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.

Monday (Sept. 20)

• NASA Advisory Council (NAC) Education and Public Outreach Committee, Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm CDT

Monday-Tuesday (Sept. 20-21)

• NAC Heliophysics subcommittee, Room 3H46, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC
  • Monday, 9:00 am – 5:30 pm EDT
  • Tuesday, 9:00 am – 3:00 pm EDT

Tuesday (Sept. 21)

• The Senate is slated to vote on a motion to bring up the FY2011 Department of Defense authorization act. At last report, the Senate leadership plans to attach the DREAM immigration reform act to the DOD bill and other measures also may be added. This is a procedural vote. Debate over the underlying bill and any other measures attached to it is expected to take some time. Congress Daily (subscription required) cites Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) as saying that final passage of the bill is not expected until after the November elections.
• NAC Exploration Committee, Glennan Conference Room, NASA Headquarters, Washington DC, 1:00 – 6:30 pm EDT

Thursday (Sept. 23)

• Marshall Institute Seminar on Hosted Payloads, Reserve Officers Association, One Constitution Ave., N.E., 4th Floor, Washington DC, 8:15 am – 10:30 am

Thursday-Saturday (Sept. 23-25)

• Space Generation Congress, Prague, Czech Republic (in conjunction with the International Astronautical Congress, which formally begins on Monday, Sept. 27)

Analysis from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) topographic map of the Moon featured in the most recent issue of Science (subscription required) points to the Moon’s “complex, turbulent youth,” according to a NASA press release.

Using new data from the LRO’s Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter and the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment Instrument, scientists have been studying the geologic processes that formed the lunar surface and the history of numerous meteoric impacts that considerably transformed the landscape. According to the release, “a rich record of craters is preserved on the Moon,” data which is hoped will help researchers uncover the implications of such early activity on the Earth and other bodies in the Solar System.

This milestone marks completion of the spacecraft’s one-year exploration mission and its transition to a science phase, expected to last from two to four more years. Program management has now been moved from NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate to the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.

Discovering the nature of dark energy is the top scientific priority for astronomy and astrophysics as indicated in the National Research Council’s Astro2010 Decadal Survey released last month. It set both a space mission, the Wide Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST), and a ground-based telescope, Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), as the top priorities for space- and ground-based astronomy respectively. Both would search for answers about dark energy, a mysterious force that is causing the universe to expand at an accelerated rate. At the same time, the European Space Agency (ESA) is set to decide next summer on whether its dark energy probe, Euclid, will get the nod for one of its upcoming space missions.

Today, members of the NASA Advisory Council’s Astrophysics Subcommittee heard from Astro2010 chairman Roger Blandford, as well as from NASA Astrophysics Division Director Jon Morse and Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Jason Rhodes about the space-based dark energy missions and raised questions about potential overlap between them. The Astrophysics Subcommittee reports to NAC’s Science Committee, which in turn makes recommendations to NAC and the NASA Administrator.

Subcommittee members asked penetrating questions about why WFIRST and Euclid could not be combined, with 50-50 participation by each side. Dr. Morse told the subcommittee that current ESA-NASA discussions envision NASA as a one-third contributor to the Euclid mission if ESA proceeds with it. However, he stressed that while top level descriptions of WFIRST and Euclid indicate the two have similar goals in dark energy studies, a more detailed understanding of the instruments might show significant differences in the approaches being taken. Dr. Blandford also emphasized that dark energy is only one of three scientific objectives for WFIRST. The other two are looking for Earth-like planets (exoplanets) and an infrared sky survey, neither of which would be addressed by Euclid.

In a cost constrained environment made all that more difficult due to cost overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), subcommittee members clearly were looking for ways to address the highest priority scientific questions in the most cost-effective manner. JWST and WFIRST are both “flagship” missions within the purview of the NASA Astrophysics Division. Dr. Morse emphasized repeatedly that flagship missions must wait their turn and WFIRST cannot proceed until JWST is launched.

The current launch date for JWST is 2014, but Dr. Eric Smith of NASA’s Astrophysics Division briefed the subcommittee on JWST and intimated that the date is likely to slip. The program is currently scheduled to go before an agency Program Management Council (PMC) at the end of November where a decision on its schedule is expected. Repeated cost overruns and schedule slips have led to a number of JWST program reviews, including one demanded by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), who chairs the Senate appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA.

A strong supporter of NASA and especially its Goddard Space Flight Center in her state of Maryland, which manages JWST, Sen. Mikulski nonetheless became concerned about additional problems with JWST identified during its mission Critical Design Review (CDR) earlier this year. She wrote a sharp letter to NASA in June telling the agency to create an independent panel to look at several issues including the root causes of JWST’s problems. That review is due to NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden next month. Dr. Smith was unable to answer most of the questions posed by subcommittee members about JWST pending completion of that review and the agency PMC.

The subcommittee meeting continues tomorrow.

NASA continued to woo the U.S. space astronomy community today hoping that it will agree to NASA’s proposal to increase its potential participation in the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) proposed Euclid mission from 20 percent to 33 percent. The second day of discussion at the NASA Advisory Council’s (NAC’s) Astrophysics Subcommittee meeting reiterated many of the points from yesterday, but participants were joined today by NASA Associate Administrator for Science Ed Weiler. They also were briefed by phone by ESA’s Fabio Favata on ESA’s process for choosing science missions and where they stand today. Euclid is one of three ESA missions vying for two spots in ESA’s science program; a decision will be made next summer.

NAC astrophysics subcommittee members are chosen by NASA to represent the broad space-based astrophysics community and they expressed a wide range of views about the wisdom of U.S. participation in Euclid and at what level. Euclid would search for answers to the mystery of dark energy, an unknown force accelerating the expansion of the universe. The recent U.S. National Research Council Decadal Survey for astronomy and astrophysics, Astro2010, identified a multidisciplinary project, WFIRST, as its top priority for space missions. WFIRST also would study dark energy, along with searching for earth-like planets (exoplanets) and performing an infrared sky survey. Astro2010’s top priority for ground-based astronomy, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), also would search for dark energy.

Many subcommittee members wondered why NASA would support two space missions that they view as having very similar science objectives when resources are so constrained. ESA-NASA discussions prior to the release of Astro2010 centered on NASA participating in Euclid at a 20 percent level, but more recently the two agencies have been discussing a 33 percent U.S. share. That would cost NASA $260 million over 10 years according to Dr. Weiler.

He and Jon Morse, Director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division, tried to downplay that amount, saying it was only $26 million per year, but subcommittee members clearly viewed it as a threat to funding for technology development or other activities. Several subcommittee members were inclined to limit NASA participation in Euclid to a minimum level. Others wanted more NASA participation, perhaps even a merging of Euclid and WFIRST with the two agencies sharing the costs on a roughly equal basis.

Dr. Weiler reminded them of the history of NASA-ESA discussions about working together on a dark energy mission. He said that two years ago, the agencies agreed to cooperate on a program where the United States would have had the lead in the program, but the plan was scuttled because “some people in the community didn’t like that.” At the time, NASA was working with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM) and his reference may have been to members of that community, although he was not specific.

In any case, he emphasized that ESA now is well along in its planning for Euclid and does not want to make any major changes – like adding new requirements – lest the mission lose its place in the ongoing selection. Increasing the U.S. share to 50 percent was suggested to ESA recently, he said, and rejected. He spelled out two options for the space astronomy community: 33 percent participation in Euclid, which would put four U.S. scientists on the program’s science definition team and give them access to data about dark energy in 2018 when the probe is launched; or no participation in Euclid and U.S. scientists would have to wait until 2022, the notional launch date for WFIRST under NASA’s budget assumptions, for dark energy data. After spirited repartee with committee members, he added a third option, to keep U.S. participation at the 20 percent level.

Subcommittee discussions are continuing, but they have little time to reach agreement on what to recommend to their parent NAC Science Committee, which meets on September 28. Dr. Weiler and Dr. Morse told them they need an answer by the end of this month. Dr. Weiler also noted that the astronomy community is not the only voice that needs to be heard. Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy all have a say, he stressed.

With only about $2 billion available for new missions in NASA’s astrophysics budget over the next decade, $260 million is a sizeable investment. Dr. Morse dangled the prospect of ESA contributing a like amount to WFIRST if an agreement can be reached, but that would not happen until at least next year so there are no guarantees. In fact, there is no guarantee that Euclid will even be picked by ESA, as the NASA officials repeatedly pointed out.

Astro2010 just set priorities for astronomy and astrophysics research for the next decade, but this issue of increasing U.S. participation in Euclid arose after its report was complete. Astro2010 chair Roger Blandford declined to hypothesize on what the Decadal Survey committee might have thought about increasing participation in Euclid, reminding the group that the study is completed and in any case only sets priorities. Implementation is NASA’s responsibility, he said. Yesterday he reminded the subcommittee about exactly what Astro2010 said about Euclid in the context of its WFIRST recommendation: “Collaboration on a combined mission with the United States playing a leading role should be considered so long as the committee’s recommended science program is preserved and overall cost savings result.”

U.S. leadership in dark energy research appears to be one of the factors in decisions about how to move forward. Although WFIRST is indeed the acronym for Wide Field InfraRed Survey Telescope, it could also be a play on words. The search for dark energy is in part a quest to measure a dark energy parameter designated “w.” WFIRST might then be taken to mean that U.S. astronomers want to be sure they are the first to determine the value of w. (An excellent discussion of dark energy and w can be found in a 2007 NRC report NASA’s Beyond Einstein Program: An Architecture for Implementation.)

Correction: an earlier version of this article misstated when the NAC Science Committee is scheduled to meet. Its next meeting is September 28, not next week. It will meet by telephone and WebEx; see our calendar on the right menu for a link to the Federal Register notice about the meeting. Also, the NRC Beyond Einstein report was published in 2007 not 2008 — how time flies!

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) will hold a seminar on “Space and the Biological Economy — Driving the Lift” on Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 1:00 pm in room 2325 Rayburn House Office Building. The event is free and open to the public. The topic is how space exploration enhances the U.S. “biological economy” and what advances in telemedicine mean to the country’s long-term economic and physical health as well as to the future of space exploration.

The House and Senate return from their summer break this week. They are scheduled to be in session for only a few weeks before adjourning in advance of the November mid-term elections. All 435 seats in the House and one-third of those in the Senate are up for election. Many pundits are predicting that the Republicans will regain control of the House, but the outcome is very difficult to forecast.

According to their websites, the House target adjournment date is October 8; the Senate calendar simply says “TBD” (to be determined), but is expected to adjourn at about the same time. Action is needed on a wide range of legislation, chief among them the appropriations bills that fund government departments and agencies. For the space policy community, the NASA and DOD authorization bills also are very important. (Not sure of the difference between an appropriation and an authorization? See our “What’s a Markup? fact sheet.)

Appropriations Bills

Congress Daily (subscription required) is skeptical that any of the 12 appropriations bills will be completed before Congress adjourns. Fiscal year 2011 begins on October 1, which means a Continuing Resolution (CR) must be passed to keep the government operating. Everyone expected a CR for most of the government agencies.

The House and Senate are in virtually opposite positions. The House has passed two appropriations bills (Transportation-HUD and Milcon-VA), but none of the other 10 have been reported from committee (although subcommittee markups have taken place for most of them). The Senate has passed no appropriations bills, but nine of the 12 have been reported from committee.

Here’s the status of the two appropriations bills that cover most space programs: Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), which includes NASA and NOAA; and Defense (for the Department of Defense). In the House, the appropriations subcommittees for CJS and Defense have marked up draft bills, but neither bill has been reported from committee, which is usually when the bill is formally introduced. Thus there are no bills introduced yet. In the Senate, the CJS bill was reported from committee in July (S. 3636). Congress Daily reports that the Senate appropriations defense subcommittee may mark up its bill this Thursday.

Authorization Bills

The authorization bills for NASA and DOD also are awaiting action. The Senate passed its version of the NASA authorization bill (S. 3729) in early August just before adjourning. The House Science and Technology Committee reported its version (H.R. 5781) at the end of July, but committee chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) has publicly stated that the committee is reconsidering at least one aspect of its bill – on loan guarantees for commercial crew – so the version that reaches the House floor for debate will be different from what was reported. Some think the House and Senate will try to reach a compromise agreement before the end of September, but there is no indication that action is imminent (i.e., this week).

The DOD authorization bill was passed by the House in May (H.R. 5136), but Senator John McCain (R-AZ) objected to a unanimous consent request to bring the Senate version of the bill (S. 3454) to the floor because of his opposition to a provision that would repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Congress Daily characterizes the outlook for the bill as “murky.”

To keep track of these bills as they continue to work their way through Congress, check our fact sheet on Major Space-Related Legislation in the 111^thCongress.

UPDATE: This is updated to add the dates and times for Senate appropriations subcommittee and full commitee markup of the defense appropriations bill (on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively.) A second update added seminars on Wednesday and Thursday.

The following events may of interest in the coming week. For more information, see our calendar on the right menu or click the links below.

During The Week

The House and Senate return from their summer break this week with a full plate of space issues awaiting them. The only legislative action expected this week, however, is the potential markup of the DOD appropriations bill by the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee that Congress Daily (subscription required) reports could happen on Thursday.

Monday-Tuesday, September 13-14

• NASA Advisory Council (NAC) Space Operations Committee, Johnson Space Center, TX
  • September 13, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm local time
  • September 14. 8:00 am – 12:00 pm local time (joint with the NAC Commercial Space Committee

Tuesday, September 14

• NAC Commercial Space Committee (joint with the NAC Space Operations Committee), Johnson Space Center, TX, 8:00 am – 12:00 pm
• Senate defense appropriations subcommittee markup of the FY2011 defense appropriations bill, 10:30 am, 192 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Tuesday-Thursday, September 14-16

• Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) annual meeting, Holiday Inn Capitol, 550 C Street, S.W., Washington, DC

Wednesday, September 15

• Space Entrepreneurship Forum, 3:00 pm, 2318 Rayburn House Office Building

Thursday, September 16

• AIAA seminar on Space and the Biological Economy, 1:00 pm, 2325 Rayburn House Office Building
• Senate Appropriations full committee markup of FY2011 defense appropriations bill (and three other bills), 2:00 pm, 106 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Thursday-Friday, September 16-17

• NAC Astrophysics Subcommittee (of the NAC Science Committee), NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC
  • September 16, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm EDT, Room 3H46
  • September 17, 8:30 am – 3:00 pm EDT, Room 5H45

Friday, September 17

• FAA Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC), via teleconference, 11:00 am EDT

UPDATE: Links have been added to the prepared remarks of two of the panelists, Griffin and Pace, which are being circulated by STA. If the remarks of the other two panelists become available, links will be added to those as well.

Former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin told a Space Transportation Association audience yesterday that Congress must be specific in legislation about the capabilities of the new heavy lift launch vehicle (HLLV) or NASA may design a rocket too small to support human missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). Any lack of specificity in law would be viewed by the Administration as an opening to do something else, he argued: “It’s regrettable when Congress has to be the design bureau of last resort, but sometimes it’s necessary.” Ordinarily, NASA administrators and almost anyone else outside of Congress bristle when Congress sets technical design parameters in law.

Scott Pace, Director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, who served as NASA Associate Administrator for Program Analysis and Evaluation when Griffin headed the agency, agreed. He argued that usually Congress “functions best on an incremental basis” and “at the margins,” but in this case it “had no choice but to go back to basics.” He also advocated for a National Research Council “Decadal Survey” to set priorities for human space flight.

Pace is skeptical that the commercial sector can develop commercial crew systems in the near-term, saying that “just because it’s desirable doesn’t mean it’ll be there.” Bob Dickman, Executive Director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (but speaking for himself), disagreed. Reviewing the 14 families of launch vehicles developed in the United States over the past 50 years, Dickman concluded “there is nothing magic about getting to LEO. We know how to do it.” He believes NASA needs to focus on investing in revolutionary in-space propulsion technologies to dramatically shorten the trip time to Mars from months to days. “We have to make the transition from what we’ve done to where we want to be 30 years from now.”

Gary Payton, a consultant who most recently was Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for Space Programs but whose career includes flying as a payload specialist on the space shuttle in 1985, focused on the need for continuity and stability in the human space flight program. Whether it is nuclear submarines or fighter aircraft, the Department of Defense begins the development of new systems while the existing systems are still operating to ensure there are no gaps in capabilities, he explained. That should have been done with building a replacement for the space shuttle to avoid the upcoming gap between the end of the shuttle and availability of a new system, but NASA could not do it because of underfunding, he said. He asked rhetorically why the nation is willing to spend money on bailing out financial institutions, but not investing in NASA.

Dickman also called for more funding for NASA, and that became the theme of much of the rest of the meeting.

UPDATE AND CORRECTION: An astute reader pointed out (thanks!) that it is, in fact, September now, not August, so the title has been corrected. The information on the NRC planetary decadal meeting has been updated.

Welcome back from the Labor Day holiday! The following events may be of interest this week. For more information see our calendar on the right menu or click the links below. Congress will return next week.

Tuesday, September 7

• NASA Advisory Council Planetary Science Subcommittee, by telephone and WebEx, 2:00-4:00 pm

Wednesday-Friday, September 8-10

• National Research Council Planetary Science Decadal Survey Steering Committee (the meeting is by telecon and is closed in its entirety).

Thursday-Friday, September 9-10

• University of Nebraska Third Space and Cyber Policy Conference, Newseum, Washington, DC

Friday, September 10

• NASA “First Comet Encounter: 25 Years” event at the Newseum, Washington, DC, 9:00 am – 1:00 pm
• NASA International Space Station Advisory Committee, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 11:00 am -12:00 pm

Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN), chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, has responded to the signers of the “Nobel Prize winners” letter that sought changes in the House version of the NASA authorization bill. The letter, dated September 3, explains and defends the position taken by the committee and reveals that the committee will delete provisions it included to establish a loan guarantee program for the development of “commercial crew.”

Saying that “NASA is at a crossroads” and needs a “balanced, sustainable, mission-driven and executable” path, Rep. Gordon calls for “a NASA budget that is honest.” He characterizes the committee’s bill as “a common-sense and balanced solution to a complicated situation that will help avoid future instability for the agency.”

Noting that in April President Obama added a “multi-billion dollar crew rescue vehicle program” to the FY2011 budget request submitted in February that would require “offsets of $1-2 billion per year over the next five years from other NASA accounts,” the letter asserts that “The hard reality is that the Administration has sent an unexecutable budget request to Congress, and we now have to make tough choices…”

One choice the committee made in writing the bill was to provide loan guarantees to companies wanting to develop commercial crew systems instead of direct government funding as proposed by the President. In the letter, Rep. Gordon reveals that when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) looked at that provision to determine how much the government might be liable for, the cost made the program “unviable.” Consequently, “we will need to remove the loan guarantee provisions” and instead will “look for ways to cost effectively fund commercial crew-related activities that can benefit the whole industry while ensuring that other critical missions are supported and within the overall budget constraints.”

Matching resources with program content is the overall theme of the letter. Mr. Gordon concedes that “this is not a perfect bill” and “just one step in the process,” but as negotiations move forward “it is important to keep in mind that increasing funding in one program will require a funding reduction in another program.”