By Jeff Foust on 2010 December 19 at 8:18 pm ET The passage by Congress Friday of a very short continuing resolution (CR), lasting only three days, raised hopes that the Senate might yet be able to find a way to pass either its own omnibus spending bill or the House’s year-long CR, giving NASA and other federal agencies some budgetary certainty. No such luck, it appears. Late Sunday the Senate Appropriations Committee announced its plans for another CR, this one extended through March 4, 2011. The new CR contains some additional “anomalies”, or changes, to FY2010 spending levels, but none of the anomalies listed in the Senate’s summary affect NASA or other civil or military space efforts beyond instituting a two-year pay freeze for federal civilian employees, a decision the Obama Administration announced earlier this month. Assuming this goes forward, it will be up to the next Congress to decide FY11 spending levels.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 December 17 at 1:02 pm ET It looks like the final FY2011 budget for NASA and other federal agencies won’t come until well into calendar year 2011. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled from consideration an omnibus spending bill introduced earlier this week because there weren’t 60 votes to stop debate. Last week the House passed its own year-long continuing resolution (CR) with NASA funding levels and other provisions similar to the Senate bill, but POLITICO reports that the Senate is also unlikely to vote on that. Instead, both the House and Senate will have to pass another CR to fund agencies at 2010 levels, most likely into February.
[Update 7:45 pm Friday: As Space News and others have reported, the House has passed a short-term, three-day CR instead of a longer one, to try and buy time for the Senate to either pass the House’s year-long CR or another measure.]
In the House, the leadership and membership of the House Science and Technology Committee is taking shape after Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) was picked last week to chair the committee. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), as expected, has been selected by House Democrats to be the ranking member of the committee next year; she declared her candidacy for the post last month. Also, former committee chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) will serve as vice-chairman, handling “mean things” that Hall said he wouldn’t to do as chairman. Sensenbrenner, who chaired the committee from 1997-2001, took on the vice-chairmanship under a deal whereby Hall will back Sensenbrenner to be the committee’s top Republican in two years when Hall reaches his term limits on the committee, according to POLITICO.
Among Republicans selected to serve on the committee is Rep.-elect Mo Brooks (R-AL), elected in November from the district that includes NASA Marshall. Brooks succeeds Parker Griffith, who was on the committee when first elected as a Democrat two years ago; he lost his committee post when he switched parties a year ago, but was able to participate in some hearings.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 December 16 at 12:55 pm ET There has been a renewed effort by the US government to reach out to China and find ways to cooperate in space, including a brief mention of cooperation in space exploration last year when Presidents Obama and Hu met, as well as NASA administrator Bolden’s visit to China in October. Yet, those discussions have yet to result in any concrete steps for joint projects or other cooperative ventures between the two countries, apparently to the surprise and disappointment of some within the administration. One expert believes that it’s because China doesn’t need to cooperate with the US as much as American officials think it does.
At a space security forum Wednesday organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in Washington, Gregory Kulacki, senior analyst and China project manager for UCS, said China’s current space efforts were motivated by a single event: President Reagan’s 1983 SDI speech. That speech, he said, was a “Sputnik moment” for China, in particular scientists who convinced the leadership that this demonstrated the importance of space. “The United States was going to make another Kennedy-sized investment in this whole area of technology and China just could not be left behind,” he said. If China didn’t invest in space, “in the way the scientists put it in their letter to Deng Xiaoping, [it] ‘would make us a second-rate power again.'” China’s space capabilities, therefore, are tied closely to their national prestige and status, he said.
The growth of Chinese space capabilities during time, Kulacki said, means that cooperation with the US is simply not a high priority now. “As far as the technical community, there’s no real incentives. They don’t need anything” from the US, he said. He added that Chinese space professionals aren’t interested in cooperation with the US because it’s “nothing but problems”, interfering with their current efforts. Any push for cooperation would have to come from the political side, but space is not a high priority there, he noted.
“We need to get past the idea that the Chinese need us more than we need them,” Kulacki said. “We have to find something of value to bring to China if China is going to be enthusiastic about our efforts to engage them on this.” That’s a challenge, he said, since the administration in the US right now is more interested in taking small steps that are of little interest to the Chinese. “The United States doesn’t want to bring anything major to the table, but the Chinese need something major on the table in order for cooperation to ge started.” What could that “major” thing be? He suggested some kind of unspecified civil space project: “Somewhere to go together, something to do together, something to build; an actual, important project.”
By Jeff Foust on 2010 December 15 at 7:00 am ET The Senate Appropriations Committee has issued its proposed FY2011 omnibus appropriations bill, after the House passed its version of a 2011 spending bill last week. The NASA sections begin on page 184 and appear to be very similar, of not identical, to the House version, including several key items:
- $1.8 billion for HLV development, with the requirement that its initial capacity be not less than 130 tons;
- $1.2 billion for the multipurpose crew vehicle (aka Orion);
- $250 million for commercial crew and $300 million for commercial cargo
One minor addition to the Senate bill: it includes $15 million for a reimbursable agreement with the Department of Energy to restart plutonium production for use in RTGs, something the science community has been pushing for in recent years in order to support outer solar system and other missions where solar panels are impractical.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 December 14 at 6:41 am ET Homer Hickam claims he knows how to fix NASA in three easy steps, as he describes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. First, he says, “suck it up and fund SpaceX” and other companies to take over access to low Earth orbit. Second, “convince the president to install new management at NASA.” Why? Hickam believes the president “has opted out of the decision-making process” and turned things over to presidential science advisor John Holdren and the administrator and deputy administrator of NASA, people Hickam clearly isn’t happy with. (He curiously claims that NASA administrator Charles Bolden, a former astronaut, “has never led anything more complex than a six-person shuttle crew”; he and the Journal’s editors may have forgotten that Bolden is a retired two-star Marine Corps general whose last posting was as commander of the Third Marine Aircraft Wing, which presumably is more complex than a shuttle crew.) The third step: “order up a mission beyond Earth orbit” analogous to the Apollo missions to the Moon; he specifically suggests a base at the Moon’s south pole. How much will that cost? “You don’t have to add a cent to the paltry amount NASA gets,” he claims, just point it in the right direction “and watch its excellent engineers pull it off.” He notably doesn’t give a specific timetable for establishing that base on NASA’s current budget.
North of the border, Matt Gurney of Canada’s National Post is worried the US is risking the expertise NASA has built up over the years with its current plans and funding levels. “Under President Obama, NASA has become an afterthought. There is no plan in place to return to the moon or Mars, no manned missions planned to the asteroid belt,” he claims (although the president did set a goal of a human mission to a near Earth asteroid by 2025 in his April 15 speech at the Kennedy Space Center). He also oddly warns that “NASA might need a continuing resolution to stay afloat”: NASA, like the rest of the federal government, has in fact had to use CRs to “stay float” since the fiscal year started almost two and a half months ago. Unlike Hickam, Gurney doesn’t offer a three-step (or any-step, for that matter) solution to the perceived problem, beyond worrying that the current policy is “crippling America’s ability to explore – and if necessary, wage war in – space.”
By Jeff Foust on 2010 December 14 at 6:08 am ET Despite the SpaceX’s successful Dragon test flight last week, the incoming chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee remains skeptical about relying on commercial providers for supplying and accessing the International Space Station. In a Dallas Morning News article Monday, Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), who will take over the committee next month, said he was wary of SpaceX and other providers seeking to transport cargo and, later, crews to and from the station. “I do have [concerns] because it’s so important and it’s so dangerous and it’s so subject to failure,” Hall told the paper. “I want to be assured that they’re not going to run out of money.” He added that he plans to ask SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and other industry executives to testify before the committee at an unspecified future date.
Last Friday, Hall made similar comments to Dallas public radio station KERA. “If you’re really a conservative you long for the day when anybody… can launch their own missiles and not have NASA, the government, do it. But that day’s not yet,” he said. “It’s a time when you still need government backing and sure tax money to see that you have successful launches and safe launches.”
By Jeff Foust on 2010 December 10 at 7:17 am ET Yesterday the White House announced the latest step in its export control reform effort, including the release for public comment of the methodology the State Department plans to use to rewrite the US Munitions List (USML). That approach has already been applied to one category of the USML, Category VII (tanks and military vehicles), with nearly three-quarters of the items currently on the list being taken off. According to the statement, the administration “has an aggressive schedule to complete its rewrite of the entire USML in 2011.” Earlier this fall officials indicated that Category XV, which covers satellites and related components, would be reviewed next after Category VII, although there was skepticism that this would lead to near-term relief from ITAR. The administration also announced yesterday the creation of Export.gov, a web site designed to help companies comply with export control requirements.
In an op-ed in Friday’s Houston Chronicle, former NASA engineer April Evans decried the agency’s plans to perform radiation exposure experiments on monkeys, her opposition to which led her to resign her job at JSC. The op-ed, though, comes two days after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) declared victory in their effort to block the experiment, claiming that NASA “has quietly called off plans” to carry out the study at Brookhaven National Laboratory, without elaborating. PETA had been carrying out various protests of the work, including demonstrations outside NASA headquarters. In May, a young woman interrupted NASA administrator Charles Bolden’s speech at the International Space Development Conference in Chicago to protest the experiments; PETA said the unidentified woman was a “supporter” of the organization but not part of an organized protest.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 December 9 at 6:59 am ET Yesterday SpaceX performed a virtually flawless inaugural flight of its Dragon spacecraft from launch at Cape Canaveral to splashdown in the Pacific nearly three and a half hours later. The mission was widely billed as a major milestone not just for SpaceX and its COTS agreement with NASA, but for commercial spaceflight in general, an issue that proved contentious in Congress in the last year. Several members of Congress made public statements late yesterday congratulating SpaceX on their achievement.
“We’ve arrived at the dawn of new era of U.S. space exploration that should ensure America remains a leader in space exploration,” said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, in a statement. The release also modestly describes Nelson as the “leading congressional authority on the U.S. space program”.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), the ranking member of the full Commerce Committee, called the flight an “important milestone” in her statement. “Supporting the development of these commercial activities will allow NASA to focus its efforts on the development of a new launch system and crew exploration vehicle to move beyond low-Earth orbit, which the new [NASA authorization] law established as one of NASA’s highest priorities,” she said. “Much work remains, but this is an important achievement and I congratulate SpaceX on a successful mission.”
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), perhaps the biggest proponent of commercial spaceflight in the House, also congratulated SpaceX on the mission. “SpaceX has taken one more step into changing the paradigm of space flight,” he said. “By demonstrating that we can use commercial companies to meet national goals, the continued success of SpaceX will enable NASA to focus their efforts into the far frontiers of space.”
For the curious, no, the office of Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has not issued a statement about the mission.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 December 9 at 6:47 am ET The House last night narrowly approved a yearlong continuing resolution last night. The bill, as previously noted here, splits the difference between the authorized level of $19 billion for NASA and the FY10 level of just over $18.7 billion, and includes funds for HLV development as well as COTS and commercial crew. The Senate plans to develop its own omnibus spending bill which, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) tells Florida Today, would also fund NASA at $18.9 billion, but allocate funds among various programs differently. There’s some question, though, if the Senate version would win out over the House’s CR.
The House Appropriations Committee has posted the text of the CR that, among the other provisions previously reported, includes an additional minor but interesting item on page 34. The CR devotes nearly a page to issues associated with the disposition of shuttle orbiters once the fleet is required, in particular cutting a special deal for the Smithsonian. “[S]hould the [NASA] Administrator determine that the Smithsonian Institution is an appropriate venue for an orbiter, such orbiter shall be made available to the Smithsonian at no or nominal cost,” the CR states. The Smithsonian had earlier been given, in effect, right of first refusal on Discovery, but was still on the hook for the costs to accept it, estimated by NASA to be $28.8 million. There had been concerns that the museum might not be able (or willing) to come up with that money. The CR would effectively eliminate that cost, although any other museums selected by NASA to receive Atlantis or Endeavour would presumably still have to pay.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 December 8 at 5:39 am ET As Space News and the Orlando Sentinel report, the draft of a full-year continuing resolution (CR) to fund the federal government for FY2011 would fund NASA at close to the level in the authorization act. The draft CR would appropriate $18.91 billion to NASA for 2011, up from the $18.72 billion in FY2010 and $90 million less than the $19.0 billion overall budget that was in both the administration original budget proposal and in the authorization act. A few highlights:
- The proposed CR would fund heavy-lift development to the tune of $1.8 billion, $200 million above authorized levels, with specific direction that the proposed HLV lift “not less than 130 tons”, rather than the 70-100 tons initial capability in the authorization bill. The Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (aka Orion) would get $1.2 billion, $100 million above authorized levels.
- The bill includes $1.8 billion for the shuttle program and $825 million for “additional” shuttle costs. Although it does not explicitly state those extra funds would go to an additional shuttle mission, the implication, at least among supporters for such a mission, is that the money could be used for that, but it could also be directed to other infrastructure costs.
- There is $300 million for the COTS program; NASA officials said this week that any additional funding for COTS would be used for additional tests to reduce program risks. Commercial crew development would get $250 million.
- One big loser is the “21st century spaceport initiative” at KSC, with a cut of more than $200 million from its original request of $429 million. That program already appeared targeted for reductions had NASA been funded at FY2010 levels for 2011, according to testimony at a Senate hearing last week by NASA CFO Beth Robinson.
- The CR would also lift language in the FY10 appropriations bill that prevents NASA from canceling Constellation programs.
According to Space News, the House could act on the proposed CR as soon as today, while the Senate is drafting its own omnibus spending bill to be introduced next week. NASA and the rest of the federal government are operating under a CR that runs through December 18.
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