Congress Tells NASA to Explain Itself But Passes Laws to Prevent It
Funny how members of Congress plead with NASA to do more PR but they pass laws that specifically PROHIBIT #NASA from doing advertising & PR
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) April 9, 2014
Gerst: when I get down in the dumps about budget I go talk to kids about what we are doing w/existing budget and I get re-energized.
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) April 9, 2014
Rubio: I think vast majority of Americans are unaware of this program.
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) April 9, 2014
Why is it that the National Guard and the Army can sponsor racing teams and that all military services can make commercials, but NASA is so limited in how it can promote itself? I’ve never heard an explanation that passed the sanity test.
Totally agree, I think NASA should have a prime-time STEM competition reality show where the winner gets to ride commercial crew to the ISS.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t want government agencies spending budget on self promotion and would expect the military to have a recruitment exemption. But if NASA is supposed to be doing all this educational action than it needs to be able to blow its horns too.
In contrast to the House subcommittee hearings, this Senate hearing has excellent discussion of NASA matters. I look forward to reading others thoughts on it.
I’d like to understand; is it actually documented that NASA is prohibited by law from “advertising”? I’ve heard this for many years but have never seen a reference to the law that prohibits this.
I can understand if either NASA or other parts of the government are told not to spend money on advertisements. However public service announcements are usually aired for free and I would guess that providers could get a tax deduction for its value.
I don’t know why companies like Lockheed or Boeing could not advertise what they are doing; what mission they are supporting; just as long as they do it with their own internal funds and don’t try to bill the government for it.
There ought to be creative ways, like getting marketing schools to develop marketing campaigns for spaceflight support and schools ought to be able to work out agreements with TV stations to air their public service announcements. Maybe NASA could sponsor a school competition?
It is in the NASA Act that NASA is supposed to actively educate the public about space. Gerst says he does some of that with kids. There are 60 million students out there, maybe 80 million if you include college age.
I understand the military actively recruits through advertising but NASA has no need for active recruitment. They are not hiring that many people and they have plenty of qualified people lining up for the few jobs that are open. The US military surreptitiously recruits through on-line gaming and they spend billions of dollars on it.
What is the context of Rubio’s statement? Does he mean NASA? Does he give anything to back up “I think blah blah blah…”? And does he base any further ideas on this? Just curious. Of course I don’t think that how many Americans are aware of a program need be an important determining factor in funding.
I think this blog posting’s title does not fairly address the importance of this Senate hearing.
Collectively, the four speakers expressed the total framework that if implemented by NASA, would culminate in human spaceflight to Mars, affordably and in due time but there was one glaring exception. It did not address the impact of cost to develop and maintain SLS and Orion on these long term goals to go to Mars. The reason for the omission is political. Jeff Manber of Nanoracks is attempting to develop a commercial effort and injecting his opinion into the SLS and Orion issue would be counter-productive to his private interests. Likewise, Dr. Chiao has commercial concerns to protect and his longstanding relation with NASA as an astronaut. Ms. Eisenhower did not address SLS and Orion sustainability and impact on NASA budgets because it is out of her area of expertise. And lastly Gerstenmaier and the rest of NASA administrators obviously are not in a position to act in conflict to marching orders they have from Washington. Lastly, Nelson and Rubio did not raise the question of viability of SLS and Orion during the hearing.
First, the framemwork that was effectively outlined involves more international and commercial cooperation. We cannot go to Mars alone, not like we did to the Moon with Apollo. Secondly, it involves an incremental development effort. This is the approach espoused by the Obama Administration. The House amendment to H.R. 4412 will mandate a long term roadmap from NASA to land humans on Mars; clearly this is a vehicle needed to define a framework. Gerstenmaier’s statement that the Cislunar environment is the needed testing ground is correct one; in contrast to House member interests to send SLS/Orion on a flyby to Mars. Buzz Aldrin and others support the cislunar approach. ISS has provided the total time in space to prove and refine the Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) for long duration missions and other subsystems, hardware and practices for sustaining humans on long duration missions. We do not need the Cislunar for further long duration testing but we do need it for proving other systems and techniques for sending an interplanetary spacecraft to Mars with humans. As Gerstenmaier and Bolden have both stated, cislunar provides the space environment and trajectories to test without the risks of sending astronauts on a flyby of Mars or rendezvous with a more distant near-Earth object.
I think the odd man out on this whole discussion is essentially the Asteroid Retrieval Mission. It is a good idea but will likely need to be proposed through the programs used by SMD to select missions. You cannot finance a useful mission to a retrieved asteroid in Cislunar using SLS and Orion and make it a useful stepping stone to Mars, not with the cost of SLS and Orion and the limited budget. With the funding needed for ARM, NASA R&D can more closely focus on technology development that gets us closer to the ultimate goal, Mars. ARM is proposed by NASA to serve two masters – the White House and Capitol Hill; go to an asteroid by 2025 and utilize SLS and Orion all within the present funding levels. It gives you a little of everything – some technology for Mars, some addressing of the asteroid concerns, with a take on Muhammad and the mountain addresses the White House goal. Robotic missions to asteroids beyond the present ones do need to be undertaken and B612’s Sentinel does need to be implemented.
Nelson clearly stated support for NASA’s funding request for Commercial Crew in 2015. NASA needs the funding to assure that flight commence no later than 2017 and as Nelson stated, might fly as early as 2016, given sufficient funding. Despite all the rancor Holdren and Bolden faced in the House subcommittees, I think Commercial will be fully funded this year. Also, it is an unfortunate and unwanted conflict with Russia but it appears that it will escalate in the next few days and this will raise the urgency to end the dependency on Soyuz flights. However, after hearing the arguments laid out by Ms. Eisenhower and Dr. Chiao, I must agree that the restrictions placed on NASA need to be pulled back. The White House can save face by taking strong measures elsewhere against Russia but at the same moment, hand back to NASA it’s ties with the Russian programs and companies (a fig leaf of sorts). NASA will again stand as a valuable tool of détente.
Nanoracks’ Director, Mr. Manber stated how he expressed optimism based on the stable space policy coming from Washington. I would mostly differ with that statement but I think he was mostly referring to the extension of ISS to 2024 which provides Nanoracks that chance to compete with China for space station based commercial payloads.
Lastly, it is clear that NASA’s budget will remain fixed at about $18 Billion through the remaining decade. NASA, the White House and most commercial entities are unwilling to voice their objections or issues with SLS and Orion programs. SLS and Orion are defended by House republicans with self-interests irrespective of the damage done to the NASA budget now and for the next ten years. At some point in the next ten years, the issue will be addressed. SLS and Orion are not cost effective and with the fixed budget, will deny NASA the chance to execute the Mars roadmap economically and in a timely order.
Thanks for this rundown, as I could not view the hearing myself.
I’d agree with Rubio’s statement that the vast majority of Americans are unaware of this program. In recent months I’ve run into two teachers teaching about space flight. Once said she thought the Shuttle went to the moon regularly. The other was convinced people had been to Mars and that was who was sending the pictures back.
We used to watch space missions on TV and read about them in Life, Time, Newsweek. This week I was reading a book out in the last year: Time: New Frontiers, Space, and there is no mention of ISS.
“The codfish lays ten thousand eggs,
The homely hen lays one.
The codfish never cackles
To tell you what she’s done—
And so we scorn the codfish
While the humble hen we prize.
It only goes to show you
That it pays to advertise”
Keep cackling, Nasawatch
Are we talking about HR4412? I read through fast and could not find the offending sections.
G