The Telegraph article plays up the potential for conflict between the US and China, claiming that the US “privately warned Beijing it would face military action if it did not desist.” That appears to be a reference to a passage in the January 2008 cable that contained a demarche to China where the US stated, “The United States reserves the right, consistent with the UN Charter and international law, to defend and protect its space systems with a wide range of options, from diplomatic to military.” That language, though, is consistent with the national space policy of 2006, which stated that US would “take those actions necessary to protect its space capabilities”, among other steps.
Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS) paid his first visit to NASA’s Stennis Space Center as chairman of the space subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee on Tuesday. Palazzo indicated he’d be looking out for the center, located in his district, while in Congress. “We have the infrastructure here to be able to do anything we want to do. Some questions are what is the mission of NASA for the future, and I think it’s going to be space exploration and manned flight,” he told local TV station WLOX.
Surprise, surprise: the various agencies involved in the NPOESS weather satellite program “failed time and again in their management and oversight” of the program, according to an Aerospace Corporation study of the program, DoD Buzz reports. Combining formerly-separate civil and military satellite programs, with a “hydra-headed management system”, and loading the spacecraft with a large number of sensors, contributed to the problems that led the administration a year ago to split NPOESS into separate NOAA/NASA and DoD programs. “What happened was a series of unfortunate events. If only one of them had happened it could have been recoverable, but mistake after mistake was made,” former congressional staffer and Pentagon official Josh Hartman told DoD Buzz.
The Washington Times reported last week that the administration is considering signing on to a code of conduct for space operations promoted by the European Union. The “Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities” calls on countries to take measures to avoid satellite collisions and other activities that create space debris, such as “any intentional action which will or might bring about, directly or indirectly, the damage or destruction of outer space objects.” According to the Times article, the administration is ready to sign on to the code with only a “few minor changes” in its language, not specified in the article.
The report is not that surprising. Back in December administration officials strongly hinted that they supported the code, saying that while a decision regarding the code hadn’t been made, it was “very consistent with the key policies outlined in the president’s new space policy,” in the words of Frank Rose, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Space and Defense Policy. The Times article suggests there may be some congressional opposition to the code, quoting a couple unnamed staffers who expressed concerns that the code could be a “slippery slope” to space arms control, including preventing space-based missile defense systems.
Speaking of the code, the Marshall Institute is hosting a panel on codes of conduct in space this Friday in Washington. Two of the three panelists for the Friday event—Paula DeSutter, a former Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation; and Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University—are quoted in the article as being at least cautiously supportive of the EU code. The third, Peter Marquez, is the former director of space policy at the National Security Council and led the development of the national space policy released last year.
When the Obama Administration released its FY2011 budget one year ago Tuesday, the proposal called for spending $6 billion over five years on commercial crew development. After the extended debate on the subject the near-term spending on the program was trimmed in the authorization bill to $1.3 billion in 2011-2013, compared to $3.3 billion over the same period in the budget proposal. However, there was a long-term, if informal, plan expressed by people like Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) to commit the full $6 billion to the program over six years, instead of five, implying that commercial crew development spending would ramp up significantly in the 2014-2016 period.
But at least one official doesn’t think that additional money will come, at least at that level. An anonymous Senate aide told the New York Times that the $6 billion over six years won’t materialize. “They’re not getting $6 billion over six years for commercial crew,” the aide said. “That’s never going to happen.” The article didn’t go into specifics about why the aide felt that way, but certainly ongoing debates about cutting federal spending would play a key role. The aide instead suggested the commercial crew program “might receive half that much”. That would restrict NASA’s ability to support multiple providers—Orbital Sciences, for example, estimates a development cost of $3.5-4 billion for its proposed system—and/or also force companies to shoulder a greater burden of development costs.
Fifty years ago, a young President facing mounting pressure at home propelled a fledgling space agency on a bold, new course that would push the frontiers of exploration to new heights. Today, on this Day of Remembrance when NASA reflects on the mighty sacrifices made to push those frontiers, America’s space agency is working to achieve even greater goals. NASA’s new 21st Century course will foster new industries that create jobs, pioneer technology innovation, and inspire a new generation of explorers through education – all while continuing its fundamental missions of exploring our home planet and the cosmos.
Fifty years ago, another young President propelled a fledgling space agency on a bold, new course that would push the frontiers of exploration to new heights. The 21st Century course that President Obama has set our agency on will foster new industries that create jobs, pioneer technology innovation, and inspire a new generation of explorers through education – all while continuing our fundamental mission of exploring our home planet and the cosmos.
Thursday afternoon the Republican leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee announced the GOP members who will serve on the full committee in the new Congress. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) will return as ranking member of the full committee, where she will be joined by:
Olympia Snowe, Maine
John Ensign, Nev.
Jim DeMint, S.C.
John Thune, S.D.
Roger Wicker, Miss.
Johnny Isakson, Ga.
Roy Blunt, Mo.
John Boozman, Ark.
Pat Toomey, Pa.
Marco Rubio, Fla.
Kelly Ayotte, N.H.
Notably absent from the list is Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), who in the last Congress served as the ranking member of the committee’s Science and Space subcommittee alongside subcommittee chairman Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL). Subcommittee assignments have not been made yet, so we don’t know yet who will succeed Vitter as ranking member.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) is one of NASA’s biggest advocates in Congress, and has a long track record on space policy. It’s not a surprise, then, that his office released Wednesday a six-minute video (below) of Nelson talking about space exploration, timed to the 25th anniversary of the Challenger accident this week. Most of the video is devoted to generalities about the history and importance of human spaceflight. About four and a half minutes, in though, he talks about the NASA authorization act, which calls for the development “of a new big rocket to replace the space shuttle”, as he described the Space Launch System.
Then he reiterated some tough language from earlier this month after NASA reported it could not currently determine how to develop the vehicle within the cost and schedule constraints of the act. “NASA must stop making excuses and follow this law,” he says. “I believe that the best and brightest at the space agency can build upon the nine billion dollars that we’ve already invested in the advanced technology to design this new rocket, and I think that these pioneers at NASA can also take a stepping-stone, pay-as-you-go approach.
By contrast, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), in office only since this month, has virtually no track record when it comes to space policy. In a meeting with reporters yesterday, Rubio said that he considered funding for NASA a priority even with the need to cut spending overall. “Anything you invest in NASA is money that you are using that has the byproduct effect of creating spinoff opportunities in the private sector,” he said, as reported by Florida Today. Launching rockets, he added, is “something we do because it’s important from a military capability, from a national-security capability, and also a commercial and economic capability.” (Much of that capability, though, has little to do with NASA.)
Central Florida News 13, meanwhile, recalled comments Rubio made last fall when running for the Senate, echoing Wednesday’s comments. “Space exploration is not something we do for fun,” he said in the October interview. “It’s something this country does because it has commercial applications, it has technical applications that help us in other fields. It has military and national defense applications.” He also, at the time, pointed to China’s space activities. “Look, China has invested heavily in getting to the moon, it’s not because they want to go up there and collect rock samples. It’s because the believe space is the high ground of national defense, and they want to have space superiority over the United States.”
Reps. Sandy Adams and Bill Posey (R-FL) must be disappointed: contrary to their desires expressed earlier this week, the president did not directly address space policy in his State of the Union address last night. (Well, maybe not that disappointed: Posey didn’t mention the omission in a statement with his reaction to the speech.) Instead, the president made only a historical reference to NASA in his speech, recalling the original “Sputnik moment” over 50 years ago that catalyzed the Space Race. And even that rhetoric wasn’t that new: he used similar language in a speech a month and a half ago in North Carolina.
Some members afterward said they wanted to hear more about space policy in the address. “Absent from the President’s speech, apart from mentioning Sputnik as a metaphor, was any vision for our Nation’s space agency,” said Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), chairman of the House Space, Science and Technology Committee, in a statement after the speech (one that, as of this morning, is not posted on the committee web site.) “I am disappointed that the President used this moment only to reflect on NASA’s history, rather than promoting a strong vision for the future of space exploration. This Thursday is officially designated as ‘A Day of Remembrance’ for the space shuttles Columbia and Challenger tragedies; a day to reflect on those national heroes who lost their lives. We should honor them by carrying on their legacy and ensuring that America ‘keeps winning’ in space exploration and scientific discovery.”
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), a staunch critic last year of the administration’s plans to cancel Constellation, kept up the rhetoric in his response to the speech. “However, while the President is calling for ‘new levels of research and development that haven’t been seen since the Space Race’ his Administration is also calling for the termination of our nation’s manned space program – a program whose science and technology research is an essential component of our nation’s missile defense program,” he claimed. “Terminating this program, including the Constellation program, would cede our leadership in space exploration over to countries like China, Russia and India… It would be counterproductive to abandon our role as leaders in space exploration.”
As was the case last week, it was NASA administrator Charles Bolden, in a blog post, who tried to tie discussion of the agency’s past with its future. “At NASA, we’re making contributions in all of these areas,” he wrote, referring to the speech’s themes of innovation, education, and infrastructure, then citing several examples, including the agency’s support for commercial crew development. “The 21st Century course that President Obama has set our agency on will foster new industries that create jobs, pioneer technology innovation, and inspire a new generation of explorers through education – all while continuing our fundamental mission of exploring our home planet and the cosmos.”
Lost in yesterday’s hubbub about the State of the Union address was the introduction of legislation to radically cut spending by new Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). Paul’s plan would cut $500 billion in discretionary spending in FY2011 (which is already well underway, although without final appropriations bills) by making major cuts in most agencies and zeroing out some. In the case of NASA, he would cut the agency’s budget by 25 percent, to $13.375 billion, according to a summary he released with the bill. (Paul appears to be cutting from FY2009 levels, when NASA got $17.8 billion, and not FY2010, when the agency got $18.7 billion.) His rationale:
With the presence of private industries involved in space exploration and even space tourism, it is time for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to step aside and allow innovation to flourish. Looking at ways to reduce NASA’s spending is long overdue.
In addition, NASA has consistently been flagged by organizations like Citizens Against Government Waste, which most recently highlighted NASA’s multibillion-dollar Constellation program, a project that has been focused on the exploration of the moon and Mars. Despite spending more than $10 billion on this program, NASA has made very little progress since the program’s inception.
Finally, since President Obama has determined to realign the goals of NASA away from human exploration, and more on science and “global warming” research, the need to fund the agency at levels not consistent with the goals of the past provides the opportunity to direct funds toward deficit reduction. National Science
That said, the agency does pretty well compared to other organizations. Sen. Paul would cut NOAA’s budget by 36 percent, claiming the agency “has become bloated and its breadth and scope has broadened”. The NSF would be cut by 62 percent under Paul’s plan, under his belief that “research in science is best conducted by private industry for economic purposes,” and he would eliminate the Department of Energy. While the legislation likely stands little chance of making it through Congress, it does add to the debate about spending cuts versus spending freezes, as the president proposed last night.
Both ABC News and MSNBC are reporting that in his State of the Union speech tonight, President Obama will call for a five-year freeze for non-security discretionary spending. There will be, according to ABC, some exceptions for new initiatives in areas such as innovation, education, and infrastructure, but it would appear that, by and large, agencies like NASA included in that non-security discretionary slice of the budget will be looking at flat budgets for the foreseeable future.
If NASA is, in fact, facing a long-term budget freeze (whether at the enacted FY2010 or the proposed FY2011 level is unclear, although it makes little difference at the topline level), it would be a setback for an agency that last year was projected to see modest but steady increases, to nearly $21 billion for FY2015. On the other hand, though, a budget freeze at current levels might not be so bad compared to proposals to cut overall federal spending to FY2008, or, as proposed last week, FY2006 levels.
