UPDATE: Read the entire letter from Senator Mikulski to Senator Nelson here.

ORIGINAL STORY:

In a letter to Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), chair of the Senate Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, shared her views on the new plan for NASA unveiled in the President’sFY2011 budget request. The letter is excerpted by Space News as including the following points:

• chief among her principles is astronaut safety
• a clear destination for human space flight is needed
• international partners should be engaged to the maximum extent practicable in formulating common destinations for human and robotic spaceflight
• the space program must be balanced and science should be its driving purpose
• NASA should maximize its current and future scientific assets in low Earth orbit and beyond, including extending the life of the International Space Station which should be resupplied by commercial cargo
• NASA’s future direction must include a plan to maintain critical skills and soften job dislocations

The Space News summary says that Senator Mikulski plans to ask Administration officials the following questions:

• where is NASA planning to go, how will it get there, and what will it take?
• is the intention to “scrap everything and start over” and if so, what is the plan to mitigate job dislocations?
• how will the change protect investments in Earth and space science and aeronautics in FY2011 and the future?

Senator Nelson is Senator Mikulski’s counterpart on the subcommittee that authorizes NASA activities (the Science and Space Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee). Both are powerful voices for NASA on Capitol Hill. Senator Mikulski’s letter said that it was more important than ever for the two subcommittees to work in consultation as they consider the President’s proposal. (Not sure of the difference between an appropriation and an authorization? See our “What’s A Markup?” Fact Sheet.)

Senator Nelson is planning an authorization hearing on the NASA proposal on February 24. Senator Mikulski will hold an appropriations hearing on March 25.

Add the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) to those disagreeing with the President’s new plan for NASA. In a February 4 letter to President Obama available on the Orlando Sentinel’s website, IAM International President R. Thomas Buffenberger urged the President to reconsider outsourcing space travel to the private sector: “Thousands of high wage, high skill jobs critical to our long term economic future are at stake.” The labor union wants to “extend the space shuttle program and accelerate and modify the Ares and Orion program to meet NASA’s mission needs.”

Pulling no punches in the four page letter, Buffenberger says:

“The push to privatize space travel is similar to efforts to privatize other critical government services. These efforts are based on anti-government ideology and are promoted by companies that want to profit from government outsourcing. It defies common sense to believe that the way to save NASA money is to outsource even more when these same contractors are already frequently over budget and often involved in over-billing and even fraud.”

The NASA Advisory Council (NAC) is scheduled to hold its next meeting tomorrow and Friday and NASA has now posted the full agenda for the meeting and the names of the members of the various NAC committees. The Science Committee has several subcommittees although it is not clear if the list of subcommittee members is current.

UPDATE 2: Highlights of the conversation:

The President said that his commitment to NASA is “unwavering” and that he was excited about spending more research dollars on transformational technologies to allow space travel of longer duration that also ensures astronaut safety. The President seemed to enjoy serving as the moderator for the questions asked by students from several states that spanned the gamut from what kind of research the astronauts are conducting (answer: combustion studies, cellular studies, materials research, and butterflies) to what natural or man-made objects can be seen from space (answer: it’s a great view, especially with the new Cupola; the Grand Canyon and the lights of the world at night are especially wonderful) and whether they could observe weather phenomena like the snowstorm that hit Washington DC last week (answer: yes to weather generally). And, of course, the usual “how did you become an astronaut” and “why do we explore space” types of questions.

UPDATE: NASA just said the President was running 9 minutes late.

ORIGINAL STORY: President Obama, congressional leaders and middle school students will call the ISS and shutle astronauts at 5:15 pm EST today. The event will be carried on NASA TV.

Many op-ed pieces have been written in favor of or against NASA’s new plan. The White House and NASA have chosen to respond to the one written by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer on February 12 wherein he concluded that the President’s plan was “closing the new frontier.”

In a letter to the editor published in today’s Post, White House Science Adviser John Holdren and NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden criticize Krauthammer, calling him “badly off target.” They defend their new NASA plan as “right for the agency, for the times and for continuing U.S. leadership in space.” Holdren is scheduled to testify to the House Science and Technology Committee on February 24 about the federal R&D budget request; Bolden on February 25 on the NASA budget request. See our calendar on the right menu for details.

The House Science and Technology Committee has rescheduled the hearing with Presidential Science Adviser John Holdren that was postponed last week by the snowstorms in Washington. The new date is Wednesday, February 24. The hearing is on the federal R&D budget overall, but it would be surprising if NASA’s change of course on human space flight and request for substantially increased funding for technology development didn’t come up. The next day, the committee will hold a hearing specifically on NASA’s FY2011 budget request with NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. Check the committee’s website or our calendar on the right menu for more details.

As reported earlier, cold weather in Florida has delayed processing of the Discovery orbiter for the STS-131 mission. NASA announced today that the launch date will slip from March 18 to April 5. Only four more shuttle launches remain. All are supposed to be completed by September 30, the end of fiscal year 2010, but the NASA FY2011 budget request includes funding for three more months of shuttle operations if needed. The current schedule is:

• STS-131, Discovery, April 5, MPLM and LMC
• STS-132, Atlantis, May 14, 2010, ICC and MRM1
• STS-134, Endeavour, July 29, 2010, AMS and ELC 3
• STS-133, Discovery, Sept. 16, 2010, MPLM and ELC 4

Politifact has updated some of its ratings on whether President Obama is living up to his campaign promises about the space program. Of the 19 space program-related campaign promises it tracks on its “Obameter,” it now rates Obama as having broken one — the promise to return humans to the Moon by 2020 — and kept five others. Added to its previous ratings, the tally now stands at:

• Broken — 1
  • Support Human Mission to the Moon by 2020
• Stalled — 2
  • Seek Code of Conduct for Space-faring Nations
  • Re-establish the National Aeronautics and Space Council
• In the Works — 4
  • Speed Up Development of Next Generation Space Vehicle
  • Improve Climate Change Data Records
  • Increase Commercialization Benefits from Space Technology
  • Revise Regulations for Export of Aerospace Technology
• Kept — 12
  • Add Another Space Shuttle Flight
  • Use the Private Sector to Improve Spaceflight
  • Work With International Allies on Space Station
  • Partner to Enhance the Potential of the International Space Station
  • Use the International Space Station for Fundamental Biological and Physical Research
  • Explore Whether International Space Station Can Operate After 2016
  • Conduct Robust Research and Development on Future Space Missions
  • Increase Spending to Prepare for Longer Space Missions
  • Work Toward Deploying A Global Climate Change Research and Monitoring System
  • Enhance Earth Mapping
  • Support Commercial Access to Space
  • Establish School Programs to Highlight Space and Science Achievements

Politifact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times. Of all the Obama campaign promises it tracks, the President is rated as keeping 96, compromising on 33, breaking 15, and stalling on 84, with 273 more “in the works” and two “not yet rated.”