I think that the combination of the ethics thing and the trip to Saudi Arabia may be the last straw, even for this politically tone-deaf White House. They’ve noticed the problem over at The Corner, linking to Monday’s story at the Orlando Sentinel.

I’ve never been impressed with him, at least as administrator. He’s completely incapable of selling the new policy, or even being able to articulate it in any consistent way, and I think that he’s becoming a huge political liability for the agency. If he goes, though, it’s unlikely that he’ll be replaced before the Republicans come in next year, which will make it both interesting and difficult to find a confirmable replacement (meaning that Lori could be acting for an indefinite period).

Defending the planet is too important a job to give to NASA:

Owing to a 2008 law passed by Congress, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has until 15 October to decide which agency will be responsible for protecting the planet from an asteroid strike. Members of the task force say NASA expects to be given part or all of that responsibility. To meet it, the panel discussed the creation of a Planetary Protection Coordination Office (PPCO) within NASA, with an annual budget of $250 million–$300 million. It would detect and track asteroids — and develop a capability to deflect them.

It’s not just an issue of competence — it comes down to the appropriate role of the agency, particularly in light of the Space Act. We really need to set up a Space Guard to take care of things like this. In fact, this could be an opportunity to do so, and then expand its charter to do a lot of other things that NASA isn’t doing well, such as space rescue and infrastructure maintenance.

[Update a while later]

Via Justin Kugler in comments, here’s a link to a paper written about ten years ago discussing the Space Guard concept. This is going to be elaborated upon in the coming months, because I’ve read a currently unpublished piece that will be released soon, and I think that there will be an article in The New Atlantis about it this winter.

The Institute for Liberty, which seems to have gone on the warpath against the House NASA authorization bill, held a press conference on the Hill yesterday. Apparently, they’ve been stirring things up in Gabbie Giffords’ and Alan Grayson’s districts, with a lot of constituent letters.

“The bill is worse than a sham,” said Andrew Langer, President of IFL. “It is a travesty of incredible proportions. Despite the advice of Nobel Prize winners and Buzz Aldrin, Congressman Giffords is continuing to support worthless programs at NASA, programs that have not gotten us any closer to our goals in space, while continuing to outsource our manned space flights to Russia!”

I wonder if they’ve been coordinating with Citizens Against Government Waste?

Steny Hoyer says that the House will stay in session next week, and that it will take up the NASA authorization bill. The question is, will it be the atrocity that came out of committee, or a compromise with, or copy of the Senate bill? If it’s the former, it will remain DOA in conference, and there will be no bill. Which may be the best outcome. Keep those phone calls coming.

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.

My latest piece at AOL News, on how the House seems determined to continue to undermine the non-proliferation regime with its porkfest of a NASA appropriations bill, is up now.