Shh! Bill Nelson Openly Champions Space Legislation Co-authored By Jim Bridenstine
Peters, Colleagues Introduce Bipartisan Bill Supporting U.S.-Israel Space Cooperation
“U.S. Senators Gary Peters (MI), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Bill Nelson (D-FL), and Cory Gardner (R-CO) today introduced bipartisan legislation to support the longstanding partnership between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Israel Space Agency (ISA). Cooperation between the two agencies has resulted in a host of beneficial achievements, including work on global positioning systems (GPS) and the Mars Curiosity Rover. … The U.S.-Israel Space Cooperation Act directs the NASA Administrator to continue working in cooperation with the ISA to further peaceful space exploration and scientific discovery while taking appropriate measures to protect U.S. intellectual property and other sensitive information. The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously approved companion legislation in December 2017.”
Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Encourage U.S. and Israeli Collaborations on Space Exploration Breakthroughs (9 Sep 2016)
“Representatives Derek Kilmer (D-WA-06) and Jim Bridenstine (R-OK-01) introduced bipartisan legislation to encourage U.S. and Israeli scientists to continue collaborating on breakthroughs in space exploration. The United States and Israel Space Cooperation Act would direct the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to work with the Israel Space Agency to identify and together pursue new potential scientific discoveries in space.”
Keith’s note: The “United States and Israel Space Cooperation Act” was originally introduced in the House as H.R. 5989 by Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA) with co-author Rep. James Bridenstine (R-OK) as the first cosponsor in 2016. It was reintroduced in 2017 by Kilmer (with Bridenstine as the first co-sponsor) as H.R.1159 – United States and Israel Space Cooperation Act. HR 1159 was passed by the house on 21 December 2017 and sent to the Senate. The Senate bill is not yet online but given the bipartisan support it is likely to be identical to the House version.
Sen. Bill Nelson has been quick to criticize Rep. Bridenstine’s choice to be NASA Administrator because Bridenstine would somehow inject politics into the way that NASA operates and that would be truly awful or something. Yet Sen. Nelson is now openly crowing about space legislation that he is co-sponsoring – legislation originally co-authored by Rep. Bridenstine. So one would conclude that Nelson likes Bridenstine’s space politics (at least in some instances). Who knows. Maybe they agree on other things too.
nothing new here … unfortunately
A single intersection of agreement (or political expediency) doesn’t provide much of a basis for judging more general agreement or disagreement, or say anything about one sponsor’s views of another competence at a non-legislative job.
And presumably, most of our Congressmembers agree with Picasso that good artists borrow, while great ones steal.
Well, maybe not Picasso: https://quoteinvestigator.c… .
They will probably agree on nearly everything on Space. He just doesn’t want a politician as administrator. I recently wrote my Sen. Nelson on CC. I said that since AMOS fairing looked ok from the explosion that Dragon, Starliner, Orion would look about the same after an in air explosion and had 10 sec to hit the abort button. I suggested that a test needed to be done on a capsule to see.(a bombing range would be needed, maybe the Army could do it). Also I suggested he trade his vote(if that is legal) for Admin. for a study and test if a safe destruct could be found for SRB where the parachutes are not melted by 4000 degree temp or hit by chunks of burning fuel. He said he will keep that in mind. I hope he does not get mad at me for telling you. No you can only write your own Senator. Generous in words as is the House Science Committee when you write.You can not write the Senate Space Committee, last time I checked. Keith, NASA gives you only 250 characters, not words to Contact NASA.
You can only write your own senator? What is CC? I wrote to Senator Proxmire (and he replied) back when writing meant mailing a letter…and I never lived in Wisconsin.
Glad to hear. I had not checked lately.
I assume CC means “carbon copy”, the somewhat archaic abbreviation for noting additional people who were sent a copy. You can, of course, send letters to any Congressman. But if you aren’t in their state or district, they (or their staff) probably won’t pay much attention to them. If you sent the message to all 535 members of Congress, odds are only three (your own Senators and Representative) would care.
I assume by CC you meant Commercial Crew. Not sure why you want to test SRB when both Commercial Crew providers uses liquid boosters, but a Dragon did survive the Falcon 9 disintegration in CRS-7, I think you can see it in one of the video frames. They tracked its telemetry until it fell into the ocean, there was a desperate attempt to trigger the parachute but it was not successful since this is a function they thought they would not need. They added this function after the accident.
Personally although I have voted for Bill Nelson since he was congressman from this district, I do not agree with him on this matter. The NASA Administrator needs first and foremost to communicate effectively and assertively with Congress, because Congress controls NASA more closely than most federal agencies, and this control tends to allocate NASA resources for political rather than technical reasons. Being an astronaut is not necessarily the best background for this. Human spaceflight is only one NASA program and needs better integration with other programs such as Earth and space observation, commercial spaceflight, and aviation rather than being sequestered by itself as a special program with purely geopolitical goals.
I wonder if that’s true. It’s the case that I see what happens with NASA, and much less with other Agencies, but I’m not sure how much fiddlin’ is done, nor do I know how to acquire this sort of qualitative data.
I do know a bt about Agriculture, where private companies like Monsanto are the ULA of Seed World, and where there’s a fair amount of intervention