid you, a very difficult road ahead, but it’s not because of anybody in this room,” he said. “We have people that make decisions that we’ve got to just convince that we know what we’re doing.”
Bolden’s speech is the latest in a blitz of events by agency leadership regarding commercial spaceflight. Last week deputy administrator Lori Garver visited Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas and Sierra Nevada Corporation (one of five first-round CCDev awardees) in Colorado. On Monday Bolden was at the Stennis Space Center to witness a test-firing of the engines that will be used on Orbital’s Taurus 2 rocket being developed under the COTS program. Bolden also revealed in his speech that he paid a visit last week to Blue Origin’s facilities in the Seattle area; Blue Origin is another CCDev awardee.
By Jeff Foust on 2011 February 10 at 4:54 am ET House appropriators announced Wednesday a list of proposed spending cuts they are planning in a continuing resolution they plan to introduce soon to fund the federal government for the remainder of FY2011. The list includes a cut of $379 million for NASA (relative to the administration’s FY11 proposal), which would bring NASA down to $18.621 billion, slightly lower than the $18.724 billion the agency got in FY10. The release offers no specific details about what programs within the agency would be cut to achieve the overall reduction, saying that a full list of cuts will be available when the CR is formally introduced.
That cut—about two percent of the FY11 request—is not nearly as bad as some other agencies. NOAA, for example, would see its FY11 request of $5.554 billion cut by $336 million, or six percent (although NOAA was seeking a 17-percent increase over its FY10 budget in the FY11 budget proposal). NIH would get a $1-billion cut in the proposal, about a three-percent cut from its FY11 proposal of $32.2 billion. NSF’s cut of $139 million is roughly the same percentage of its FY11 request as NASA’s cut.
This proposal, it should be remembered, is just that: what the full House does with the proposal, not to mention the Senate, remains to be seen.
By Jeff Foust on 2011 February 9 at 7:04 am ET A letter signed by several members of Congress is the latest evidence that a new battle line is forming over NASA funding: human spaceflight versus Earth sciences. In a letter to House Appropriations committee chairman Rep. Hal Rogers and CJS subcommittee chairman Frank Wolf, six Republican members of Congress asked the appropriators to prioritize NASA funding on what they consider to be the agency’s primary mission, human spaceflight. To do that, they argue that funding for NASA’s climate change research be redirected to human spaceflight accounts. “With your help, we can reorient NASA’s mission back toward human spaceflight by reducing funding for climate change research and reallocating those funds to NASA’s human spaceflight accounts, all while moving overall discretionary spending towards FY2008 levels,” the letter’s authors—Reps. Bill Posey (R-FL), Pete Olson (R-TX), Rob Bishop (R-UT), Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Sandy Adams (R-FL), and Mo Brooks (R-AL)—argue.
There are a number of issues with the letter. They claim that NASA spent “over a billion dollars” on “studying global warming/climate change” in FY2010. The agency got about $1.4 billion for all Earth sciences research in FY10, according to agency budget documents. There’s no breakout for how much of that went specifically to climate change research, though. The letter also claims that the “lion share” of NASA’s share of stimulus funding went to climate change studies. In fact, only about a third of the agency’s stimulus funding, $325 million, went to Earth sciences programs, to accelerate development of Earth science spacecraft. Human spaceflight got even more: $400 million, including $50 million for the CCDev program. And their claim that NASA’s core mission is human spaceflight is not supported by other documents, ranging from the National Aeronautics and Space Act from 1958 to the latest NASA authorization act, which declared that NASA “is and should remain a multi-mission agency with a balanced and robust set of core missions in science, aeronautics, and human space flight and exploration” and that “NASA plays a critical role through its ability to provide data on solar output, sea level rise, atmospheric and ocean temperature, ozone depletion, air pollution, and observation of human and environment relationships”.
A bigger issue, though, is that this letter may be indicative of a bigger battle some in Congress want to wage between human spaceflight and Earth science. Some members have openly expressed their skepticism about the validity of climate change research, questioning either the existence of global warming or the role of human activities in causing climate change. The letter to appropriators makes no judgment on the quality of validity of such research, only NASA’s role in supporting it, but some might see that unspoken argument there. For example, one of the letter’s signers, Rep. Brooks, said last week in regards to NASA funding that there would be “hearings soon on global warming” by the House science committee without going into more details. An attack on Earth sciences funding to support human spaceflight could create or reinvigorate opponents of human spaceflight programs, reminiscent of previous debates between human spaceflight and robotic space exploration advocates—a battle that the agency presumably would want to avoid.
By Jeff Foust on 2011 February 9 at 6:06 am ET A group of conservatives calling on the government to turn over more of its activities to the private sector would seem hardly surprising or newsworthy. However, in the often distorted world of space policy of the last year, such a declaration is perceived at the very least as necessary.
“It’s been a funny year in space policy,” said Rand Simberg, representing the Competitive Enterprise Institute, at a hastily-organized Capitol Hill event announcing the formation of the Competitive Space Task Force (I received the media advisory about it a full 22 minutes before it was scheduled to start.) The task force is a coalition of conservative groups and individuals seeking “a free and competitive market for spaceflight and space services enabling the country to recapture the imagination and innovation of America’s space program and foster a new entrepreneurial spirit in the emerging Space Economy,” according to its press release. “We’re here to try and change the conversation,” Simberg, chairman of the task force, said.
The task force wants to drum up support among conservatives for the administration’s proposals to develop commercial crew transportation systems and terminate the Constellation program, despite the fact that they come from a White House whose policies are generally anathema to most conservatives. In particular, they argue that commercialization efforts can help NASA get more done with limited funding and allow it to focus on cutting edge work beyond the scope of the private sector. “That’s what this effort is all about, is to add to our ability to do space, not subtract from our ability to do space,” said Bob Walker, former chairman of the House Science Committee. He added that over the last two decades NASA has become “unaffordable” because it can’t handle alone everything the country wants to do in space.
The task force doesn’t have any specific initiatives or legislation in mind to push for its objectives (which include, according to the release, opening up the ISS to “the fullest possible economic utilization by the U.S. private sector” and greater used of fixed-price contracts by NASA). Andrew Langer of the Institute for Liberty said that’s due in part to uncertainties about the federal budget, with the administration due to release its FY12 proposal next week. “We’re really anxious to see what the president’s budget priorities are going to be when it comes to NASA,” he said. “We’re going to be working with folks up here on the Hill to make sure that policies are going to be enacted to support commercial programs.”
While this group may suppot the administration’s commercial space policies, just don’t expect them to start sporting “Obama 2012″ buttons any time soon. “I just don’t think that the president cares that much one way or the other about commercial space,” Simberg said in response to a question. “But I’m glad for that. I think if he did we’d have worse problems.”
By Jeff Foust on 2011 February 8 at 6:57 am ET March Storm, the annual citizens space lobby effort by ProSpace, has released its plans for the 2011 event scheduled for March 13-15. This year’s effort will support one major initiative, “The Zero-Gravity, Zero-Tax Act of 2011″. Specific details of the proposed legislation are not included in the announcement beyond “creating a tax holiday on the profits of new commercial space business enterprises.” Similar legislation has been proposed in the past but failed to gain support in Congress. ProSpace will also express its support for NASA’s commercial crew and cargo program. The event will come about a month after the White House releases its FY2012 budget proposal, although it’s not clear yet if Congress will have passed final FY2011 appropriations legislation by that time.
By Jeff Foust on 2011 February 8 at 6:48 am ET In a letter to President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) asks the president to follow the guidance of last year’s NASA authorization act when requesting funding the space agency. “As we approach the rollout of your FY 2012 budget request, I look forward to a plan that is consistent with the NASA Authorization Act of 2010,” Reid wrote in the five-paragraph letter, dated February 4 and devoted entirely to space policy. “I also hope that the Administration and Congress will work together to remove any obstacles to ensure the full and timely implementation of the law.” He warned earlier in the letter, “Any digression from the hard fought compromise would likely result in another year of turmoil for an already battered community.”
The Senate will take up today an amendment to an FAA authorization bill that affects NASA, The Hill reports. The amendment would eliminate a provision in the bill that would create “an advisory committee to examine whether or not NASA should continue research and development on civilian aircraft.” The amendment was introduced by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) with bipartisan support.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his French counterpart, Alain Juppe, will sign an agreement to share information on tracking satellites and debris in a meeting today at the Pentagon. The ceremony comes just days after the release of the National Security Space Strategy, which states that the Defense Department will work with other nations and companies “to maintain and improve space object databases, pursue common international data standards and data integrity measures, and provide services and disseminate orbital tracking information, including predictions of space object conjunction, to enhance spaceflight safety for all parties.”
Ohio’s congressional delegation, meanwhile, is stepping up efforts to secure a shuttle orbiter once the fleet is retired, reports the Dayton Daily News. The letter, by Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, states that the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton is “a premier venue” for an orbiter. The letter, to be sent today, is also signed by nearly every member of the state’s delegation, with the exception of Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who may sign it today, and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Boehner’s omission is apparently due to plans to minimize participation in such “delegation letters” while serving as speaker, but a spokesman tells the paper that Boehner supports the effort and “has made clear to NASA the benefits of locating an orbiter” at the Dayton museum.
By Jeff Foust on 2011 February 6 at 3:17 pm ET On the schedule this week for the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee is a hearing on the oversight of NASA and the NSF, featuring the inspectors general of the two agencies. According to The Hill, this hearing is one of “hundreds” planned by House appropriators to look for places to reduce spending. “The goal of the hearings is to help identify top management challenges and find ways to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in these respective departments and agencies,” the chairman of the CJS subcommittee, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), told the paper.
This will be the subcommittee’s first NASA-related hearing in the new Congress, and only the second overall after one Wednesday performing a similar review of the Departments of Commerce and Justice. The subcommittee roster in the new Congress features many veterans of the subcommittee from the previous Congress, with some changes reflecting the change in party control and the departure of former chairman Alan Mollohan:
Frank Wolf (R-VA), Chairman
Jo Bonner (R-AL), Vice-Chair
John Culberson (R-TX)
Robert Aderholt (R-AL)
Steve Austria (R-OH)
Tom Graves (R-GA)
Kevin Yoder (R-KS)
Chaka Fattah (D-PA), Ranking Member
Adam Schiff, (D-CA)
Mike Honda, (D-CA)
José Serrano, (D-NY)
By Jeff Foust on 2011 February 5 at 9:45 am ET On Friday the Defense Department released its new National Security Space Strategy (or, to be precise, an unclassified summary of that document). The document provides a high-level overview of the goals of US national security space activities and the broad issues associated with achieving them. The strategy, said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in a statement, “is a pragmatic approach to maintain the advantages we derive from space while confronting the new challenges we face.”
An initial read through the document doesn’t turn up much in the way of major new initiatives or other surprises. If you’ve been following some of the discussion and debate about national security space issues, or even read the National Space Policy released by the Obama Administration last June, much of the language here will look familiar. For example, the report emphasizes three trends often called the “Three C’s” of the modern space environment: congested (orbital debris), contested (ASATs and other activities to disrupt space systems), and competitive (the growing number of countries with space systems, and their increasing capabilities.)
A few highlights from the report:
Although there’s been reports the US is willing to sign on to the EU’s draft code of conduct for outer space activities, the strategy does not explicitly support it. It does, though, identify the need for “responsible, peaceful, and safe use of space”, including support for measures such as “best practices, transparency and confidence-building measures, and norms of behavior for responsible space operations”, similar to language in the national space policy.
The report highlights the need for a space industrial base in the US that is “robust, competitive, flexible, healthy, and delivers reliable space capabilities on time and on budget.” To achieve that, the strategy highlights a number of measures, including increased emphasis on technology development, shorter development cycles, and export control reform. “Reforming export controls will facilitate U.S. firms’ ability to compete to become providers-of-choice in the international marketplace for capabilities that are, or will soon become, widely available globally, while strengthening our ability to protect the most significant U.S. technology advantages,” the document states.
The strategy also indicates a willingness to partner with or purchase services from commercial providers. “We will rely on proven commercial capabilities to the maximum extent practicable, and we will modify commercial capabilities to meet government requirements when doing so is more cost-effective and timely for the government,” the report states. “We will develop space systems only when there is no suitable, cost-effective commercial alternative or when national security needs dictate.”
Cooperation with other countries and companies on the area of space situational awareness (SSA) is also highlighted in the report, saying that while the US is the leader in SSA, it seeks to “establish agreements with other nations and commercial firms to maintain and improve space object databases, pursue common international data standards and data integrity measures, and provide services and disseminate orbital tracking information, including predictions of space object conjunction, to enhance spaceflight safety for all parties.”
By Jeff Foust on 2011 February 4 at 6:15 am ET Republican senators are concerned about US support for an outer space “code of conduct”, the Washington Times reported Friday. The article says that 37 Republican senators have sent a letter to Secretary of State Clinton, claiming that the code could restrict development of systems to protect satellites from ASAT weapons. The article also reports that the administration is expected to release today a long-awaited National Security Space Strategy, which may include explicit support for the EU Code.
Former NASA chief of staff Courtney Stadd is scheduled to report to prison today to begin serving a 41-month federal sentence for conspiracy to steer NASA funds to his consulting company. In an email to friends and family earlier this week, obtained by Space News, Stadd said he had expected a lighter sentence, of about 24 months, based on a plea bargain with prosecutors. However, in the sentencing phase of the case, prosecutors “remained completely silent and poker-faced regarding their agreement to a lesser punishment and tacitly acquiesced to the harsh sentence terms: 41 months and restitution and fines of well over a quarter of a million dollars.”
In an op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel Friday, Douglas MacKinnon claims the real “Sputnik moment” the president should have mentioned in his State of the Union speech is China’s space program. Claiming that President Obama “has basically ended our human spaceflight program”, MacKinnon claims that “one nation above all is celebrating the demise of our human-spaceflight program: the People’s Republic of China” because it means “their military-controlled space program could soon have a free hand from the Earth to the moon.” Those claims, and the logic backing them, are tenuous at best in the op-ed, as among other things, he ignores the US national security space efforts that are largely unaffected by end of the shuttle program.
By Jeff Foust on 2011 February 4 at 5:56 am ET Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) told the Huntsville Times this week that some hard decisions are coming for federal spending, including cuts in defense spending. “I think national defense is probably going to lose some ground,” he told the paper’s editorial board, although he wasn’t sure how it would affect agencies and companies in Huntsville. One area he does plan to support additional funding, though, is NASA’s human spaceflight programs: “I hope to increase (NASA) spending for manned spaceflight,” he said. And where would that money come from? He says he’ll look to shift funding from other parts of the agency, “such as studies of global warming”; he also said that “we might have to shift money” from the National Science Foundation to support human spaceflight.
One thing to keep in mind regarding his comments is that Brooks, in addition to being a freshman with little individual influence, is also not on the House Appropriations Committee. Thus, his comments are more likely a wish list than a concrete plan. And plans by House appropriators will make keeping NASA funding intact even harder.
On Thursday the new chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Hal Rogers (R-KY), released his spending plan for FY 2011 appropriations bills, as Congress seeks to take care of unfinished business from the previous Congress. Rogers outlined $74 billion in cuts from the president’s FY11 request, $58 billion of which in non-defense discretionary spending, in his budget outlines distributed to the various appropriations subcommittees. “I am instructing each of the twelve Appropriations subcommittees to produce specific, substantive and comprehensive spending cuts,” Rogers said in the statement. “We are going go line by line to weed out and eliminate unnecessary, wasteful, or excess spending.”
For the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee, which includes NASA, Rogers set a budget of $54.1 billion, an 11-percent cut from the $60.5 billion from the president’s FY11 request a year ago. If applied across the board for all agencies, that would mean NASA would get $16.9 billion in 2011, down from the $19 billion in its FY11 request and below even its appropriations in FY2008, the goal that House leaders set for reducing overall non-defense discretionary spending. However, those cuts may not be applied equally, sparing some programs and agencies while inflicting deeper cuts on others.
An AP article yesterday does suggest that NASA might be spared the worst of the cuts, claiming that unidentified Republicans said that “some agencies such as the FBI, the Indian Health Service and NASA are unlikely to be cut all the way back to pre-Obama levels.” (The article repeats statements from an earlier AP piece that the White House warns that NASA cuts could force the US to abandon the ISS.) Any cuts the House makes, of course, would have to be reconciled with the Senate, which has not released its budget plans yet.
|
|
