Category: Civil

Space Policy Events for the Week of October 13-19, 2013

Space Policy Events for the Week of October 13-19, 2013

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 13, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 13, 2013 4:26 pm ET

With the government shutdown still in place, it is difficult to know precisely what space policy events will take place in the coming week, but here is what we know right now.  The House and Senate will be in session trying to find a solution to the situation.

During the Week

As the partial government shutdown enters its third week and the deadline for exceeding the $16.7 trillion debt limit nears — Thursday is the day according to current estimates — the good news is that the rhetoric in Washington has cooled even if there is no deal yet.  

Here’s the state of play as of Sunday afternoon as best as we can tell from a wide variety of news reports.  

Despite hopeful signs on Thursday after a meeting with a small group of House Republicans, the President rejected the proposal they ultimately sent him because they were not willing to negotiate over raising revenues (taxes), only on spending cuts and entitlement reform.  For the past three years, President Obama has consistently insisted that any discussions of reducing the deficit include both spending cuts and revenue increases.  Republicans just as consistently insist that they will not agree to any revenue increases.

The President met with Senate Republicans on Friday, and with the House Republican proposal off the table, attention has shifted to the Senate.   A proposal developed under the leadership of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) looked promising, but Senate Democratic leaders rejected it yesterday, the same day that Republicans defeated a Democratic proposal to extend the debt limit.   The debt limit does not permit additional spending; it allows the government to borrow money to pay bills it already owes.

The Democratic proposal, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), would have raised the debt limit by $1 trillion until December 31, 2014, past next year’s mid-term congressional elections.  It did not address the issue of reopening the government.   A motion to bring to the bill to the floor was rejected on a party line vote 53-45; 60 yes votes were needed.

The Republican proposal did not even get that far before being rejected by Senate Democratic leaders.  Collins put forward a draft plan that included funding the government for six months and raising the debt limit until January 31.  However, the six months of government funding would have been at a lower spending level than Democrats want.   The three important numbers are:  $967 billion, how much money the government could spend in FY2014 under the sequester; $986 billion, the amount of money the government could spend in FY2013 under the sequester and, under a typical Continuing Resolution (CR), would be the level at which spending continues until FY2014 appropriations bills are passed; and $1.058 trillion, the funding level approved by the Senate in its Budget Resolution this spring that does not take account of the sequester, which Democrats want to replace with another means of deficit reduction.   The Collins proposal was for six months of spending apparently at the $967 billion level, not the current $986 billion level, and Senate Democrats were willing to settle only for the $986 billion figure and for a shorter time period.   

The Collins proposal also would have delayed a medical device tax that is part of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) for two years and required income verification to qualify for subsidies under that Act, as well as given agencies more flexibility in applying sequester-related funding cuts and set up a conference committee to work out a long term plan.  It was the spending level, however, that reportedly torpedoed the proposal.  There was no guarantee that House Republicans would agree with the Collins’ plan either, but for a few days it did look like the Senate might reach some sort of consensus with that as its core.  Collins told CNN this morning that she remains optimistic that the situation will be resolved this week and some parts of her plan will be included.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew says that the debt limit will be reached Thursday and must be raised or suspended by then or the government will default on its debts.   House Speaker John Boehner said a week ago that he would not allow the government to default, so perhaps that deadline will force consensus, but it is far from certain.  The Senate remains in session today; the House returns tomorrow.

Sunday-Saturday, October 13-19

Monday-Thursday, October 14-17

Tuesday, October 15

Wednesday-Thursday, October 16-17

Last Updated: Oct 13, 2013 4:26 pm ET
Space-Based 3D Printing Tweaks ASEB's Interest

Space-Based 3D Printing Tweaks ASEB's Interest

By Raymon Furth | Posted: October 13, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: July 27, 2017 12:34 pm ET

Space-based additive manufacturing – better known as 3D printing – was one of many technologies discussed at Friday’s meeting of the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB).  Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) technologies and solar electric propulsion were also on the agenda.

Additive manufacturing is a process where a product is built by assembling material, usually layer upon layer, from a 3D digital design.  Bhavya Lal of the Science and Technology Policy Institute presented an update to ASEB of an ongoing NRC study on space-based additive manufacturing of space hardware. Although it has gained headlines recently, additive manufacturing dates back to the 1980s when it was developed by industry and academia with the support of several federal agencies including the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

In response to a question, Lal expressed her personal observations that NASA and the Air Force are showing interest in the technology, but are operating on different timescales.  She explained that, at the moment, NASA appears to have a short term vision of the technology.  It is cooperating with the company Made in Space Inc. to launch an additive manufacturing system to the International Space Station (ISS) next year to assess its capabilities to print tools and spare parts.  The Air Force, however, has a more long term vision — to print a small spacecraft several decades from now. The NRC study, which is expected to be released in the early summer of 2014, will assess the current state of the technology and focus on the feasibility of space-based additive manufacturing and its possible implications 20 to 40 years from now.

Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) technologies for landing a spacecraft on a planetary surface were the next topic at the ASEB meeting.  Jim Masciarelli of Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and Suraj Rawal of Lockheed Martin Space Systems explained that these technologies are used for a spacecraft entering the atmosphere of a planetary body at hypersonic velocities, descending and decelerating below supersonic velocities in the atmosphere, and landing on the surface. Each of these steps usually requires different technologies. The successful Curiosity rover’s landing on Mars used a rigid-body aeroshell to enter the atmosphere, supersonic parachutes to slow down, and a sky crane to lower the rover onto the surface. These technologies are limited to payload masses around one ton, while future payloads for a human expedition to the surface of Mars are likely to be about 40 tons.   Masciarelli told the ASEB that a deployable aeroshell with a large surface area may be a key technology for larger payloads as well as for slowing smaller vehicles through the supersonic stage of EDL. Rawal spoke on aerobraking, where a rigid-body aeroshell system skims the atmosphere on multiple passes to slow the vehicle down enough for landing.

ASEB also received an update from Alex Galimore, University of Michigan, and Roger Myers, Aerojet Rocketdyne, on solar-electric propulsion (SEP).  SEP is receiving increased attention as a technological centerpiece of NASA’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM).  SEP offers an advantage over chemical rockets by using its propellant mass more efficiently.  Propellant used in SEP is accelerated to more than five times the velocity of rocket propellant.  The drawback is that the amount of propellant mass being expelled by SEP at any given second is much smaller than in chemical propulsion systems.  This then requires more time to accelerate the spacecraft to the velocities needed for its mission. The advantage of using propellant more efficiently is that SEP systems can be less massive and have a smaller volume than chemical propulsion systems. Current challenges for producing more powerful SEP systems include lifetime testing, solar array technologies, power electronics, and thermal control. Gallimore mentioned that academic research in this field tends to be thruster specific, while Myers recommended that future research focus on electric propulsion’s power electronics and solar arrays.

Last Updated: Jul 27, 2017 12:34 pm ET
Nelson Tells Blakey: "Put a Fire Under Your Executives"

Nelson Tells Blakey: "Put a Fire Under Your Executives"

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 12, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 12, 2013 6:35 pm ET

A Senate hearing yesterday on the economic impacts of the government shutdown was mostly partisan politics, but Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) used it as an opportunity to criticize the aerospace industry for not working harder to convince the House Republican leadership to end the stalemate.

The hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee provided a public platform for Democratic Senators to criticize Republicans (mostly House Republicans) for the situation, and for Republican Senators to either agree that it is a dismal state of affairs requiring negotiations or to defend recent House actions to pass piecemeal funding bills for specific parts of the government that the Senate should take up.

Marion Blakey, President of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), and Alan Leshner, Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), were among the witnesses.  Their prepared statements addressed the impacts of the shutdown on NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other government scientific research activities.   The ensuing discussion barely touched on those topics, however, with more attention paid to issues covered by other witnesses, such as the impact on the National Transportation Safety Board, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and commercial fishing.

The most significant space-related discussion was between Nelson and Blakey.  Nelson told Blakey that he had talked with “your CEOs” and asked if they had “talked to the members of Congress who are causing the shutdown” and “they haven’t.”  Blakey replied that she as well as a delegation of small businesses have been meeting with members in both the House and Senate about the impact and while she could not speak for the executives of all the AIA members, “they are spending a great deal of time making certain that people understand that there are both commercial effects … [and] competitiveness issues.”  She then added that she had been invited to the White House for a meeting that afternoon about the impact.

Nelson was not assuaged.   “You do not have to convince the White House,” he admonished her, adding that he had met “with two of your CEOs last week” and “they were not ready to step up and go talk to the [House] leadership” about the shutdown, but would if a debt default appeared likely.  “Well, default is in another half a week,” Nelson declared.  “It’s been a week and a half that we’ve been in shutdown.  So I would implore you all to activate your people.  Now where — where are the people that are so affected at the Johnson Space Center in Houston?  Where are they going to the congressional delegation and talking to them?  And I could go through the NASA centers.  … But you need to put a fire under your executives.”

Nelson’s decision to single out Johnson Space Center (JSC) probably is because it is represented by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), one of the two Republican Senators viewed as initiating the series of events that led to the shutdown.  (Senator Mike Lee of Utah is the other.)  Nelson presumably was urging executives of companies that do business with JSC, rather than furloughed NASA workers, to talk to their congressional delegations.   His main argument was that the aerospace industry is not doing enough to lobby Congress to resolve the impasse.

The majority of other questions directed to Blakey were about aviation, though a few other issues, such as launching commercial satellites and the impact on NOAA’s weather satellites, were raised.  Blakey addressed a broad range of civil space issues in her written statement.  Regarding NASA, she stated that industry’s work on the Space Launch System, Orion, and the James Webb Space Telescope “has been largely unaffected” because of “smart planning by industry and NASA,” but there are concerns about the commercial crew program.  She warned that because NASA facilities are closed, support contractors are not able to do their jobs.  Some employees of larger companies are being forced to take unplanned vacations, she explained, while smaller businesses are keeping their workforces together at their own risk.  She also noted that the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation is partially shut down, which could lead to delays in issuing launch licenses.  Though not related to the shutdown, she also used her statement to argue for extending third party indemnification for commercial space launch companies, which expires at the end of the year. 

Leshner was asked about the impact of the shutdown on young scientists and on the U.S. scientific enterprise overall.  He stressed that to keep young scientists in the field they need to have some degree of certainty about getting grants and that there will be continuity for long-term studies:  “for a young person to think that their career will be stop-start-stop-start will make it extremely difficult to see real accomplishment over time because science has to be continuous.  We have to be continually working on whatever the problem is or we lose it.”   He added that time-series studies are totally dependent on continuity and if the study is interrupted “you might as well not have done the earlier part.”  His message was that the country’s “beleaguered” scientific enterprise is already under a great deal of stress and vulnerable to losing its competitive edge globally, and the government shutdown is compounding those problems.  In his written statement, he noted the impact on scientific research at several agencies, including NASA, such as the grounding of the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) and the loss of data from ground-based astronomical observations at NSF’s Very Long Baseline Array, which is shut down.

The prepared statements of all the witnesses and a webcast of the hearing on available on the committee’s website.

 

Last Updated: Oct 12, 2013 6:35 pm ET
Government Shutdown FY2014: Day 11 – No Deal, but Softer Rhetoric

Government Shutdown FY2014: Day 11 – No Deal, but Softer Rhetoric

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 11, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 12, 2013 7:05 pm ET

As the partial government shutdown ends its eleventh day, there still is no deal to either reopen the government or raise the debt limit.   All sides, however, are using their public words to convey that they are working together to find a solution, even if currently there are several conflicting proposals out there.

President Obama met with Senate Republicans today, completing a set of meetings over the past three days with, separately, House Democrats, House Republicans (though only a small hand-picked group participated), Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans.  

Yesterday, House Republicans proposed raising the debt limit for 6 weeks (until November 22) with no deal on reopening government.   Today, they revised their proposal to add a two-track approach to dealing with the other issues:  parallel negotiations where one track would focus on FY2014 spending and the other on broader budget issues including entitlement reform, tax reform, and spending cuts.   President Obama reportedly spoke with House Speaker Boehner late this afternoon and indicated that he would not agree to the revised proposal because he also wants revenue increases to be part of the discussions.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats reject the idea of a 6-week debt limit increase because they do not want to end up having this same debate next month.  They are working on a proposal that may be voted on tomorrow to raise the debt limit by $1 trillion through December 2014, past next year’s congressional elections.  It also would not reopen government.  Senate Republicans, led by Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), are crafting a proposal to reopen the government for 6 or 12 months, raise the debt ceiling, and repeal or delay a tax of medical devices that is part of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).  The medical device tax is widely unpopular in both parties and the President reportedly agreed today that it is not a core element of that law.

All parties plan to work through the weekend.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee held a hearing today on the economic impact of the shutdown.   Marion Blakey, President of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), and Alan Leshner, Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), were two of the witnesses.   Not surprisingly, they tesified that the shutdown is having widespread, negative impacts on aerospace and scientific research.  

SpacePolicyOnline.com has published a summary of the hearing.

Note:  This article was updated on October 12, 2013 adding a link to SpacePolicyOnline.com’s summary of the October 11 hearing.

Last Updated: Oct 12, 2013 7:05 pm ET
Government Shutdown FY2014: Day 10 — Debt Limit Trumps Shutdown as Most Critical Issue

Government Shutdown FY2014: Day 10 — Debt Limit Trumps Shutdown as Most Critical Issue

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 10, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 10, 2013 2:28 pm ET

On this tenth day of the partial government shutdown, the possibility that the government may be forced to default on its debt next week has taken center stage instead.   House Republicans are proposing a temporary agreement to raise the debt limit.  It would not end the government shutdown and would last for only 6 weeks.  Early indications are that as long as the bill avoids partisan policy issues, the President likely would sign it even though it would do nothing to reopen the government.

President Obama met with all House Democrats yesterday and is meeting with House Republicans today, though Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) declined the President’s request to meet with all House Republicans and instead only 18 will participate in this afternoon’s meeting.

This morning, the House Republican Conference agreed to a new proposal from House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) to raise the debt limit until November 22.   A House vote could occur this afternoon, but not until after the meeting with the President.  Boehner said that the President’s reaction to this proposal will determine what happens next.  The President has been insisting that House Republicans raise the debt limit and reopen government before he will negotiate on issues such as entitlement reform, tax reform, future government spending, and changes to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

“It is our hope that the president will look at this as an opportunity and a good-faith effort on our part to move halfway, halfway to what he’s demanded in order to have these conversations begin,” Boehner said after the House Republican Conference meeting this morning.

The Associated Press quotes White House spokesman Jay Carney as saying early this afternoon that the President “would likely sign” a bill that only increases the debt limit temporarily as long as it does not include “partisan strings,” and cautioning that the White House has not yet seen the House Republican proposal.  The White House apparently is sticking to its guns that it will not negotiate on other issues until the government is reopened, but will be somewhat more flexible in order to avoid a default.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are intent on passing a long-term extension to the debt limit.   They want to raise the debt limit by $1 trillion through December 2014, past the mid-term congressional elections that will take place next year.  A vote on that bill is scheduled for Saturday, but whether there are sufficient votes for it to pass is uncertain.  That bill also would not reopen the government.

The current debt limit is $16.7 trillion, which Treasury Department officials say will be reached next week — around October 17.  Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew testified to the Senate Finance Committee this morning listing the “potentially catastrophic impacts” of failing to increase the debt limit, which include “credit market disruptions, a significant loss in the value of the dollar, markedly elevated U.S. interest rates, negative spillover effects to the global economy, and real risk of a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse.”

The debt limit is the amount of money the government can borrow to pay bills it already owes.  It does not allow for additional spending.  Spending is permitted through appropriations bills and other laws that provide benefits (often called entitlements) such as Social Security and Medicare.  Republicans and Democrats have been at odds for years over how to reduce the deficit (the difference between how much money the government brings in versus how much it spends).  Republicans want to reduce it only by cutting spending, while Democrats wants a combination of spending cuts and revenue (tax) increases.  The deficit debate is about future spending, however.  The debt limit debate is about paying the bills for laws that Congresses passed and presidents signed in the past.

 

 

Last Updated: Oct 10, 2013 2:28 pm ET
Text of Bolden Response to Wolf Letter Re Chinese Participation in Kepler Conference

Text of Bolden Response to Wolf Letter Re Chinese Participation in Kepler Conference

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 10, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 10, 2013 4:43 pm ET



Following is the text of NASA Administrator Bolden’s reply to Rep. Frank Wolf’s October 8 letter to Bolden regarding Chinese participation in NASA scientific conferences, as circulated today by Rep. Wolf’s office.

From: Bolden, Charles (HQ-AA000)
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2013 12:20 PM Central Standard Time
To:
Cc:
Subject: Response to Chairman Wolf

It is unfortunate that potential Chinese participants were refused attendance at the upcoming Kepler Conference at the Ames Research Park. Mid-level managers at Ames, in performing the due diligence they believed appropriate following a period of significant concern and scrutiny from Congress about our foreign access to NASA facilities, meetings and websites, acted without consulting NASA HQ. Upon learning of this exclusion, I directed that we review the requests for attendance from scientists of Chinese origin and determine if we can recontact them immediately upon the reopening of the government to allow them to reapply. Any of them applying and meeting the clearance requirements in place for foreign citizens will be accepted for participation in the Conference.

A formal, more detailed response to the Chairman’s 6-page letter will not be available until after the government is reopened. You may share this message verbatim with Diana and others on Chairman Wolf’s staffs.

 

Charlie B.

Last Updated: Oct 10, 2013 4:43 pm ET
JAXA Celebrates 10th Anniversary, Adopts New Guiding Principles, Motto

JAXA Celebrates 10th Anniversary, Adopts New Guiding Principles, Motto

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 9, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 9, 2013 8:08 am ET

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) turned 10 years old on October 1.  In recognition of the many changes affecting its activities over the past decade, including passage of a new Basic Space Law in 2008, JAXA adopted a new “management philosophy,” “action declaration,” and motto.

JAXA is a quasi-governmental organization that was created by the merger of three earlier entities:  the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) and the National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan (NAL).   Naoki Okumura became JAXA’s newest President on April 1, 2013.

According to a JAXA press release today, the new motto for the agency is “Explore to Realize” and its management philosophy is “To realize a safe and affluent society using space and the sky.  By utilizing leading technological developments, we will succeed and deliver our achievements along with broader wisdom to society.”  

A three-part action declaration was also announced (the press release notes that the translation to English is tentative):

  • Jubilation for human society
    • We will provide enjoyment and surprise to people by evolving our lives.
  • Aspiration for creation
    • We will always aim for higher goals and continue to be aspired for creation by facing up to and overcoming any difficulties.
  • Responsibility and pride
    • We will faithfully act with responsibility and pride to confidently meet the expectations of society.

JAXA has a broad space program that includes space science, earth science and applications, space applications,  launch vehicle development, and human spaceflight (its astronauts are launched by the United States or Russia).   Japan’s best known programs perhaps are the Kibo (Hope) module on the International Space Station and the Hayabusa spacecraft that returned samples of an asteroid.  

The next Japanese-U.S. space mission scheduled for launch is the Core Observatory of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, a follow-on to the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM).  The project involves a JAXA/NASA Core Observatory, which will work in tandem with a constellation of other new or existing satellites provided by a variety of countries.   The Core Observatory is currently at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which had planned a media event yesterday to showcase the mission before the spacecraft is shipped to Japan for its expected February launch.  The event was cancelled because of the shutdown.   Whether the shutdown delays the shipping date — and therefore potentially the launch date — is an open question.   There is no indication that GPM has been given an “emergency exception” like the MAVEN mission. 

 

Last Updated: Oct 09, 2013 8:08 am ET
Juno Passes by Earth, Emerges in Safe Mode

Juno Passes by Earth, Emerges in Safe Mode

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 9, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 10, 2013 12:28 pm ET

NASA’s Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft received a gravity-assist from Earth today, but emerged from the encounter in safe mode.  It remains on its trajectory to Jupiter, but what caused it to switch into a mode that protects its safety is unknown.

Launched in 2011, the $1.1 billion Juno spacecraft is making its way to Jupiter using a gravity assist from Earth, which it received today.  The spacecraft  is expected to reach Jupiter in 2016 and make 33 orbits of the giant gas planet over a 14 month period.  It then will “crash” into Jupiter to ensure it does not accidentally impact any of Jupiter’s moons, some of which are considered potential havens for life.

Juno’s Earth swing-by took place today.  At the start, everything appeared normal.   Juno went through an expected 22 minute radio blackout phase, reemerging in safe mode to the surprise of project leaders.  Engineers do not know what triggered it. The Denver Post quotes Tim Gasparrini, Juno program manager for Lockheed Martin, as saying “There’s always a chance the spacecraft will do something unexpected.”

Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is principal investigator for the mission.  The spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin and the mission is managed by JPL.  NASA’s website for this mission is down because of the government shutdown.   SwRI’s Juno website is still functioning, but at the moment does not seem to include information about this problem.

Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society posts on her blog that JPL’s Juno Project Manager Rick Nybakken says that JPL has established communications with the spacecraft and they have “full commandability” and it is in a “safe, stable state.”

Last Updated: Oct 10, 2013 12:28 pm ET
Government Shutdown FY2014: Day Seven — Aerospace Corp Layoffs Add to Impacts

Government Shutdown FY2014: Day Seven — Aerospace Corp Layoffs Add to Impacts

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 7, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 7, 2013 7:05 pm ET

Another day, another lack of progress in solving the impasse over the FY2014 budget.   There was some good news, as most DOD civilians got to go back to work today and industry furloughs at two companies consequently were reduced, but on the other hand, almost 60 percent of employees at the Aerospace Corporation are being sent home.

Lockheed Martin still is furloughing 2,400 workers, but that is fewer than the 3,000 announced last week. The company said 2,100 of the 2,400 work on civilian agency programs and the rest on DOD programs; they are in 27 states, but mostly in the Washington, D.C. area.

The reduction in Lockheed Martin furloughs was possible because of DOD’s broad interpretation of a week-old law that allowed most DOD civilian workers to return to work today.  Similarly, United Technologies cancelled a furlough of thousands of workers it announced last week.  Those employees were going to be furloughed because Defense Contract Management Agency inspectors were furloughed and unable to inspect manufacturing processes as required.  Under the new law, however, the inspectors have been recalled so manufacturing can resume.

The news was not so good for the Aerospace Corporation, though.  A Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) that assures mission success for Air Force space programs (e.g., launches), Aerospace started a partial work shutdown on October 3, with 2,000 of its 3,500 workers sent home.  Only those working on “excepted mission critical tasks” may continue working.  Aerospace’s President and CEO Wanda Austin issued a statement today reassuring employees that “corporate senior leadership is fully engaged with our customers to minimize the adverse impacts” from the shutdown and ready to “immediately take action to bring people back to work as soon as we are permitted to do so.”

Other aerospace companies do not appear to have issued press releases about the status of their workers, but on Friday Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) President Marion Blakey warned about the impact of an extended shutdown on the aerospace industry, calling the shutdown “a tragic mistake.”

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and President Obama continued their verbal sparring matches today.   Reid and Obama are challenging Boehner to bring a “clean” Continuing Resolution (CR) — one that is devoid of political issues and simply funds the government — to the floor of the House for a vote.  Boehner said yesterday there are an insufficient votes to pass such a bill, but Boehner and Obama insist there are.   Obama said today that Boehner should “prove” whether he’s right or not by permitting the bill to come to a vote.  At the moment, there are 232 Republicans and 200 Democrats in the House (with three vacancies).   If all Democrats voted yes, 17 Republicans would also have to vote yes in order for the bill to pass.  The President and Reid believe that at least that many Republicans would, in fact, vote yes.

Boehner also said yesterday that he will not bring a clean bill to the floor to raise the debt limit.  That seems to contradict a statement he made last week asserting that he would not let the nation default on its debt.  The Treasury Department says the nation will exhaust its ability to pay its bills about October 17.   As many point out, raising the debt limit simply allows the government to pay the bills it already has incurred; it does not allow for any additional spending.  However, some Republicans having been seeking Democratic concessions on future spending in return for their votes to raise the debt limit and it now appears that others may be trying to tie the debt limit issue to the debate over the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) as well. 

One can only hope that more productive discussions among the parties are taking place behind the scenes than in front of the television cameras.

Last Updated: Oct 07, 2013 7:05 pm ET
Space Policy Events for the Week of October 6-11, 2013 – UPDATE

Space Policy Events for the Week of October 6-11, 2013 – UPDATE

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 6, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 7, 2013 5:10 pm ET

UPDATE, October 7, 2013:  The NRC’s Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board meeting on Oct. 10-11 has been added, along with a note about the Hosted Payload Summit, which apparently is on track.

ORIGINAL STORY, October 6.  The following events may be of interest in the week ahead, though with the government shutdown, it’s really unclear as to which of these will actually take place.   The House and Senate will be in session hopefully trying to find a solution to the impasse.

During the Week

There is no sign of compromise at the moment, so how long the government shutdown will continue is anyone’s guess.  The House and Senate will be in session this week as they were last week, but no one seems to be giving ground so far.

The following list of events of interest, therefore, is tentative.   The government-sponsored meetings of advisory committees surely will be cancelled if the shutdown continues, but since their websites are down, there is no way to confirm that.  Meetings and conferences sponsored by non-government organizations seem to be proceeding with revised agendas that work around the lack of government speakers. 

The American Astronautical Society has done an impressive job of substituting non-government speakers for its Von Braun Symposium in Huntsville, for example, and it will webcast the first morning (Tuesday, October 8) of the conference.  This week’s American Astronomical Society’s Division on Planetary Science (DPS) meeting in Denver also is on track, although “agency night” on Tuesday is likely to be affected if the shutdown continues.   The website for the Hosted Payload Summit in Washington does not provide any information about its status; the agenda has a mix of government and private sector speakers.

Sunday-Friday, October 6-11

Monday-Thursday, October 7-10

  • American Astronautical Society Von Braun Symposium, Huntsville, AL  WILL TAKE PLACE with modified agenda
    • October 7 is an evening reception; October 10 is a post-conference tour
    • October 8-9 are conference sessions; the morning of October 8 will be webcast

Tuesday-Wednesday, October 8-9

Wednesday, October 9

  • Hosted Payload Summit, Grand Hyatt Washington, Washington, DC, 7:30 am – 5:00 pm ET  CONFERENCE ORGANIZER CONFIRMS THIS WILL TAKE PLACE

Wednesday-Thursday, October 9-10

  • FAA COMSTAC, Washington, DC ALMOST CERTAIN TO BE CANCELLED IF SHUTDOWN CONTINUES

Thursday-Friday, October 10-11

Friday, October 11

 

 

 

Last Updated: Oct 07, 2013 5:10 pm ET

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