Senate Action on NASA Funding for 2013
Senate funding measure gives NASA $2.1B for SLS for rest of 2013 (updated), Huntsvile Times
“A bipartisan Senate Appropriations Committee budget for the rest of fiscal year 2013 continues strong funding for NASA’s Space Launch System and calls on the agency to speed up its construction. The measure released by committee leadership Monday night gives the overall SLS program $2.1 billion for the rest of the fiscal year, including $260 million for ground-related launch support construction, and also provides $515 million for NASA’s commercial crew program.”
Explanatory Statement for the Senate Substitute Continuing Resolution (NASA Excerpts)
“This Act includes $17,862,000,000 for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). A table of specific funding allocations for NASA is delineated below, and additional detail may be found under the relevant account headings.”
continues strong funding for NASA’s Space Launch System and calls on the agency to speed up its construction.
Translation: “Don’t worry Huntsville. The space pork is on its way to you. We’re not going to listen to all those mean people who want to cancel SLS.”
It would be interesting to know if anyone at NASA could keep a straight face when they read the urging to ‘speed up’ SLS.
It would be interesting to know if anyone at NASA could keep a straight face when they read the urging to ‘speed up’ SLS.
They probably will keep a straight face all the way to the bank.
Where’s the Administration in all this? Congress has created Constellation 2.0 and gutted Commercial Crew, completely against the WH wishes. Is the President just going to accept this?
Well, probably yes, since space policy has zero priority in this Administration.
Is the President just going to accept this?
What is he supposed to do?
The Congress controls NASA’s purse strings. That’s how SLS came into being against NASA’s wishes and recommendation.
The president has a lot of power he can choose to use. He can trade favors, and nobody has more to trade than the president.
Congress controls the purse strings and, as a result, the policy. The administration tried to set the policy to buy commercial rides to LEO and let NASA develop technology to get us to BEO. But Congress quashed that and defined the SLS/MPCV programs in an appropriations bill and defunded the administration’s proposal for commercial space by 50%. NASA is no longer capable of design and development of large crewed space flight systems even if we were given the time and money. We’ve already spent 8 years and $10 billion on a capsule that hasn’t even gotten out of the design phase.
“Congress controls the purse strings and, as a result, the policy.”
That’s not exactly true. Congress and the president together control the purse strings. No spending bill can go into effect unless it is either signed by the president or his veto is overridden by super majorities in both houses of Congress, which is very, very difficult. So Congress and the president have to compromise.
They compromise not just on NASA spending, but many other spending bills and non-spending bills. It’s the nature of compromise that each side has to give up some things to get other things. If the president was willing to give up enough in other areas, he could easily get SLS killed and NASA’s budget doubled. It’s just a question of whether the president is willing to pay the price by giving up so much else that is important to him, which is what it would cost to do that.
So, while the president might want what we want for NASA, he doesn’t want it enough to pay the political cost to get it.
“and calls on the agency to speed up its construction.“
This is the sort of statement that scares me the most. It shows that they are not only completely clued out about the processes involved, but they also still believe that they can mandate even more impossibilities on top of those they have already saddled NASA with. Anybody with the least experience in these matters knows that you can’t speed up the program by throwing money at it (especially when it’s only chicken feed). All you can accomplish is to increase the risk of mistakes and the risks to lives. Far from new tricks, it seems you can’t teach this bunch of old dogs anything at all.
Don’t worry, nobody in Congress really wants to speed up SLS or believes it will happen. They just want to throw money at SLS and using the phrase “speed up” is a good excuse for throwing money.
“Pi = 3.000. Really, we voted on it.”
Oh, Okay then. Anything in the name of porkgress.
inches
The verbage stated they wanted to accelerate the 130-ton version following the 70-ton initial configuration. It’s not like they expect the 2017 launch date for the 70-ton version to be accelerated. Of course, accelerating the 130-ton version is just as ridiculous. Not even sure when the 130-ton configuration is supposed to fly. The first two test flights of the 70-ton SLS are supposed to occur in 2017 and 2021.
“Cancel the SLS and redefine the MPCV into the nautilus-x .
We need fuel depots and a fleet, not pork rockets.”
Something like this would make a lot more sense, but it presupposes that NASA has a plan for what it wants to accomplish, and as near as we all can tell NASA has no plan. That would necessitate leadership to decide on a strategy and goals.
NASA has learned that there’s little point in their making any plans. All they can do is wait for the next senseless mandate from the know-nots in Congress.
Folks:
The head line should read:
“Senate funding measure gives NASA contractors $2.1B for a launch system they don’t need or want!”
tinker
“don’t need or want” — and will probably never work anyhow.”
Want to save 1Billion, get rid of NASA KSC security. They could not protect a childs sand box. A bunch of losers who could not get a real job. I have seen them in action as a new employee. All they do is write tickets and the CD supports this crap.
“Huntsvile Times”
Freudian slip?