Category Archives: Space

Political Commentary, Space

The Congressional NASA Battle

2 Comments

Henry Vanderbilt has the latest:

HR.5781 is not on the House calendar for this week. Our sources tell us that at least in part due to a significant number of constituent calls late last week, the House Leadership probably (no guarantees, of course) won’t put HR.5781 on the calendar this session (at least not in its current form). We hear that negotiations with Senate Authorizers continue, with the outcome (if any) now more likely to be based on the Senate bill. So, the battle is going well — to everyone who made a contact so far, thanks! But the battle over this NASA Authorization continues. We need to keep the pressure on, with the general message being, NASA Exploration R&D (including Commercial Crew and Cargo) is a good thing to fund, while NASA in-house booster developments (see numbers in the Generic reason below) are very likely to be massive wastes of scarce funds. Those of you who’ve already contacted your Representative might want to contact your Senators now too. Those of you who haven’t yet made a contact, why not? More when we know more.

For much more background detail, see Space Access Update #117 and Space Access Update #118.

Let’s keep the pressure up.

[Update a while later]

OK, Henry notes in comments that there’s an even more recent link, which also includes this:

We generally avoid taking partisan positions, as tending to be a distraction from our overall goal of cheap access. We will occasionally mention partisan matters that are actually relevant to our goals. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R CA) is a long-time member of the House Science Committee who on space matters over the years has pushed in what we think is the right direction considerably more often than not. Notably so in this year’s NASA funding fight, where he’s been on the correct side of some very muddled party lines, standing up for sound NASA policy over local partisan pork.

We understand he’s interested in becoming Chair of the Science Committee in the event the Republicans become the majority party in the House. We think that he would make a good Chairman for our purposes. He has a new website that is among other things concerned with helping him campaign for that post within his party. We’re passing word along so that if you’re so inclined, you can take a look and decide for yourself whether to help.

Having Dana as head of the Science Committee would be great news for those of us seeking a more enlightened space policy.

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Good Space Reporting

It’s so rare, I want to applaud it when it occurs. There’s a story at the WaPo that has a good summary of what’s going on in space policy, though I think that the headline is a little understated. It might have been nice to get a little more elaboration on this, though:

The House bill awaiting action would give twice as much money to Russia for transporting astronauts and cargo to the space station as it would give to U.S. companies working to build that capacity.

Insanity. And it doesn’t even mention the fact that this undermines the non-proliferation regime, due to the need to continually waive the requirements for INKSNA (a subject on which I’ll have more tomorrow).

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Et Tu, Jim?

2 Comments

In a roundup of some House races, Jim Geraghty at National Review comments on Suzanne Kosmas’ district:

Kosmas defied her district by voting for health-care reform, and many figured she had traded her vote to the Obama administration for some sort of deal to save Space Coast jobs. Instead, President Obama’s space-policy changes are effectively ending manned spaceflight, disastrous news for workers in her district.

I don’t know who figured that she had made such a trade, or how that was supposed to work, but the new policy is not “effectively ending manned spaceflight.” As I’ve explained myself at National Review, in fact, it was the Bush/Griffin policy that was doing that, in wasting money on an unaffordable and unnecessary new rocket that was extending the post-Shuttle gap into the indefinite future. The new policy could have a (commercial) crew delivery system in as little as four years, given proper (and comparatively modest) funding, while allowing the agency to focus instead on human exploration beyond earth orbit.

None of which is to say, of course, that Kosmas should necessarily be reelected.

[Update a while later]

Jim has updated his post to note that this assessment is that of the Republican candidate, and not necessarily his own.

Business, Space

A Space Bubble?

15 Comments

One of the biggest concerns about the commercial spaceflight industry is whether there will be sufficient demand to support multiple players. Technology Review has an article on the subject.

I would note that the limit on crew rotation to the ISS is somewhat arbitrary, and that the crew capacity is artificially limited by lifeboat capacity. I don’t think it would be that hard to increase the life support to handle a larger crew if they could solve this problem. I personally don’t think it’s really a problem — we don’t have “lifeboats” for McMurdo in winter, and I don’t understand why we really need one at ISS, but if we do, the solution is not to evacuate the entire station and bring everyone back to earth, which is really kind of stupid if you think much about it, but it’s been the default requirement since the eighties. As I’ve noted before, the Titanic’s lifeboats weren’t designed to get people back to Southampton — they were designed to provide a safe haven until their passengers could be rescued by another ship. A much better solution is to have a coorbiting habitat (e.g., a Bigelow facility) with a true lifeboat in the form of a crew tug (I’d make the tug large and inflatable as well, to maximize utilization of the docking port, and it could serve as a temporary safe haven itself). If NASA really wanted to goose the market, they’d buy at least one of each.

Political Commentary, Space

Imagine

8 Comments

Jon Goff has a vision for space development. As noted in comments, it won’t happen until the government (or at least NASA) gets out of the transportation business, though.

Like some commenters, I wonder if it would really be practical to remediate the Van Allen belts, and if so, if there might be unintended environmental consequences.