Congressional Double Header
House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Members Critical of President’s NASA Budget Proposal
“Today in a hearing of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee to review the fiscal year 2013 (FY13) budget proposal for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Members expressed several concerns to Administrator Charles Bolden over funding priorities.”
House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Committee Reviews Budget Request for NASA
“Today the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology held a hearing to review President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 (FY13) budget request the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Testifying before the Committee was the Administrator of NASA, the Honorable Charles F. Bolden.”
Hutchison spars with NASA Administrator Bolden over funding for rocket system, Dallas Morning News
“Reviewing that budget and the call that you made to me gives me great concern, and I have to question the degree of the commitment that we made,” said Hutchison, the top Republican on the Senate Commerce and Science Committee. “I was frankly floored.” Bolden said he remains “incredibly passionate” and “confident” about the program but needed to direct more funding to other programs that were less developed.”
NASA chief says computers are secure despite thefts, Orlando Sentinel
“Why is NASA is so far behind the rest of the government in securing data on personal devices?” asked U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida. Bolden had no immediate answer but said the agency was taking steps to address the encryption problem – and telling employees to be more careful. “One of the things that I’m doing is emphasizing to our employees is that they have to be vigilant. They can’t leave a laptop … on the front seat of the car. Locking the car with a NASA laptop [inside] is not sufficient security,” he said.”
Testimony by Neil deGrasse Tyson Before the Committee on Commerce Science & Transportation
“Epic space adventures plant seeds of economic growth, because doing what’s never been done before is intellectually seductive (whether deemed practical or not), and innovation follows, just as day follows night. When you innovate, you lead the world, you keep your jobs, and concerns over tariffs and trade imbalances evaporate. The call for this adventure would echo loudly across society and down the educational pipeline.”
Testimony by NASA Administrator Bolden Before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology
Testimony by NASA Administrator Bolden Before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Neil deGrasse Tyson’s testimony was simply extraordinary. When was the last time you heard a speech that deep and compelling? Notice the extent to which Tyson spoke of innovation, technological culture and mindsets and economic outcomes.
Yah, and it was wasted.
Nelson can’t even remember the acronym “SLS” and keeps saying “the big rocket”. I am sure 99% of what Tyson said went in one ear and out the other.
I like it. It reminds me of “Big Jet.”
KBH wants to strangle commercial crew to fund a big rocket that will never fly.
KBH was painful to listen to. I really don’t think she has sufficient understanding, personally or on staff, of the engineering and development process. And her bias against commercial crew seems quite obvious. Hopefully, I’m wrong about that, but given her remarks I doubt it.
Actually, it was sad to see Bolden lie for science adviser Holdren and the Obama
administration about their enthusiasm for the SLS. The current
administration does not want to develop the SLS/MPCV program! And
they’re obviously trying their best to delay and eventually kill the
SLS/MPCV program by gradually starving it to death.
No one seriously believes that the current administration is an enthusiastic supporter of the SLS/MPCV program:-)
Marcel F. Williams
Delaying it will be expensive. Right now, money is being burned in these programs at an unimaginable rate, yet that money will serve no purpose because the program has no meaningful strategic goal. The SLS/MCPV should be cancelled.
The SLS program has no meaningful strategic goal because the Obama administration doesn’t want it to have any goals!
Congress needs to admit that the most practical way to use the SLS is for establishing a lunar outpost for the exploitation of lunar water and probable carbon and nitrogen resources while also testing the human ability to deal with cosmic radiation, solar events, and a low gravity environment– which will be essential knowledge for any future manned journey to Mars.
And Congress needs to prioritize these goals in written legislation after the next election so that they can stop playing this silly and very expensive game with an administration that clearly could care less about space!
Marcel F. Williams
As constituted by Congress SLS cannot have any strategic goal whatsover – you’re in a delusion.
Anything in exploration is highly specialized for a mission – Congress forced an unspecialized BFR. Ignorance of this basic fact is simply stunning.
KBH is clueless – she thinks NASA invented Velcro. What other non-facts does she “know”?
You mean it wasn’t the Vulcans?
Hmm.
I suspect that other non-facts the senator for Texas “knows” include:
* the loud noises SpaceX makes in McGregor, Texas are not made by voters in her state.
* that Boeing and Excalibur Almaz do not have their CCP head officers in Huston, TX.
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/626…
Boeing is moving most of their CST-100 ops to Florida. Rented out one of the surplus shuttle buildings. Non-issue for her since Boeing owns half of ULA.
Excalibur Alamaz – you mean the guys who haven’t changed the info on their website from Isle of Man, with offices in Houston? The ones pushing leftover Soviet hardware. Yes, I’m sure they have contributed heavily.
This quote from her was especially painful:
“I am committed to commercial [space flight] being a part of our future but not at the expense of our vital NASA employee sector” Hutchison said to Bolden [my bold]
Tyson was great, but I don’t think the Senators were awake.
I agree OS, Tyson was great.
Sadly, Tyson’s presentation effort wound up looking like a guy
with an IQ of 150, trying to communicate deep, fundamental space, social, innovation, education, cultural and critical U.S. economic issues to a group of leaders with IQ’s of 80.
Tyson must have left the hearing shaking his head and wondering why he bothered testifying or wasting time and money to go from NYC to Washington DC. He’d have gotten a better response from 10 comatose octogenarians in a nursing home.
Notice that after Tyson’s speech, during Q&A, Nelson had a nearly rude follow-on demeanor, instantly making clear that Tyson had not only preached to the choir but had been preaching to the preachers. Hey – you just addressed the saints here man! Not just the bleacher bums! Very funny Bill. And the room peasants all chuckled. Pardon moi – but your ego is showing.
Instead of Nelson responding crisply and swiftly to the truly serious assertions Tyson set forth, Nelson immediately drifted off in to some old stories about 50th anniversaries and Glenn and Carpenter and decades gone by. Nelson then summed up his story with a declaration of “our objective is – how do we get from there to there?”
Nelsons’s objective is a “how”? Nelson’s statement was a nonsensical FAIL.
Oh and Bill, try: “here-to-there”.
Nelson should have directly responded to the key assertions and positions Tyson put forth. Nelson should have at least – clearly – recognized Tyson’s recommendation of NASA’s budget doubling, of the value of true inspiration and innovation as the catalysts that will drive U.S. economic growth and our Nation’s future prosperity.
Instead, WTF, Nelson just blibbed on about KSC and Glenn anecdotes.
Small wonder this Nation is in such deep kimchi. Egos reign. Old stories take up air time. And the simple reciprocal civil act of a Congressman responding to an individual who has testified on deep issues critical to our Nation’s future, fails.
Clearly,humor came out when Senator Boozman asked Tyson “what are your recommendations…?” One could only conclude, given Tyson’s absolutely clear assertions and recommendations, that Senator Boozman slept through or somehow missed Tyson’s
entire speech. Pathetic. Funny. Uh Booz, do you actually vote?
Tyson is a truly gutsy individual. But then gutsy is probably a criminal act when done in Rayburn. I would have paid to see Tyson request a hard-stop on the babbling and ask that the content of his key assertions be responded to clearly.
But Tyson is smart. He knew his audience has a lawyer’s mindset, a
politician’s ways and that hell would freeze over before they responded directly to the issues he presented. Which was confirmed. Just one more day we all get verification as to why this Nation is so screwed up.
The good news for Tyson is, the session was webcast and videotaped. I suspect that Tyson takes some solace in knowing that in time, those incapable of action, that impede progress, or that are simply action- impotent and are overwhelmed by the complexities of our government systems, will soon enough be dust.
Tyson’s concepts, understanding of matters and recommendations will survive the nonsense and inaction of the hearing. Tyson’s video will be viewable by future generations and leaders that will hopefully be younger, faster, brighter and more capable of responding to Tyson’s challenges and succeeding at the vision Tyson
shared with us today.
I agree with almost all of that NPNG. Nelson, et al, seemed not to know what he was talking about; or perhaps they had written Tyson off as hopelessly idealistic. Beyond that, the hearing was used, as usual, for the politicians to generate publicity and to boast. Nobody took him seriously, anyway. Must have been frustrating–Nelson frustrated me, and I wasn’t even in the room.
In a way, the hearing was a object lesson in how we came to this sad pass–the problem as outlined by Tyson. Tyson presented his proposition and the Senators provided instant proof.Other than this the real meat of the hearing was conducted by KBH over the ~$0.5 billion or so added to commercial space versus a similar amount subtracted from SLS, and I found that somewhat misguided. Programs can accelerate/decelerate or become more or less costly over time, but KBH’s understanding didn’t seem to go beyond the budget figures.
Smart isn’t valued by power. Cold war scared us to not be stupid cause we’d get burned. Now we’re not scared, so why bother with smart, stupid is “good enough”. So we get burned.
Average citizen IQ = 100. Average Gov’t Leader IQ = 110 (some would say 10). IQ required to get us out of today’s messes = 130+. End result – Fail.
Oh, they were awake. That is the scary part.
The sad part is that a significant amount of the JSC community, especially managers openly support tech downers like KBH, convicted felon Tom Delay and other enemies of technological culture just to get a few dollars their way. Yet, this is supposed to be a center at the forefront of manned spaceflight and human progress.
While many support him now, if Neil deGrasse Tyson was NASA administrator many would smear him if he doesn’t give them what they want. It was only a few years ago that Charlie Bolden was adored by the NASA community, now the smearing of him on this webpage or elsewhere is rampant. Nevermind having his hands tied by congress, the same congress KBH is a part of.
Funny how that works.
Tyson nailed in on the head on how a technological cultures and mindset has root in economic outcome. I think we’re a generation away from Americans realizing that (again).
Many at JSC are now politically radicalized, although you have to get to know them before they reveal it. They see things only in political terms and hate Obama so bitterly that anything he does is seen as masking secret and devious plans. Consequently they see commercial space as “evil” even though it would advance their claimed ideals and see Bush, KBH and Constellation as “good” even though it is expensive and government-managed. They believe Mitt or Rick will give them a blank check, despite the derision shown human spaceflight by all the GOP candidates except Gingrich who wants to replace NASA with a $1B prize.
It was particularly stunning for me to be at a function and suddenly hear some railing against the “gubmint” and Obama, where I knew the funding for what they were doing was from an Obama OSTP initiative that some of their named political cadre were attempting to kill.
The words “cutting of nose to spite face”, and “unenlightened self-interest” came to mind. Worse, I knew them before they caught this affliction … and they were better, more effective at what they did before – bitterness hasn’t improved them.
Sorry NASA workers and Taxpayers.You have no friends.Not at HQ,White House,Congress,SpaceX,Boeing,SNC,or Blue Origin.Privatizing is more important than saving money.I have takin Dragon off my desktop.I tried to stop SpaceX newsletter,but no way to do so.If I get another I will cancel then.I have got the price of some aluminum and weights of Titan 2 and I will see how much raw material costs.
There’s a concerted effort by the Congressional Delegation of Texas to squeeze Commercial Crew into a singel vendor downselect. Smith was blatant about it. “Why don’t you just select the Atlas V?” I believe what he “suggested.”
Possibly because the CCDev down select is the Falcon 9.
For NASA to select the Atlas V will leave it with 3 launch vehicles to the ISS – Atlas V, Antares and Falcon 9. Since two LV are inherited from COTS only the Atlas V can be rejected. That will in turn limit the spacecraft.
Waaaaa?
Antares is not up for crew transport. This does not compute.
Nor does the “limit the spacecraft” option.
NASA wants to buy seats on systems, not piece parts.
In the next 30 years there is plenty of time to man-rate the Antares II.
If the Atlas V is selected out it takes with it the spacecraft who specified it as their launch vehicle.
DreamChase on Falcon 9 for instance was not one of the options submitted to NASA.
The fact that the Atlas V is the launch vehicle that NASA is getting for free just means that the pressure for down selection is the politicians shooting NASA in the foot.
Antares II? Seriously, WTF? Orbital doesn’t want to get near manned spaceflight ops; too much risk/liability.
So, where will things be after SpaceX launches 4-5 flights of paying passengers and then turns to NASA and says, “wanna ride to ISS?” Will NASA still demand design changes because it’s not safe enough for their precious astronauts?
SpaceX needs to fly hardware. Period. They didn’t fly at all in 2011; the last Falcon 9 launch was back in late 2010.
You can’t talk about paying passengers when you haven’t demo’ed the ability to delivery groceries.
I believe it was an error to skip the second Dragon development flight, but the first ISS launch is on the pad now. It may fail. If it does SpaceX should analyze the failure, revise the design, assemble a new vehicle and be ready to go as soon as possible.
Orion plans a launch on Delta IV that was apparently added to the program to give the impression that it wasn’t so far behind the commercial programs.
There is no pleasing some people.
All during CxP, people were annoyed because NASA/Boeing/Lockheed/… couldn’t get hardware on the pad. They eventually got a fake rocket for $9B+. Whee.
SpaceX gets hardware on the pad. Then takes a while to get it to fly. So far, when they fly, it works. And they haven’t yet flown often. So this is bad??
You really need to go back and look at public statements and SpaceX’s launch manifest for 2011.
According to Shotwell around this time last year (Satellite 2011 conf), Falcon 9 should have flown at least 4-5 times, including a couple of commercial missions.
SpaceX hasn’t flown since December 2010.
Delays in flying COTS 2/3 due to the Progress 44 crash and burn last August provided a lot of development “bonus time” when the whole “We’ll fly by the end of the (2011) year” theme was started by both NASA and SpaceX.
NASA flight safety reviews showed SpaceX needed to do more work on their software and resolve some other issues for COTS 2/3. And it has become clear that SpaceX needed about 4 to 5 months more work than originally it estimated for COTS flight.
This is not a Bad Thing in the larger scheme of things, but SpaceX basically needs to shut the f*** up until it has flown hardware a couple more times, rather than doing hyping videos and touting Falcon Heavy.
If you can’t fly Falcon 9 at any rates, and F9 is a building block of Falcon Heavy, you don’t fly Falcon Heavy.
Contrast with Orbital’s statements and revisions on Taurus/Antares. YES, Orbital has had problems, but then again, Orbital didn’t put a bull’s eye on its back, either.
SpaceX basically needs to shut the f*** up until it has flown hardware
I would agree. But then how to you feed the fanboi’s? :snark:
I lived through the Shuttle delays in the 70’s – these are no stranger. I didn’t expect them to function to the level of an Atlas/Boeing, and they’ve certainly exceeded a Kistler – 70% completion of a LV for 10+ years was it?
Musk’s funding comes from individuals who like to hear what he trumpets. You and I aren’t his audience. All we care for is to “do what you say”.
Perhaps this is why he’s gotten more than 10x the funding of any space start-up?
So I understand both sides of this.
But that doesn’t worry me. What worries me is the danger of encouraging cult of personalities / clique’s inside engineering teams, and turning over the wrong people because you can’t transition from a sporadic performer to a relentless performer. I’m watching the turnover of good people with a cautious eye.
My read is that they have been awarding those that get ontime deliverables w/o proving them – this is a growth moment for a companies culture. Not easy.
It was sad to see Bolden lie for science adviser Holdren and the Obama administration about their enthusiasm for the SLS. The current administration does not want to develop the SLS/MPCV program! And they’re obviously trying their best to delay and eventually kill the SLS/MPCV program by gradually starving it to death.
Funding the SLS below $3 billion a year is simply shocking! Even the Constellation program was receiving more funds ($3.4 billion a year) when Obama came to office, and NASA still had the financial burden of operating the Space Shuttle program at the same time.
Hutchison and Nelson caught the Obama administration with their hands in the cookie jar attempting to take funds away from the SLS/MPCV program in order to increase Commercial Crew funding while cannibalizing NASA’s beyond LEO program.
Should the Commercial Crew program receive a lot more funding? Yes. But not at the expense of crippling NASA’s ability to move beyond Earth orbit.
But the reason that the NASA budget got cut in the first place is because the Obama administration doesn’t have any logical near term goals for NASA’s beyond LEO program. And Congress is not in the mood to support a NASA with no clear direction under this administration– especially during the country’s economic crisis!
What the Obama administration doesn’t seem to understand is that they’ve undermined funding for Commercial Crew efforts in the Congress by attempting to undermine NASA’s beyond LEO efforts. This should not be a NASA vs. Commercial Crew issue since a government manned space program and private commercial space programs are mutually beneficial to each other and to the economy!
Marcel F. Williams
More facts and less opinion, please. NASA’s budget under the Obama administration has been larger than it has ever been in history, topping $18 billion in 2010 and 2011. Now that government non-defense discretionary spending is being cut, NASA’s budget for 2013 is proposed to be back what it was at the end of the Bush administration. Constellation funding peaked in 2009 at a little over $3B and this included the CEV, CLV and GOP. The 2012 SLS budget is $1.8B, MPCV is $1B and GSDO (formerly 21CGSP) is somewhere in the neighborhood of $400M (it’s hard to tell since they receive money from more than one appropriations account). You can’t compare CxP to SLS alone, you have to add in MPCV and GSDO to compare apples to apples. So NASA is spending a couple of hundred million more now on BEO capability as it was on CxP. All of the Shuttle budget did NOT get transferred to BEO activities (nor should it have), every other line in the NASA budget went up from 2010 to 2012, including ISS (up $500M), Science (up $500M), Aeronautics (up $70M), Commercial Cargo and Crew (up $350M), and Space Technology (up $300M). We can’t afford a destination as you want it. It would take another $5B per year to develop an EDS and lander in parallel with the launch vehicle and capsule and that is not going to happen. That is not Obama’s anti-space sentiment, it’s just the reality of the times we live in. A 1% reduction in defense spending transferred to NASA would put us on the Moon in a decade, even given NASA HSF’s incompetence.
no one of consequence said – “Musk’s funding comes from individuals who like to hear what he trumpets. You and I aren’t his audience. All we care for is to “do what you say”.
Perhaps this is why he’s gotten more than 10x the funding of any space start-up?”
This is crap. People don’t write big checks to SpaceX because of the cool videos and tweets and so forth. Those checks have been written (relatively) long ago. It also isn’t clear — because SpaceX is (not yet) a public company — how much cash Musk has in the game and how much he has taken in from private investors.
SpaceX’s propaganda is far ahead of its launch reality — there’s no linkage between what is said in public today; that’s different than what was said in private as Musk was passing the hat.
If you want to talking about BUSINESS, rather than speculation, riddle me this, Batman: 1) What is SpaceX’s current burn rate (i.e., how much cash is it spending per month 2) How much cash does SpaceX have in the bank? 3) What line(s) of credit does SpaceX have to borrow against, based upon its NASA COTS and CRS contracts?
We don’t know this today. Musk has talked about an IPO in 2013. But then again, he was talking about an IPO last year in late 2012, depending upon the markets, order backlog, and some other stuff.
When SpaceX files an S-1, we’ll know more. Right now SpaceX isn’t even trading on SharesPost, so there’s not even any (inflated, second-hand) data. But I wouldn’t be surprised if 1) The company is making the rounds of private investors or working on a bridge loan until COTS starts paying and 2) Falcon Heavy first flight slips to mid-2013 or later. Cuz there ain’t no cash coming in.
SpaceX’s propaganda is far ahead of its launch reality
Absolutely. Stunningly. Shamelessly.
Anyone planning on a SpaceX IPO anytime soon is in for disappointment. I wouldn’t give you 2 cents for it happening in 5 years.
I was wrong. He actually has gotten more than 15x the amount of investment than any other such company in history.
And every one of those little announcements that wrankle … help him to get even more.
Maybe he’ll actually do something with it … all of it.
Tsk tsk.