For those of you breathlessly following the political wrangling over the debt limit/deficit reduction debate, the latest news is that Speaker John Boehner has revised his proposal to garner more Republican support and a vote will take place later today.

The Hill newspaper reports that agreement was reached this morning to add a balanced budget amendment to what the Speaker previously proposed. The House already passed the “cut-cap-balance” bill last week that included a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, but the Senate rejected it. Some Senators have indicated that they would support a stand-alone balanced budget amendment, but not one that it tied to raising the debt limit or deficit reduction.

If a balanced budget amendment were to pass the House and Senate and be signed into law, it would have to be ratified by three-quarters of the States before taking effect.

Meanwhile, whatever passes the House needs to pass the Senate and get the President’s signature. This morning the President once again spoke to the nation and called on Congress to pass something that he can sign by Tuesday. He said that the House bill does not have the support of a majority of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and whatever passes must be bipartisan. He ended by saying that he is “confident that common sense and cooler heads will prevail.”

The Juno mission to Jupiter is on schedule and on budget according to NASA Planetary Science Division Director Jim Green. The $1.107 billion probe is scheduled for launch next week.

The spacecraft, enclosed in its payload fairing, was mated with its Atlas V rocket this morning. Launch will be from SLC 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on August 5. The launch window remains open through August 26.

Reporters at NASA’s press conference today focused on why the spacecraft uses solar power instead of nuclear power. All the spacecraft that have travelled beyond the asteroid belt so far used nuclear Radioisotope Power Systems (RPSs) because the density of sunlight diminishes rapidly as one moves further from the Sun. Juno’s three solar arrays are each the length and width of a tractor trailer, said Juno project manager Jan Chodas from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Because solar energy is 25 times less at Jupiter’s distance than at Earth, they will generate only 400 watts of power – akin to four 100 watt light bulbs — despite their size.

The orbit of Juno will go between Jupiter’s radiation belts and 5,000 kilometers above the surface of the clouds. Over time the radiation will degrade solar array performance, but principal investigator Scott Bolton from the Southwest Research Institute said that the mission’s scientific investigations will be completed in one year, so it is not a mission limiting factor.

Bolton explained scientists’ fascination with Jupiter. He said that after the Sun formed, Jupiter got the rest of the “leftovers” and “we want the ingredient list” to learn the “recipe” for making planets.

What is at the center of Jupiter remains unknown. Bolton wants to know if it has a core of heavy elements or if the gas in the atmosphere just keeps getting compressed the further down one goes. The pressure at the center is thought to be 400 megabars (one bar is equivalent to the pressure on the surface of the Earth). Whatever is there is “not like what we have on Earth,” he said, which is why he does not like to use the term “rock” to describe what may be there.

Kaelyn Badura, a high school student from Deltona, FL, talked about her involvement in the project along with other high school students. They are using NASA’s Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope to make baseline observations of Jupiter. Bolton added that NASA has been working with students in this manner for some years, including for the Galileo and Cassini missions. The students get to “do science first hand,” calibrating and analyzing data taken with the radio telescope from their classrooms via the Internet. Badura said that she was learning not only about science, but how to work as part of a team. Her school has been involved since 2006.

Juno will take five years to reach Jupiter, returning to Earth’s vicinity in 2013 to get a gravity boost. It will be placed into an 11-day polar orbit around the planet – the first spacecraft to orbit the planet’s poles. Italy, Belgium, France and Denmark are participating in the project. Juno is the second of NASA’s “New Frontiers” series of competed missions. The New Horizons spacecraft enroute to Pluto was the first. Green said that NASA’s goal is to do two New Frontiers missions per decade.

NASA announced the first class of Space Technology research fellows today.

NASA’s Office of Chief Technologist chose 81 students to receive grants to pursue master’s or doctorate level studies in relevant space technology disciplines. The research will be performed at the student’s home institution, NASA centers, or non-profit U.S. research and development laboratories.

Dr. Laurie Leshin, NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration, is leaving NASA and headed to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York.

RPI made the announcement today. She will be Dean of the School of Science.

Leshin was Director of the Center for Meteorite Studies and the Dee and John Whiteman Distinguished Professor of Geological Sciences at Arizona State University before joining NASA. She was a member of the Aldridge Commission established by President George W. Bush after his announcement of the Vision for Space Exploration in January 2004. The Commission, chaired by former Secretary of the Air Force Edward “Pete” Aldridge, issued the report “A Journey to Inspire, Innovate and Discover.”

She was named Deputy Director for Science and Exploration at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 2005, and moved to headquarters early last year as Deputy Director of the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD).

NASA has indicated that with the retirement of the space shuttle, it plans to merge ESMD and the Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD).

The NASA History office announced today that it is hosting a seminar tomorrow, July 27, where John Logsdon will discuss his new book John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon.

The discussion will take place at the NASA Headquarters auditorium from noon-1:00 pm EDT. Logsdon is an authority on JFK’s decision to embark upon a Moon race with the Soviet Union. An earlier Logsdon book, Decision to Go to the Moon, studied what transpired leading up to the President’s May 25, 1961 speech to Congress in which he announced the goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth before the end of the 1960s. The new book adds the action from that day through the President’s assassination in November 1963 as he publicly fought to maintain political support for the goal while privately questioning whether it was worth the cost.

Rep. David Wu (D-OR) today announced his intention to resign from Congress.

Wu is a member of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee and its Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee.

The announcement comes after allegations that he had an unwanted sexual encounter with the teenage daughter of a donor. News reports state that he says the encounter with the 18 year old was consensual. At first he said that he would not seek reelection next year, but changed his mind and decided to resign reportedly after other members of the Oregon congressional delegation and House leaders urged him to do so.

He was first elected to the House in 1999 and was the first Chinese American to serve in that body according to his website. He was born in Taiwan and moved to the United States when he was six.

His statement said that he would resign “upon resolution of the debt-ceiling crisis.”

It may not be February 2, but it certainly feels like Groundhog Day on this hot Washington Monday morning.

For those of you following the debt limit/deficit reduction debate, there still is no deal. In fact, the Washington media are making clear that no deal is in sight just one week from the August 2 deadline for when the debt limit must be raised.

On Friday, House Speaker John Boehner walked out of the White House-led talks — though he was back again briefly on Saturday morning — and is now working on his own plan. It was supposed to have been announced yesterday afternoon, but that did not happen. Reports this morning are that he will offer a two-step approach expected to garner no Democratic votes in the House, meaning it would be dead in the Senate. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reportedly is working on a one-step plan that probably will be unpalatable to Republicans. Both call for deep spending cuts, so in terms of NASA, NOAA and DOD space programs, nothing has changed — the future will involve sharp constraints on funding.

The Boehner plan reportedly will propose a $1 trillion raise to the debt ceiling, which will take the nation through to January 2012, in exchange for $1 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years. Between now and January, a congressional commission would come up with deeper spending cuts for that 10-year period, including to entitlements, that would operate the way the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commission did where the House and Senate would have to vote up or down on its recommendations — no amendments could be offered. Then another vote on raising the debt limit would be required.

President Obama has made clear that he does not want to go through this all over again in 2012, an election year for himself, the entire House and one-third of the Senate. The likelihood for bipartisan agreement would be even less likely then. He wants a one-time raise to the debt limiit to take the country through 2013 in exchange for $4 trillion in deficit reduction through spending cuts and tax increases.

Senator Reid reportedly is coming up with such a plan that has deeper spending cuts than the Boehner plan — $2.7 trillion over 10 years — in exchange for raising the debt limit through 2013.

Meanwhile, a Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that 80 percent of Americans are “either dissatisfied or angry about the way the federal government is working.”

Stay tuned. Hopefully a compromise will be reached very soon. If not, the country will learn just exactly what does happen when the government defaults on its debt. Pundits are expecting that the financial markets around the world may make their views known beginning today.

NASA will hold a press conference to discuss the upcoming Juno mission to Jupiter next week.

The press conference will be held at Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, July 27 at 1:00 pm EDT. It will be carried on NASA TV. Juno is scheduled for launch from the adjacent Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on August 5. The launch window is open until August 26. It will reach Jupiter in July 2016 and remain in orbit for about one year and then plunge into Jupiter’s gaseous atmosphere.

Juno is the first solar powered spacecraft to travel so far from the Sun. Usually such probes require nuclear power sources because the Sun’s energy is too diffuse at that distance — 25 times less than on Earth. The solar panels thus are quite large, and the spacecraft will be in a highly elliptical orbit to avoid Jupiter’s radiation field and its shadow.

The last NASA probe to visit the Jovian system was Galileo, which studied the planet and its many moons.

Kathy Sullivan, former astronaut and current Deputy Administrator of NOAA, will testify to the Senate Appropriations Committee next week.

The committee is looking at how to mitigate the impact of severe weather events through long-term budget planning. Other witnesses are from the Small Business Administration, the Government Accountability Office, University of Illinois (a professor of atmospheric sciences), and the Reinsurance Association of America.

The hearing, “Federal Disaster Assistance Budgeting: Are We Weather-Ready?,” will be held in 138 Dirksen Senate Office Building on July 28 at 2:00 pm. Times, dates and witnesses for congressional hearings are subject to change; check the committee’s website for up to date information.