Blog Profile / Space Politics
| URL : | http://www.spacepolitics.com/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Academics / Astronomy | |
| Posts on Regator: | 1565 | |
| Posts / Week: | 5.8 | |
| Archived Since: | March 16, 2008 | |
Blog Post Archive
Reaction to the NASA budget proposal
The fiscal year 2014 budget proposal for NASA is, as previously noted, fairly similar to the agency’s 2013 proposal, with the notable exceptions of the new asteroid initiative and changes to NASA’s education programs as part of the administration’s broader STEM education consolidation. That may be why the budget has, so far, not gotten a [...]
New bill would redirect NASA back to the Moon
Just days after NASA admininstrator Charles Bolden said that a NASA-led human return to the Moon would not take place “probably in my lifetime,” a group of mostly Republican members of the House introduced a bill that would require NASA to do just that, and within a decade. The “RE-asserting American Leadership in Space Act,” [...]
NASA budget: asteroid mission efforts, funding commercial crew, and restructuring education
At first glance, the administration’s fiscal year 2014 budget proposal doesn’t look that different from the agency’s 2013 proposal: both request nearly the same amount of money ($17.715 billion in FY14 versus $17.711B in FY13) with only modest variations amount the key accounts. (OF course, NASA ended up with considerably less than it requested: about [...]
Quick look at NASA FY14 budget proposal
The White House has released its documents for the FY14 budget proposal, including a fact sheet for NASA. The administration is seeking approximately $17.7 billion for NASA, about the same as its FY13 proposal. The proposal, as expected, includes funding to begin work “on a mission to rendezvous with—and then move—a small asteroid.” There’s also [...]
Final tweaks to the 2013 budget
Everything is set for tomorrow’s unveiling of the administration’s fiscal year 2014 budget proposal. The overall budget proposal will likely show up on the OMB website Wednesday morning, with NASA posting its detailed budget proposal documents at 1 pm Eastern. At 1:30 pm, the Office of Science and Technology Policy will hold a budget briefing, [...]
Nelson confirms asteroid mission study to be in FY14 budget proposal
Details about the fiscal year 2014 budget are supposed to be embargoed until Wednesday, when the administration formally releases its budget proposal. When NASA administrator Chalres Bolden spoke before the joint meeting of the Space Studies Board and the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board in Washington on Thursday, he said he knew some people there [...]
Back to the Moon? Not any time soon, says Bolden
A week from Monday marks the third anniversary of President Obama’s speech at the Kennedy Space Center where he formally announced the goal of a human mission to an asteroid by 2025. While that is an official goal of NASA’s human space exploration program, there remains some opposition or, at the very least, lack of [...]
Next week: “Threats from Space,” the sequel
When the House Science Committee met last month to discuss the threats posed by near Earth objects (NEOs), they indicated that there would be at least one other hearing on the topic in April. That hearing has been scheduled: “Threats from Space: A Review of Non-U.S. Government Efforts to Track and Mitigate Asteroids and Meteors, [...]
New Mexico governor signs liability bill; Texas makes progress on space bills
After many months of drama, the end was rather anticlimactic. On Tuesday, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez signed into law the New Mexico Expanded Space Flight Informed Consent Act in a ceremony at Spaceport America in the southern part of the state. The bill extends the state’s existing commercial spaceflight liability indemnification to suppliers of [...]
Sequestration’s effects on commercial crew, and planning for FY14
At a media telecon Thursday afternoon to talk about the just-completed Dragon mission to the International Space Station, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said that budget sequestration could have an adverse effect on the agency’s commercial crew program if it extends beyond the end of this fiscal year. “So far, we don’t see any significant impact [...]
Petitions, full of sound and fury, signifying…
Back in December I noted the space advocacy community’s continued, if perhaps misguided, fascination with White House petitions. Petitions have been the tool of first resort—and sometimes the tool of only resort—to demand funding increases for NASA or other policy changes. The problem is that they often fail to reach the necessarily threshold (recently increased [...]
Don’t send Bruce Willis to do a robot’s job
The Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee hearing last Wednesday on “Assessing the Risks, Impacts, and Solutions for Space Threats” was seen by many as the Senate’s counterpart to a House Science Committee hearing the day before on the subject of threats posed by near Earth objects (NEOs). While it didn’t have the star power of [...]
With budget uncertainty resolved, sequestration’s effects kick in
The good news for NASA and other federal agencies is that they finally have a fiscal year 2013 budget. On Thursday, the House passed the Senate’s version of a 2013 spending bill as expected, a day after the Senate approved it. The passage ends any worries about a potential government shutdown when the current continuing [...]
Combating the perception of a lack of consensus
In December, the National Research Council issued a report on NASA’s strategic direction that concluded that there was “no national consensus” on NASA’s strategic goals, including a lack of widespread acceptance of plans for a human asteroid mission by 2025. After his keynote speech at the Goddard Memorial Symposium in Greenbelt, Maryland, yesterday, I asked [...]
NASA to Congress: don’t “pour money” into NEO programs
Events like last month’s Russian meteor and close approach by asteroid 2012 DA14—coincidental but taking place just hours apart—raised public awareness in the potential threats posed by near Earth objects (NEOs). It would also seem to be an opportunity for NASA in particular to seek additional funding to support its NEO detection efforts, which are [...]
FY2013 budget endgame in sight
With just over a week before the current continuing resolution (CR) funding the federal government is set to expire, it appears a plan is taking shape to pass a final FY13 appropriations bill this week. Monday evening the Senate approved a cloture motion for its version of HR 933, cutting off debate and setting the [...]
Space threats double feature in Congress next week
The House Science Committee has rescheduled the hearing on “Threats from Space: A Review of U.S. Government Efforts to Track and Mitigate Asteroids and Meteors, Part 1” for Tuesday, March 19, at 10 am. The hearing was planned for March 6 but postponed because of a threatened snowstorm that, as it turned out, failed to [...]
Briefs: New Mexico spaceport law, NASA sequestration effects, next CNES head, Garneau drops out
Legislation that would extend liability indemnification to suppliers of vehicles operating from Spaceport America is now awaiting the signature of the governor of New Mexico. On Monday the New Mexico House passed unanimous a bill that previously passed in the state Senate. The bill, long sought by state officials and Virgin Galactic alike, would extend [...]
Senate offers its own take on FY13 NASA budget
Monday night the Senate Appropriations Committee released its version of a full year fiscal year 2013 continuing resolution and appropriations bill, which includes a full appropriations bill for Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS). The top-level NASA figure is slightly higher than the House CR passed last week, at $17.86 billion. Science, Space Technology, and Construction [...]
Uncertainty remains the one certainty for NASA’s budgets
One week ago today, budget sequestration formally went into effect, cutting NASA’s budget by five percent from its 2012 levels. Earlier this week, the House passed a continuing resolution (CR) that would fund NASA and other government agencies at fiscal year 2012 levels, with a few adjustments for programs like the Space Launch System and [...]