People are making a big deal of the fact that the new New Mexico governor Susana Martinez has canned Rick Homans, taking it as a sign that she is opposed to the spaceport. Over at Space Politics, some are blaming it on the Tea Party.

My theory? It’s exactly what she says:

“The citizens of Doña Ana County and Sierra County have spoken. They’re the ones who voted on whether or not they wanted to have their tax dollars spent on spaceport,” Martinez said during an interview Thursday before her send-off gala. “We’re going to respect that.”

But Martinez said she wants to “make sure that the spending is in the best way.”

“We can’t just agree to give tax dollars and then not be accountable to the taxpayers,” she said.

Doña Ana County and Sierra County voters in 2007 and 2008, respectively, approved sales taxes to back spaceport construction. However, about three-quarters of financing originated from the Legislature.

Martinez said her transition team had requested information, such as a contract between Spaceport America and anchor tenant Virgin Galactic, from the Richardson administration and, as of Thursday, hadn’t received it. She said she wants to audit that contract and spending on the $200 million construction project.

In addition to scrutinizing spaceport agreements, Martinez said she’s also interested in “how we bring private industry to be part of the spaceport, so that eventually state tax dollars aren’t necessary.”

I actually think that she’s understating things here, and being politic. While I’m unaware of any particular issue with Homans himself, Governor Martinez is surely aware of just how corrupt the Democrat machine in Santa Fe is in general (some have characterized the state as “Louisiana with jalapenos”) and she’s simply assuming the worst, and wants to root out any problems if they exist as soon as possible, and start with a clean slate. I might do the same in her position.

Thoughts from Mary Lynne Dittmar. I disagree somewhat that we should simply appropriate the authorization, but it’s unlikely we’ll get a better authorization any time soon, absent fresh thinking from the usual suspects on the Hill. We do need to think about what capabilities we want to preserve within the agency (though I think that we need to completely restructure federal space policy, not just NASA).

Congressman Ruppersberger (D-MD) has an op-ed piece in the Baltimore Sun on space policy. Here’s his bottom line:

To give up our quest for the moon, Mars and beyond is not what is best for America’s space program. We need a new road map. We must commit to return to the moon through a program run by NASA in partnership with private companies that will invest in bigger, American-made engines to get us to the moon without relying on Russia. This plan must reinvigorate our space industrial base and inspire people, especially younger generations, to dream about our future in space.

While I sort of agree with this, it’s hard to see how he gets there from everything that came before. And what does he mean by “American-made engines”? Does he think that lack of engines is what’s keeping us bound to the planet? Is he referring to the fact that Atlas uses Russian engines? Is he aware that SpaceX has “invested in bigger, American-made engines,” and wants to build bigger ones yet? It’s hard to know.

The entire piece is full of vague allusions and non sequiturs like this. For example:

Today, America is slipping. The president announced plans to cancel Constellation, the plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2020. This move jeopardizes an $11.5 billion investment, puts thousands of skilled scientists out of work, and shakes the very heart of the space industrial base.

Kids aren’t growing up wanting to be astronauts. China is pumping money into its space plan and setting its sights on a moon landing by 2020.

The implication was that Constellation was actually going to return astronauts to the moon by 2020. Is he aware that this was unlikely to happen before 2030? Is he aware of the Augustine report at all? In complaining about the “investment,” is he familiar with the sunk-cost fallacy? Does he know very few of the people being laid off are “scientists” (perhaps none of them, in fact)? Where is the evidence that China is “pumping money in its space plan” or that it plans a moon landing by 2020? Landing what? People? No way, Jose. Maybe a robot, but so what?

And what does any of this have to do with kids growing up wanting to be astronauts? And why would we want them to? Given NASA’s trivial plans under Constellation, the vast majority of them would be disappointed.

He non-sequiturs on:

Satellites keep us safe. They globally track suspected terrorists, stop future attacks, and provide real-time data to our troops on the ground. At home, satellites allow us to operate GPS systems and cell phones.

None of this has anything to do with NASA, or astronauts or human spaceflight, or Constellation. Then he starts to reminisce:

Four years ago, I took over as chairman of the Technical and Tactical (T&T) Intelligence Subcommittee. We found undisciplined program management and skyrocketing costs, outdated export controls, no comprehensive space plan and inadequate spacecraft launch capability. We were giving Russia and China a head start. I feared that without swift action, the United States would never recover. We immediately started to work to maintain America’s dominance in space.

We passed several measures to ensure better oversight of satellite programs. In the fiscal 2010 Intelligence Authorization bill, we included a measure that forces programs to come in on time and on budget or face immediate cancellation unless critically important for national security. We encouraged agencies to only invest in space systems with proven technology to prevent costly delays when research and development is conducted on the spot. We also promoted greater collaboration between different agencies, sharing technology and saving money.

Well, that all sounds nice but, again, it has nothing to do with NASA and Constellation, or human spaceflight. And if he thinks these were good things, then he should have been leading the charge for the cancellation of Constellation, because it was far over budget and even farther behind schedule, and has nothing to do with national security, let alone being “critically important” for it. He goes on:

We relaxed the export regulations that stifled the American space industry and caused it to shrink to half of its size. The House passed language to ease burdensome restrictions when satellites and components are widely available and do not pose a national security risk. The bill stalled in the Senate, but the exposure got the attention of the Obama administration, which is reforming the regulations. This will allow U.S. space companies to sell globally and offer better products at lower prices here at home.

How did they “relax the export regulations”? As he said, the bill stalled in the Senate, and while the administration has made some noise about ITAR reform (I assume that’s what he’s referring to here, but as with much of the piece, it’s hard to tell), I don’t think that anything has actually happened yet.

Less progress has been made creating a long-term plan for space. While other countries see costs drop, the U.S. is spending more per rocket launch and battling more delays than anywhere else. That is because the United States has committed to a two-company alliance to handle all launches, despite the fact that other U.S. companies are showing promise. Commercial capabilities must be considered in certain cases, including launching earth observation satellites, transmitting images, and traveling to the International Space Station.

Ironically, the United States will soon rely on Russia to provide transportation for our astronauts to the Space Station. When the last shuttle launch takes place this year, the United States will have to pay Russia to bring American scientists to the Space Station. This must change.

What other countries are “seeing costs drop”? He doesn’t say. And are our costs high because of ULA (I assume that what he’s referring to with the “two-company alliance”)? Is he unaware of the existence of Orbital Sciences? I like the line about considering commercial capabilities — I assume with regard to the ISS travel, he’s referring to commercial crew? But why is he complaining about paying Russia? That was cooked in the day that Mike Griffin decided to waste billions on unneeded new rockets, half a decade ago. Did he complain then?

I wonder if he wrote this himself. If not, he should can the staffer that wrote it. I sure can’t tell what it is he proposes to do from it.

Some good advice from FLAToday. Unfortunately, the comments section is overflowing with ignorance and illogic, including the usual lies about SpaceX.

Fox News (not just the on-line edition) has picked up the story now. Tom Jones garbles it a little, though. Congress has in fact passed a law redirecting NASA — the authorization bill that passed in September. The problem is that they haven’t followed through by either passing a new appropriation bill to allow them to implement it, or even do an anomaly on the current continuing resolution that allows NASA to move on to the new track. In fact, Congress has essentially made it impossible for NASA to follow “the law,” because it has two intrinsically incompatible laws in place. The notion that this is either NASA’s or the White House’s fault is ludicrous. While minor compared to the other legislative atrocities of this session (stimulus *cough* obamacare), it’s just one more symptom of perhaps the most dysfunctional Congress in history. The question is, what will the next one do to fix it?