MAIN ARTICLE: Space policy 101: civil space 2009
Poll Results: Yesterday's poll was pretty one sided. Most thought the "time out" was a bad policy.
Star Trek: In the News. Former Make A Wish Kid and Star Trek Producers Team up to Fundraise For the Foundation
Yesterday's Comments: "What planet are you living on? I saw therapods today that not only ran, but even flew" - Ferris Valyn
Today's Poll: Creation of a National Climate Center - Good - Bad?
SPACE POLICY 101:
The Space Policy Institute and it's Director, Dr. Scott Pace, hosted several panels on June 2nd. The subject was civil and military space issues.
Today, Dwayne Day, from the Space Review published a great article on the results of the conference. It was a couple pages long so I will only provide a couple points that stood out.
Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute, started the symposium by discussing the erosion of NASA’s budget over the years since the Vision for Space Exploration was first unveiled in January 2004. He said that the cumulative effects of cuts resulted in $11.7 billion in reductions since that time. He noted that although NASA received a substantial boost this year in the latest budget, the space agency will lose $3 billion in the out years. So for NASA, aligning its policies with a budget that is heading downward will be a major challenge.
But Pace also pointed out that the charter for the Review of US Human Space Flight Plans Committee (i.e. the Augustine Committee) allows the committee to say whether or not NASA has the money it requires to conduct the mission it has been given, and so there is the possibility that the out-year budget slump could be reversed.
I have talked about that before, the NASA budget has been flat for the last 20 years, adjusted for just inflation increases since 1980 the NASA budget would be about 34 billion a year, not the 18 billion currently.
The first speaker was Mary Kicza, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Assistant Administrator for Satellite and Information Services. NOAA is responsible for weather and water information, managing fisheries and maritime commerce—a portfolio that ranges far beyond operating satellites.
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On the subject of current policy issues, Kicza said that NOAA is involved in discussions concerning a "national climate service." She said that it is clear that no government agency can handle everything in this area and it is still unclear what the evolution of such a service will be.
That would be a great agency to create and move from NASA anything climate and move it to NOAA or to another agency more involved in the sciences. NASA should be, in my opinion, developing and engineering cutting edge tech and moving it to the commercial sector.
According to Smith, there are two steps to realigning NASA’s budget and its programs. The first step is controlling the costs of current programs. She showed a list indicating that NASA’s current budget is allocated as follows:
54% for human spaceflight
24% for space science
18% for cross-agency support
3% for aeronautics
0.6% for education
The second step, according to Smith, is determining priorities. The NRC’s "decadal surveys" determine ten-year priorities for space science disciplines and for aeronautics based upon the consensus reached by the relevant communities. Right now the NRC is undertaking decadal surveys in astronomy and astrophysics, planetary exploration, and life and microgravity sciences, and NASA is currently starting to implement the priorities established in the first Earth sciences decadal survey completed two years ago.
Good point about religning priorities. NASA is great at starting projects but every new administration sees a cut in projects before we actually get the bang for our buck.
Smith then listed several questions that she hopes the panel will address:
Why is the 2020 lunar landing date important? (i.e., why not some other date?)
Does the humans-to-Mars paradigm still resonate with the public, and will it still resonate with the public by the time we can actually conduct it?
How can NASA avoid promising more than can be delivered?
What is to be done with the International Space Station now that it is nearing completion? Shouldn’t we use it?
With regards to the last question, Smith said that when she was writing about the space station at the Congressional Research Service during the 1980s and 1990s, it was inconceivable to her that the United States would build a space station and then not actually utilize it, but that is the situation that the agency is apparently facing now. She noted that numerous scientific reviews of the station have indicated that the primary research tool required for the station to be relevant to life and microgravity science is a centrifuge, and NASA decided years ago not to build a centrifuge module.
That always amazed me, hundreds of future Principle Investigators had said a centrifuge was vital if a lot of real science wanted to be conducted on the station.
Following Bingham was Richard Obermann, the staff director of the House Committee on Science and Technology and a longtime expert on American space policy. Obermann said that although the Obama administration has taken some of its first steps in space policy, such as creating the Human Spaceflight Review and nominating a NASA administrator, there remain many areas where "we don’t know what their plans are." These include:
The priority that will be given to civil space
The future direction of the human spaceflight program
The extent to which civil space will support new foreign policy
How civil space will be organized
What to do about NPOESS
What about commercial space, including the role of the Office of Commercial Space Transportation (OCST) and the FAA
What are the multi-year plans
Obermann noted that the out-year funding profile for NASA does not include a funding wedge for the International Space Station. Considering that, as Marcia Smith said, NASA still has too much to do without sufficient funding, the agency will face "some tough decisions about what to take off the plate."
This is the first part of a two part article and I strongly recommend giving it a once over.
POLL RESULTS:
Former Make A Wish Kid and Star Trek Producers Team up to Fundraise For the Foundation
"Donating 100 percent of profits from Script A Wish in June.
Culver City, CA (Vocus) June 8, 2009 -- When Michael Ferris turned 15, he got his first kidney transplant. When he turned 17, he got his first video camera from the Make A Wish Foundation. And at 23, he helped his first screenwriter sell their script to New Line Studios.
After a few years of helping aspiring screenwriters like Christopher Waild, who now writes for the CBS show "NCIS," he started a company called Script A Wish. The sole mission was to help filmmakers get their work directly into the hands of industry players that could make their dreams a reality.
While a portion of proceeds have been going to the Make A Wish Foundation, Michael decided it wasn't enough.
"While I aspire to help as many filmmakers as I can, I wanted to take an entire month and fundraise for the people who made my own dreams a reality," Ferris said."
--end quote--
YESTERDAY'S COMMENTS:
"It's a mistake to blame the funding cut on Obama. I'll admit that space does not seem to be high on the list (the wars, repairing our image abroad, the banking crisis, the automakers, and the economy in general seem to be taking precedent).
At any rate, these were cuts made in committee. Other than using the president's bully pulpit, there is not much the president can do about this.
However, this may be a temporary thing. I would hope that 1) some of that stim money would go toward a new rocket system and 2) space funding will significantly increase when we are no longer occupying a sovereign country." - Casual Wednesday
"When the Chinese put a man in space I think it was Newsweek which said something like "Great job! For the 1960s", or something equally dismissive. It was obvious that they were just flailing around for something cynical to print. I really don't know why they felt like they had to diminish a gargantuan achievement like that.
I can only assume that Newsweek was equally dismissive when Alan B. Shepard went up. "Nice job, NASA! Got to have your own Gagarin, have you? Next time, try getting somebody to go around the planet." " - Timbuk the Second
"Re:
The article gives a run down, but the real story is in the comments section. Most people believe the big fight is just between humans versus robots for space but if you delve into those comments you will see there is a major debate going on within the human spaceflight community as well and how to proceed.
You will also see a "Obama = bad" committee out" - Ferris Valyn
TODAY'S POLL:
Read other NASA and Space diaries on DKOS.
