NASA announced yesterday that it will host a workshop in Washington, DC next week to “identify objectives for exploration missions to near-Earth objects.” The workshop is August 10-11 at the Renaissance Mayflower hotel.
The following events may be of interest in the coming week. For more information, see our calendar on the right menu or click the links below. Congressional hearings are subject to change; check the committee’s website for up to date information.
The House is in recess for the next 6 weeks, returning on September 14. The Senate is in session this week, and then will have its own 5 week recess.
Note: In the listings below, NAC is the NASA Advisory Council.
Tuesday, August 3
Tuesday – Wednesday, August 3-4
Wednesday-Thursday, August 4-5
Thursday-Friday, August 5-6
NASA will hold a press conference tomorrow, August 2, at 4:00 pm EDT from Johnson Space Center to discuss plans for two spacewalks to fix a cooling pump that failed on Saturday. A circuit breaker tripped Saturday night resulting in “the failure of the Pump Module for [cooling] loop A that feeds ammonia to maintain the proper cooling for systems and avionics,” according to NASA’s ISS website. NASA says the crew is not in danger and the ISS is in a “stable configuration.”
Astronauts Doug Wheelock and Tracy Caldwell Dyson were already preparing for a spacewalk on Thursday. Their task will now change to replace the failed pump, which is on the exterior of the station — on the S1 truss. Two spare pumps are stowed on the truss.
Correction: An earlier posting of this article misspelled astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson’s name.
The Astro2010 astronomy and astrophysics Decadal Survey will be released on August 13, 2010 according to the National Research Council (NRC). Astro2010 is a joint effort of the NRC’s Board on Physics and Astronomy and Space Studies Board. It prioritizes ground- and space-based astronomy and astrophysics missions for the next 10 years.
The urgent need for the Department of Energy (DOE) to restart production of plutonium-238 (Pu-238) to fuel some of NASA’s planetary spacecraft missions was detailed in a 2009 report from the National Research Council. Congress, however, remains unconvinced, at least as to why DOE should pay for it.
Under the Atomic Energy Act, DOE is responsible for the nation’s nuclear materials and facilities, so last year the full request of $30 million to restart Pu-238 production was included in the DOE budget request. Congress declined to provide the funding because the Administration had not demonstrated why DOE should pay for it instead of NASA.
For the FY2011 request, the Administration split the costs between the two agencies, but the Senate Appropriations Committee still is not convinced as to why DOE should have to pay any of the costs. In its report on the FY2011 Energy-Water appropriations bill (S. 3635, S. Rept. 111-228, pp. 92-93), the committee says the following:
“The Committee understands that the United States no longer has the capability to produce plutonium-238, which is a critical source of power for NASA space missions, and that a shortage of this radioisotope may affect future NASA missions. However, Pu-238 is not needed for any DOE or [National Nuclear Security Administration] missions, including national security applications. As NASA will be the only user of Pu-238, the Committee believes NASA should pay for the entire service through a similar work for others arrangement that DOE has with the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies.”
The NASA funding appears to be intact in the Senate committee’s Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) appropriations bill (H.R. 3636, S. Rept. 111-229). The House Appropriations Energy-Water subcommittee and CJS subcommittee have marked up their versions of the bill, but they have not cleared full committee and the details are not known yet.
In case you missed it, here’s a link to the funny and delightful interview of Elon Musk by comedian Stephen Colbert.
Congress passed the FY2010 supplemental appropriations bill (H.R. 4899) and sent it to the President yesterday. The final version is the same as that which passed the Senate on May 27 according to documents posted on the House Appropriations Committee’s website. That version includes further direction to NASA to continue the Constellation program in FY2010.
The primary purpose of the bill is to fund war operations. Secretary of Defense Gates has been anxious that Congress complete action on the bill, but passage was slowed by debate over whether it should fund other “emergencies” such as keeping teachers employed. The House added such funding, but the Senate rejected it. House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey (D-WI) cast a “no” vote saying he believed the bill would serve only as a “recruiting incentive for those who most want to do us ill” and called it a bill that is “a good indication of the tensions and false choices that we face,” funding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq while neglecting domestic emergencies in education and border security.
As passed, the bill includes the Senate-added language that reinforces direction in the FY2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act that NASA must continue to fund the Constellation program until directed to do otherwise in a subsequent appropriations act. The new language states that funds that were provided by Congress for Constellation in FY2010 and prior years remain available to be spent on Constellation, and Constellation contracts “may not be terminated for convenience” by NASA in FY2010.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), ranking member of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, argued passionately today that the United States must be the world’s leader in space and not cooperate with China. His remarks were made at a luncheon sponsored by the Space Transportation Association.
“I oppose cooperation with China, ” he said, citing numerous reasons such as its imprisonment of Catholic and Protestant leaders, its actions in Tibet, and its espionage in the United States. Conceding that “I may be a minority in my own party” in his convictions about China, he urged the audience to “see what they’re doing.” He criticized President Obama’s NASA proposal because he believes it would cede space leadership to China or Russia. Though he declined to state specifically whether he favored the House Science and Technology Committee’s alternative to the Obama plan versus the one in the Senate, or predict how it will all turn out, he called on companies represented at the luncheon to “make the case” for the bipartisan effort put into crafting a compromise to ensure that “America is number one” in space.
Noting that apart from Orbital Sciences Corp, he does not have much space business in his district, he emphasized that his interest in preserving U.S. leadership in space is based on his concern about the loss of U.S. leadership in other areas such as manufacturing. “My interest is less in losing something in my district than my country,” he said.
His frustration with NASA’s unwillingness to answer questions and “backtracking on commercial rockets” was starkly evident, but he said that NASA Administrator Bolden was not to blame.
Predicting that the Republicans will take control of the House in the November elections, he warned against using a lame duck Congress to pass any important legislation since non-returning Members would be focused on finding new jobs rather than national issues. Consequently, most agencies, including NASA, are likely to be funded under a Continuing Resolution (CR) at least until the next Congress convenes in January.
Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX), ranking member of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee, was in the audience and said that the House version of the NASA authorization bill will not come to the House floor this week as hoped. House S&T committee chair Bart Gordon (D-TN) said at the markup last week that they would try to get it to the floor before the House leaves for the August recess on Friday. The House will not return until September 13, an unusually long August recess.
Keith Cowing at NASAWatch reports that Klaus Heiss has passed away. Dr. Heiss was an eminent space economist. Though his economic analyses were sometimes the subject of spirited debate, no one could question his enthusiasm for space exploration and conviction of its economic potential.
National Public Radio (NPR) ran an interesting piece on July 24 about the space shuttle program as it closes in on its last flights.