House Passes Bipartisan NASA Bill, House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
“The NASA Authorization Act of 2015 authorizes funding consistent with the Consolidated and Further Appropriations Act of 2015. The bill continues the consistent guidance Congress has given to NASA for nearly a decade by reaffirming a stepping stone approach to exploration.”
House Passes Bipartisan NASA Reauthorization Act, House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Democrats
“The House of Representatives today passed H.R. 810, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2015 under suspension of the rules. H.R. 810 authorizes programs and projects at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for one year and updates NASA funding to be consistent with FY 2015 enacted funding numbers. The bill is essentially identical to H.R. 4412 that passed the House overwhelmingly last year by a vote of 401-2 under suspension of the rules but no action was taken on the bill by the Senate.”

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

13 replies on “NASA Authorization Act of 2015 Passes in the House”

  2. And they still are going to back up CC with Orion in ’20 or so. I guess they expect to divert the Moon mission to ISS if SpaceX and Boeing can’t make it. NASA instead of making a simple back up with Dragon 1, buys more Soyuz seats for backup in ’18. And yes I think COTS-D would be flying now if Congress had funded it. I doubt Obama would have vetoed the whole bill, because it was funded. 300 million$. What a bargain. Fund it now Congress. SpaceX can do both. I still think that SpaceX should modify Dragon 1 as a hedge that something will be wrong with Dragon 2. As someone else said those Draco 2 firing within inches of human ears might be a stopper. This is radical. A lot of computer control. Insulation will work. I am sure. Same with my trunk rocket pack. A tower moves the sound away. Apollo used a simple sequencer. Had a main rocket and a side rocket. This is all memory. The tower weighed 6000lbs. Carbon fiber could lower that weight. Elon gave the reasons why his system is better, reusable, powered landings, tower not reusable, have to eject it. He did not say what good points towers have. Sound control, NASA has always used it. When it is discarded, there will be a performance increase because of the lost weight. Might be able to use the abort motor to help pull the 2nd stage along. Performance should not be affected. With 4 or so standard 200lb. = 800lb. + 6000lb. for tower. Since Dragon carried 5000lb. and is space limited and was at one time said to able to carry 12,000lb total, I think F-9 can handle the weight. A new capsule and trunk is used each time, so a simple steel tube with fuel(rocket motor) should not cost much more. SpaceX with all the investment money they got could do this on their on. They said Dragonlab could be tended and there is Bigelow needing transport. Use used Dragons for abort testing and orbital test.
    I assume Elon knows about abort towers, he just does not mention them. Looks like not much interesting until the Dragon pad abort. I thought I would get an early start. SpaceX has always said Dragon 1 could be converted to crew, they have already tested portholes in the first ones. Come on SpaceX. 2 is better than 1. I think I will not check for replies. I am sure someone will point out my errors and I am all wrong on this.

    1. the Cargo Dragon isn’t designed to carry people. simple as that. it’s not able to be a Crew backup.

    2. Yes – right now the back up to CC is Orion. Orion is the long pole in the tent right now. If you want to believe the SLS kool-aide kids they say the rocket will be ready by 2018 but Orion… not so much.

      I am honestly looking forward to the first SLS launch. I will be there (God willing and I am still a carbon life form). I will make a vacay out of it. ATK is doing great work with the SRMs and Boeing is finally starting to do something in Michoud.

      1. Totally incorrect. Orion can never act as backup for crew to ISS. When is SLS supposed to fly it’s first crewed mission? Yes that’s why.
        The CC backup is having 2 independent crew vehicles and 2 independent launch vehicles.
        Orion and SLS will more than likely never fly an operational mission. Certainly nothing is funded. When that happens then we’ll finally see what Congress has in mind but until then?
        Cheers

  3. The main thrust of HSF in this bill is putting people on the surface of Mars. A Mars flyby and ARM are listed, but only in terms of reports that need to be given to Congress to justify their existence. No specific timetables are given, but NASA is directed to come up with a step by step roadmap, so it’s a start.

    1. Nothing’s funded. Therefore Congress is not interested in any missions, period. Both SLS and Orion are make-work jobs plans and they’re great for that. Flying real hardware and missions, well not so much.
      Cheers

      1. No, nothing is funded, but the words are there, which is better than no words and no funding. It just takes an administration friendlier to space to ask for funding. Yes, the next administration could be worse in terms of the space program, but I refuse to give up hope on bold and robust HSF missions. Just note that hope does not equate to waiting with bated breath.

  4. The commercial crew requirement in the bill is to create four implementation strategies: assuming funding levels of $600M, $700M, $800M, for each of 3 years (best case = $2.4B which is way below having Boeing flying and not even close to Boeing and SpaceX) and “a strategy that has yet to be considered previously in any budget submission but that
    the Administration believes could ensure the flight readiness date of 2017 for
    at least one provider”
    What does the last option mean? Is that an implementation strategy based on how it was awarded with a poke at NASA to say Congress has never yet considered this level of funding?
    Is it more than a poke and says Congress only cares about getting one funded and that is all they are likely to fund.
    With $805M in the budget for commercial crew it sure doesn’t seem like the House plans on funding the commercial crew strategy that NASA just awarded.
    Am I interpreting that correctly?
    Is it likely that NASA’s strategy to “force” funding for commercial crew by awarding contracts beyond the planned funding level will work? Is this a strategy that federal agencies use successfully or is this a new one?

    1. I think you’re interpreting that correctly. In fact, they seem to want to fund Commercial Crew at a level which would result in the program’s likely failure. All the US has ever *needed* for crewed access to ISS was a simple
      “taxi” that could remain docked to ISS for the length of a typical six
      month ISS mission. Denying the program the funding needed to be successful is mind-bogglingly stupid (in my opinion).

      Congress seems far more concerned about pork spending on SLS/Orion than with stopping cash payments to Russia for rides on Soyuz. This political stance being taken by Congress is very bad for US competitiveness in manned space travel. Failure of Commercial Crew would assure that SLS/Orion would become the
      US manned space architecture for the rest of the century, which seems to
      be the intent based on language elsewhere in the bill.

      1. Spacex needs to fly humans on a cargo/crew dragon V1/2 in 2016 Just do a feww orbits with only commercial crew on board and land safely. Cargo dragon is safer vehicle than anything NASA pubic space has ever flown.

        When is ISS scheduled to put on that new docking adaptor??? What’s wrong with the one the Russians been docking with???

        Hurry congress send Putin more money for rocket engines and rides to space! To Russia with love. http://spaceksc.blogspot.co…

        Pole says the people don’t want the government spending billions to put people in space.
        http://spaceksc.blogspot.co…
        The SLS porker theater will be the death of NASA if they don’t get rid of it!

        1. Shuttle used APAS-89 for every single Shuttle-Mir and Shuttle-ISS docking.

          NASA apparently wants the perfect docking and/or berthing system for every situation. Someone should have put their foot down and said “perfect is the enemy of good enough, so keep using APAS-89”. But, that clearly didn’t happen.

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