Category: International

What's Happening in Space Policy October 26-31, 2015 – UPDATE

What's Happening in Space Policy October 26-31, 2015 – UPDATE

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 25, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 26, 2015 6:28 am ET

Here is our list of space policy events coming up during the week of October 26-31, 2015 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate will be in session. [This version was updated October 26 with more information about potential legislative action this week.]

During the Week

As usual, there are many interesting space policy events taking place
off the Hill this week.  To pick just three:  Tuesday through Thursday in
Huntsville, AL, the American Astronautical Society will hold its annual
von Braun Symposium; Wednesday in Washington, DC, NASA Administrator
Bolden will speak to the Center for American Progress on NASA’s future
human exploration plans; and Tuesday through Friday in Houston, TX, NASA
will hold the first workshop to identify potential landing sites on
Mars for human missions.

As for Congress, if all goes as planned, the House will elect Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to succeed Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) as Speaker this week and Boehner will depart on Friday.  Ryan made it clear he did not want the job and agreed to do it only for the sake of the Republican Party.   He insisted that he would not do it unless he had unanimous support from House Republicans, including the roughly 40-member ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus that is widely blamed or credited with driving Boehner out.  It wasn’t entirely unanimous, but close enough apparently.   Ryan, who was the Republican candidate for Vice President in 2012 (on the ticket with Mitt Romney), demanded some changes in the duties of the Speaker, especially sharply reducing the Speaker’s role in fundraising for Republican members and candidates across the country, which kept Boehner on the road almost full time.  Pundits point out that the loyalty a Speaker engenders by traveling to districts to help at-risk candidates is part of what makes the House function and wonder if Paul’s reluctance to do so will constrain his leadership.  The House hasn’t been functioning very well in any case, so what these changes will mean for passing legislation, space-related or not, is entirely up in the air.

The legislation listed on the House Majority Leader’s website for action this week does not include two controversial bills that some hoped Boehner would get out of the way before Ryan takes over — reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank and raising the debt limit.  Those could get added as the week progresses, but the House is in session only through Thursday and part of the time will be devoted to electing Ryan as Speaker.   [UPDATE, October 26:  National Journal
is predicting that Boehner will indeed bring up both the Ex-Im Bank
bill and a bill to raise the debt limit before Wednesday when the House
Republican Caucus votes on Ryan’s bid to become Speaker.  The idea is that Boehner is willing to use Democratic votes to get those bills passed even though many Republicans oppose them, which would be a risky posture for Ryan as a new Speaker.]

Rep. Steve Fincher (R-TN) got enough signatures on his discharge petition for the Export-Import Bank to move that legislation out of the Financial Services committee to the floor, but no vote was taken last week.  During a meeting of the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) on October 21, a COMSTAC member said the bill would come to a vote on Monday (October 26), but it is not on the House Majority Leader’s list.   The comment was made while Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA) was addressing the group and Kilmer warned that “procedural shenanigans” should be expected to prevent a vote.  He supports reauthorization of the Bank.

Kilmer is a member of the House Appropriations Committee and was asked about the likelihood that the government will have to operate under a full-year Continuing Resolution (CR) of if the regular appropriations bills will pass collectively in an “omnibus” bill.  Kilmer said he hopes there will be an omnibus that gets rid of the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration.   He joked that he had never heard of sequestration until he ran for Congress three years ago and had to look it up and discovered it is “Latin for stupid.”

Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) also addressed COMSTAC and expressed confidence that House-Senate agreement on a final version of commercial space legislation will be reached “very shortly.”  Babin, a freshman, is the new chair of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee’s Space Subcommittee, replacing Rep. Steve Palazzo (R-MS) who moved over to the Appropriations Committee.

The House could try to override the President’s veto of the FY2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), but that is not on the schedule either at the moment.  The House would deal with it first because the bill, H.R. 1735, originated there.

All the events we know about as of Sunday morning are listed below.  Check back throughout the week for additions to our Events of Interest list on our main page.

Monday, October 26

Tuesday, October 27

Tuesday-Thursday, October 27-29

Tuesday-Friday, October 27-30

Wednesday, October 28

Wednesday-Thursday, October 28-29

Thursday-Friday, October 29-30

Friday, October 30

Friday-Saturday, October 30-31

Last Updated: Oct 26, 2015 6:28 am ET
FAA's Nield Endorses Woerner's Moon Village, But With Commercial Partners Too

FAA's Nield Endorses Woerner's Moon Village, But With Commercial Partners Too

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 24, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 24, 2015 4:21 pm ET

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) commercial space office, George Nield, endorsed the Moon village concept espoused by European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Johann-Dietrich Woerner, but called for inclusion of the commercial sector, not only governments, in building and operating it.

Nield spoke at the October 21 meeting of the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC), which advises his office.  Noting that he had just returned from the International Astronautical Congress in Jerusalem, Nield quickly summarized a panel discussion among the heads of a number of space agencies represented there.  Woerner was one of them.  He became ESA DG on July 1 after serving as the head of Germany’s space agency, DLR.

Woerner has been advocating for construction of a village — Lunarville — on the far side of the Moon where telescopes emplaced there would be protected from the light and noise of Earth.  The concept envisions use of inflatable modules and 3D printing to build additional infrastructure using lunar resources — called In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU). Crops would be grown in greenhouses to support researchers rotating on regular schedules. 

The idea is not new, but having a champion at the head of ESA is.   He sees it as a successor to the International Space Station (ISS) and, like ISS, built as an international collaborative endeavor.

President Obama decided in 2010 that the United States will not return astronauts to the lunar surface.  Instead, he directed NASA to send them to an asteroid as a step towards eventual human missions to Mars.  NASA has developed a step-wise approach where U.S. spacecraft will operate near the Moon (in “cis-lunar space”), but not go down to the surface.  However, NASA officials are strongly encouraging other countries to pursue lunar surface operations, especially ISRU, which could have advantages for achieving the humans-to-Mars goal.  The United States could partner with these other countries, providing transportation to lunar orbit with the Space Launch System, for example.

Nield, who heads FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST), said he was “particularly impressed” with Woerner’s vision, especially since it allows countries to participate “as much or as little” as they wish and minimizes the need for a top-down management structure where one country specifies the architecture and is “calling all the shots.”  However, he wanted to offer a “modest suggestion” — open it up to commercial entities. 

Calling commercial opportunities “limitless,” he offered examples ranging from habitats and hotels to commercial electrical power stations (using solar arrays) to propellant depots to food production to rocket-powered lunar orbit/surface shuttle buses to rovers for getting around on the lunar surface — joking that it is too early to tell if the latter will be Yellow Cab or Uber.  “Private industry has the potential to play an important role and it need not be exclusively as a government contractor,” he enthused.

Later Nield also lamented that no U.S. government agency has yet been assigned the task of authorizing or supervising such commercial activities.   Article VI of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty requires that “activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision” by the relevant State party to the treaty.   Some in the commercial space sector argue that AST’s responsibilities should be expanded to include that role.  Currently it is limited to facilitating and regulating commercial launches to and reentries from space.   Others think the Department of Commerce’s Office of Space Commercialization would be a better fit.

Nield also pointed out that his office’s resources are quite constrained in handling its existing responsibilities.   President Obama is requesting a $1.5 million increase for AST — from $16.605 million to $18.114 million — in FY2016, but Congress has not been enthusiastic.  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently said that AST may indeed need more money, but does a poor job of justifying it.   In any case, AST like the rest of the government is currently operating under a Continuing Resolution (CR) that holds the office to its FY2015 spending level.

At the very end, COMSTAC members debated whether they should issue a finding, observation or recommendation about the potential role of the commercial sector in a lunar village asking for AST to engage with ESA to refine ideas.  They decided to ask COMSTAC’s  International Space Policy working group to draft something for future discussion.

Last Updated: Oct 24, 2015 4:21 pm ET
What's Happening in Space Policy October 19-23, 2015

What's Happening in Space Policy October 19-23, 2015

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 18, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 18, 2015 5:55 pm ET

Here is our list of space policy related events for the week of October 19-23, 2015 and any insight we can offer about them.  The Senate returns to work tomorrow (Monday) and the House on Tuesday.

During the Week

Congress does not have any public events on the schedule that are specifically about the space program, but a vote could come early this week on reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank.   Rep. Steve Fincher (R-TN) succeeded in getting the 218 signatures he needed for a discharge petition to move the bill out of the Financial Services Committee to the House floor for a vote.  He and other Ex-Im supporters have long asserted that there are more than enough votes in the House to pass a reauthorization if only the Members were given the chance.  We soon may find out if they are correct.

Behind the scenes, efforts reportedly are continuing to reach agreement on a final version of commercial space legislation that passed the House and Senate earlier this year (H.R. 2262/S. 1297).  The FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) will hold its quarterly meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, so a progress report may be presented there.  Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), who chairs the Space Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, and Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA) will speak on Wednesday morning at 8:30 am ET and 11:15 am ET respectively.  The meeting will be webcast (see the agenda for instructions).

The FY2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) may finally be sent to the White House.  The President will have 10 days (not including Sundays) to decide whether to sign or veto it.  The bill, H.R. 1735, cleared Congress on October 7.  It is not uncommon for clerks to need a few days to make “technical and conforming changes” to ensure there are no typos and that cross references are correct, and Congress was in recess last week, so it is still on the Hill, not in the Oval Office, and the clock has not started ticking.  President Obama has often threatened to veto the NDAA, but never has.  The dispute this year is over top level government-wide budgetary issues, not defense policy, however, so the dynamics are somewhat different.

The House has eight working days (four this week, four next week) before House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) resigns, according to his original plan at least.  Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s withdrawal from the Speaker’s race threw the leadership process into turmoil.  Boehner said he would not leave before a successor is in place, so time will tell if he gets to close the door behind him by the end of the month or not.  In the meantime, Congress needs to pass a reauthorization of the Highway Trust Fund bill by October 29 and raise the debt limit by November 3.   Since Boehner has demonstrated willingness to use Democratic votes to get critical legislation passed when the right wing of his party creates roadblocks, he could use the eight days to get those two tasks done, at least.   The United States exceeded the $18.1 trillion debt limit in March and the Treasury Department has been using “extraordinary measures” to pay the bills (by not paying its share into the retirement accounts of federal employee for example).  Its ability to scrape by that way is running out.  On Thursday, Treasury notified Congress that the last day is November 3, two days earlier than a previous projection.

As for funding the government for the rest of the fiscal year, the Continuing Resolution runs out on December 11.  Not much progress is being reported on talks among Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and President Obama on an overall agreement on spending caps through the end of the presidential election next year.  Boehner’s imminent departure is one handicap, but in Washington little gets done until the last minute anyway.  A lot will depend on who replaces Boehner as House Speaker and how well that person works with McConnell.  McConnell and Boehner have been united on their rejection of government shutdowns as a political strategy (they both also pledge they will never allow the government to default on its debt).

Off the Hill, there is an array of fascinating meetings scheduled for the coming week.  In addition to COMSTAC, the annual Space Weather Enterprise Forum is on Tuesday and Wednesday (note that it is in different locations on those two days); NASA’s Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) meets Tuesday-Thursday in Columbia, MD; and the NASA Advisory Council’s Astrophysics Subcommittee meets at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center on Thursday and Friday.

Women in Aerospace will hold its 30th annual awards ceremony at the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City in Arlington, VA  on Thursday night.  

The same night but a few hundred miles away in Dayton, OH, the National Museum of the Air Force will hold what promises to be a fascinating panel discussion on the 1960’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) space station program (cancelled before it was built).  Six of the men selected for the MOL astronaut corps will talk about the program.  Three of them transferred to NASA after MOL was cancelled, one of whom, Dick Truly, eventually became NASA Administrator.  Unfortunately, the museum says it will not webcast the event, but audio will be posted on its website a week or two later and DVDs will be available for loan at some point.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday afternoon are listed below.  Check the Events of Interest calendar on our main page for updates throughout the week.

Tuesday-Wednesday, October 20-21

  • COMSTAC, 429 L’Enfant Plaza, Washington, DC
  • Space Weather Enterprise Forum
    October 20:  902 Hart Senate Office Building
    October 21:  Department of Commerce Building auditorium, 14th Street and Constitution Ave, NW, Washington, DC

Tuesday-Thursday, October 20-22

Wednesday-Thursday, October 21-22

Thursday, October 22

Thursday-Friday, October 22-23

Last Updated: Oct 18, 2015 5:55 pm ET
Jeb Bush Wants Aspirational Goals for NASA

Jeb Bush Wants Aspirational Goals for NASA

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 15, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 15, 2015 11:55 pm ET

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush enthusiastically called for NASA to pursue aspirational goals in concert with the private sector during a campaign Town Hall meeting yesterday.  The former Florida governor has previously expressed his support for the space program.

Bush spoke at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, NH, which honors two New Hampshire astronauts — Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and Christa McAuliffe, the Teacher in Space who perished in the space shuttle Challenger accident in 1986.

Asked what he would do as President to get Congress to allocate more money to NASA to restore U.S. leadership in space, Bush said “I think we need to be more aspirational again.”   He criticized the Obama Administration for making the United States reliant on Russia for launching people into space and stressed the need for an independent means for getting crews to the space station.  

He did not lay out his own proposals for space exploration, but said he considered the lunar colonization plans espoused by Newt Gingrich in the 2012 presidential campaign to be “pretty cool.”  Gingrich was widely panned at the time.  Bush defended those ideas, however.  “What’s wrong about having big, lofty aspirational goals,” he asked, insisting that the “benefits … are far more than people realize.”

On the other hand, he added that “NASA should not try to be all things to all people” and “partner with the dreamers in the private sector, Elon Musk and others” who can bring “intensity and creativity to the process.”

The meeting was taped by C-SPAN and this exchange begins at about 1:01:25.

Bush did not specifically refer to the Obama Administration ending President George W. Bush’s Constellation program to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020.  Instead he referred to it cancelling an expendable launch vehicle program in which the State of Florida invested $50 million that he thought was either for Northrop Grumman or Lockheed Martin to build and design an interim replacement for the space shuttle that would lead to a new generation of launch vehicles that would dramatically reduce the cost of launch.  He said the Obama Administration cancelled that program in its first year, creating U.S. dependence on Russia for access to the space station.  He may have been referring to the Ares I upper stage contract won by a Boeing-Northrop Grumman team, beating out an ATK-Lockeed Martin team.  ATK was the prime contractor for the Ares I program overall.  Ares I would have been used to send crews to the space station on Orion capsules, with a larger version, Ares V, sending them to the Moon.

It was the Bush Administration that decided to terminate the space shuttle before a replacement for low Earth orbit operations (Ares I with an Orion capsule) was ready.  That is what originally created U.S. dependency on Russia for what was expected to be a four-year gap (2010-2014).  The Obama Administration adopted the Bush decision to terminate the space shuttle, although it added two more shuttle flights so the program extended through mid-2011.  It replaced Ares I/Orion with the commercial crew program, intending to have commercial vehicles ready by 2015, also a four-year gap.  That gap has grown to at least six years.   The Obama Administration blames congressional underfunding of the commercial crew program for the delay.

As last night’s event began, Bush cited the U.S.-Soviet space race at the dawn of the Space Age as lighting a fire under America that led to landing men on the Moon and “defied the imagination of everyone.”  America needs to continue doing that “whether to explore the stars or explore the brain.”

As the former Governor of Florida, home of Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, it is not surprising the Bush is more familiar with space issues than other presidential candidates.  In an earlier campaign event, he referred to himself as “a space guy.”   His campaign website does not lay out any plans or policies related to space, however.

Last Updated: Oct 15, 2015 11:55 pm ET
No Waiver for ULA for GPS III Launch Contract

No Waiver for ULA for GPS III Launch Contract

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 14, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 14, 2015 9:38 pm ET

The Department of Defense (DOD) has decided not to issue a waiver from current legal restrictions on the number of RD-180 engines the United Launch Alliance (ULA) can obtain to launch national security satellites.  The issue arose after the Air Force issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) to launch a GPS III satellite and ULA indicated it might not be able to bid on the launch because of an insufficient supply of engines for its Atlas V rocket.

In a statement emailed to SpacePolicyOnline.com, Deputy Secretary of Defense spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Courtney Hillson pointed to several restrictions, including legal constraints, that are complicating DOD’s efforts to ensure it has two sources of launch services.   The 2013 National Space Transportation Policy reasserts long standing guidance that the Secretary of Defense ensure “to the maximum extent practicable, the availability of at least two U.S. space transportation vehicle families capable of reliably launching national security payloads.”

Since 2006, ULA, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has been a monopoly supplier of those services with its two launch vehicle families — Atlas V and Delta IV, so-called Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs).   This year, the Air Force certified SpaceX to compete for EELV launches with its Falcon 9 rocket.   ULA contends that Delta IV, the largest in the current U.S. fleet, is too expensive to compete successfully for launch contracts, leaving it with only Atlas V as a SpaceX competitor.  If ULA cannot bid on the GPS III launch contract because it does not have sufficient RD-180 engines, SpaceX would be the only supplier, undermining the two-launcher policy, the reasoning goes.

ULA President Tory Bruno made a statement last week that ULA might not be able to bid on the GPS III contract because of the restrictions placed by Congress in the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on the number of RD-180 engines it can obtain from Russia.  Congress is determined to end U.S. reliance on Russian engines as quickly as possible in the aftermath of Russia’s actions in Ukraine and instead build an alternative U.S. engine.  DOD agrees in principle, but there is substantial debate about the timing of the transition from RD-180s to a new American engine and therefore how many RD-180s are needed.  The FY2016 NDAA,
which has cleared Congress but is under a veto threat from the
President, continues restrictions, with a total of nine more engines allowed.  Both the FY2015 and FY2016 NDAAs allow the Secretary of Defense to grant a waiver from the restrictions under certain circumstances, however, raising the question as to whether such a waiver would be granted for the GPS III launch.

The answer is no, for now at least.  Hillson’s statement says DOD does “not believe any immediate action is required … although we will continue to evaluate the need…”   The Department will examine a “range of options … while developing a long term acquisition strategy.”   If necessary, “sole source allocation of some launches” will be one of those options.

GPS III is the newest generation of Global Positioning System positioning, navigation and timing satellites.  The RFP for launch of one GPS III was issued on September 30 and bids are due November 16.   It is the first of nine competitive launch services planned in the FY2016 budget for awards using FY2015-2017 funding.

Last Updated: Oct 14, 2015 9:38 pm ET
McCarthy Withdraws from Speaker Race, Path Forward Uncertain

McCarthy Withdraws from Speaker Race, Path Forward Uncertain

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 8, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 8, 2015 3:55 pm ET

In a stunning development today, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) pulled out of the race to replace John Boehner (R-OH) as Speaker of the House.  McCarthy was the favorite to win, but ran into opposition from the far right wing of his party.  The House Republican Conference was supposed to choose its candidate for Speaker today, but that has been indefinitely postponed.  What will happen next is unclear.

McCarthy is currently the House Majority Leader, second only to Boehner in rank.  In announcing his withdrawal from the Speaker race, he said he would retain his current position.

Boehner and McCarthy both are conservatives, but not as conservative as the Tea Party.   McCarthy needed 200 votes from his Republican colleagues to move forward as the party’s candidate for Speaker and it appeared that he easily had that many.   But he did not have the magic number of 218 — the votes needed to secure the Speakership when the full House votes.   Tea Party Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus threw their collective strength behind another candidate, Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL), making it very difficult to get 218 supporters.

In a brief press conference after he announced his decision, McCarthy said the Republican party needs to be unified and the new Speaker needs not just the 218 votes to win the election in the House, but all 247 Republican votes.  “To unite, we probably need a fresh face,” he said, a nod to critics in the far right wing of the party who claimed he would continue Boehner’s legacy.  Those critics contend that Boehner does not fight hard enough for Tea Party causes like repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) or defunding Planned Parenthood and believe that government shutdowns are a valid and useful political tool.  Repeated clashes with those critics, including over the recent Continuing Resolution (CR) that is funding the government through December 11, are credited as leading Boehner to abruptly announce his resignation last month, though Boehner insists that he was planning to step down anyway on his birthday in November.

In a statement today, Boehner said he would not leave until a new Speaker is in place.  He had been planning to leave on October 30.  The leadership election will take place “at a later date, and I’m confident we will elect a new Speaker in the coming weeks,” he said.

While McCarthy is generally well-liked by his colleagues, recent comments got him into trouble.   For example, during a television interview he used the House committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi, Libya incident as an example of effective Republican leadership that caused Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers to drop.   The comments severely undercut Republican contentions that the committee is not politically motivated.  Four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, died in the attack on an American diplomatic compound in that city.  During his press conference today, McCarthy agreed that he could have phrased his comments better and the only reason the committee exists is to “find the truth” for the families of the victims:  “I should not be a distraction from that.”

What all this means for conducting the nation’s business is not comforting.  Congress must pass a Highway Trust Fund reauthorization by October 29, raise the debt limit by November 5, and pass another bill to keep the government operating after December 11.   Boehner, President Obama, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also recently pledged to work together on a high-level budget deal that hopefully would avoid any chance of a government shutdown between now and the 2016 elections.  All three oppose using government shutdowns as political tools.  Today’s developments make the outcome of all of those issues even more murky.

Commercial space advocates were looking forward to the possibility of a McCarthy Speakership since he represents the district in California where Edwards Air Force Base and the Mojave Air & Space Port are located.  He is the chief sponsor of H.R. 2262, the Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship (SPACE) Act, which passed the House in May.

Webster and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) are the only other two announced candidates for Speaker at the moment, but everything clearly is in flux right now.

Last Updated: Oct 08, 2015 3:55 pm ET
Lightfoot Confident Humans Will Be At Mars in 20 Years

Lightfoot Confident Humans Will Be At Mars in 20 Years

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 7, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 7, 2015 10:02 pm ET

NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot expressed confidence today that humans will be orbiting Mars, if not landing on the planet, in the next 20 years.  Using the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs as analogs for the step-by-step approach needed to achieve that goal, he said NASA would do it at one-tenth the budget of the Apollo program.

Speaking at a meeting of the Space Transportation Association (STA) on Capitol Hill, Lightfoot laid out NASA’s now familiar approach to the future of human spaceflight starting with continued utilization of the International Space Station (ISS) in the “Earth Reliant” phase, moving to the “Proving Ground” phase of operating in cis-lunar space, and eventually the “Earth Independent” phase when people are at Mars.   Acknowledging that NASA is “getting flack” for not having a plan, he insisted that there are many ways to approach the humans-to-Mars quest and none are “right” or “wrong,” just different.  The agency does not have all the missions for the next 20 years mapped out, but neither did it have every space shuttle mission laid out years in advance, he argued.

Lightfoot said the Journey to Mars will be international, take longer than the Apollo program but cost one-tenth of the Apollo budget, and result in permanent presence on Mars not “touch-and-go.” 

NASA spokesman Allard Beutel later clarified that the “one-tenth of Apollo” cost estimate was a reference to the size of NASA’s budget then versus now.  During the Apollo era, NASA’s budget was 4 percent of the federal budget, while today it is 0.4 percent, and within that smaller percentage, NASA will be able to send people to Mars.

A step-by-step approach is needed, just like Apollo, Lightfoot said.  He compared the Earth Reliant phase to the Mercury program where the basics of how humans respond to spaceflight were learned and the Proving Ground to Gemini where more experience is gathered.  Like Apollo, going to Mars will be “a huge leap,” and unlike those trips to Moon, humans will need to take what they need with them, make it en-route, or have it pre-positioned on Mars before they arrive.

It will be a multi-decadal, “truly international” effort that spans many Congresses and the space community must be ready for “a long, sustained march,” not the instant gratification so many demand these days.  He emphasized that “we need to talk about what we can do,” not about “what we can’t do.”

NASA recently formally committed to launching the first crewed mission of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion, Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2), in April 2023, 18 months later than the earlier August 2021 projection.  Today he stressed that NASA is still working towards August 2021, but did not feel it could make that a formal commitment against which its progress would be measured.  NASA needs to get the uncrewed EM-1 launch “under our belt” to determine when future launches will be possible, he said.  EM-1 is currently expected in 2018.

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden often says that for the first time, humans are within a 20-year window for landing on Mars.  (Bolden attended Lightfoot’s talk today and introduced him, but otherwise did not speak publicly.)  Lightfoot was asked how confident he is that humans will be on Mars in 20 years because even if funding was not a constraint, there is a long list of technical and operational challenges to be overcome.

He replied that he is “pretty confident,” though landing is a challenge, but he is “very confident” they will be orbiting Mars by then.  He added, however, that “where it gets fuzzy, honestly, is in the early 2030s. … Are we going to be ready, as a country, frankly as a society, to let those folks go.”   He agreed with an observation that it took 25 years just to build ISS, so 20 years does not seem enough time to do all that is needed for a humans to Mars mission.  “One of our challenges agency-wide, are we going to have all the risks retired. … That’s a risk posture we’re going to have to discuss. …  But I think we have a reasonable plan for where we are, pre-Phase A.”

Last Updated: Oct 07, 2015 10:02 pm ET
Senate Passes Final FY2016 NDAA, Will President Veto It? – UPDATE

Senate Passes Final FY2016 NDAA, Will President Veto It? – UPDATE

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 7, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 15, 2015 7:37 am ET

UPDATE, October 15, 2015:   The President has 10 days (excluding Sundays) to decide whether to sign or veto the bill after he receives it from Congress. As of today, Congress has not yet sent the bill to the President.  It is not unusual for a period of time to elapse between passage of a bill and sending it to the White House as clerks make “technical and conforming changes” to eliminate typos and ensure cross-references are correct, for example.

ORIGINAL STORY, October 7, 2015: The Senate today joined the House in passing the final version of the FY2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).   The bill now goes to the President, but White House spokesman Josh Earnest said last week the President would veto it.

The Senate passed the compromise version by a vote of 70-27. 

  • Three Senators did not vote: presidential candidates Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Pat Roberts, R-KS. 
  • The no votes were cast by 24 Democrats, 2 Republicans (presidential candidates Ted Cruz, R-TX, and Rand Paul, R-KY) and 1 Independent (presidential candidate Bernie Sanders).
  • The yes votes were from 49 Republicans, 20 Democrats and 1 Independent.

The party split is important because the Senate could end up voting on whether to override a Presidential veto.  Two-thirds of the Senate, 67 Senators, would have to vote in favor of overriding a veto for such a vote to succeed.  Today’s vote has the requisite number, though it is far from clear that all 20 Democrats would make the more difficult political choice to overturn a veto by their own President.

The House approved the compromise 270-156.  In the House 290 votes would be needed to override a veto, so that vote hinted that a veto would be sustained.

The veto threat is because the bill uses what its detractors call a “gimmick” to provide more money for defense than is allowed under the spending caps set by the 2011 Budget Control Act.  Republicans added $38 billion for defense in an off-budget account, Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), to circumvent the caps.   Democrats also do not like the caps, but want them to be renegotiated for all spending, defense and non-defense.  President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) recently agreed to high-level budget talks, but Boehner’s imminent departure and the transition to a new House Speaker will complicate that effort.

The bill authorizes $604 billion for defense according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) summary (other sources use other figures).  That includes $496.4 billion for DOD’s base budget plus $89.2 billion for OCO (another $18.5 billion is for atomic energy defense activities).  The OCO funding is $38 billion above the President’s request and, as noted, that spending is off-budget and does not count against the cap.

Republicans argue that the bill does not spend any money — it is an authorization, not an appropriation — and therefore should not get caught up in the broader budget debate.  They want the bill enacted because of its policy provisions and other guidance, with the budget issues dealt with in the appropriations process.  Democrats, however, feel that enacting this bill would set a bad precedent on the funding front.

Among the policy provisions in the bill is the number of RD-180 rocket engines the United Launch Alliance (ULA) would be able to obtain for national security launches.  The bill adopts the Senate position of allowing only nine more engines, rather than the 14 ULA wanted. 

Under a block buy contract signed in December 2013, before Russia’s actions in Ukraine chilled U.S.-Russian relations, ULA planned to obtain 29 RD-180 engines from Russia for its Atlas V rockets.  Following the geopolitical downturn, Congress decided that the United States should not rely on Russian engines to launch national security satellites.  In addition, it wanted the Air Force to allow new entrants like SpaceX to compete against ULA for national security launches.  The FY2015 NDAA put restrictions on how many RD-180s ULA could obtain for national security launches (they do not affect commercial or civil government launches).  ULA had completed purchase of 15 of the 29, while payments for the other 14 were not finalized.  The Air Force determined that only five of the 14 could be obtained under the terms of the FY2015 NDAA.  The Air Force and ULA have been seeking relief from the NDAA language, but the Senate, in particular, wants to hasten the transition from Russian engines to a new U.S.-built engine as well as allow competition. The Senate version of the FY2016 NDAA allowed four more to be obtained, for the total of nine.  That position was upheld in conference.

The bill has a number of other policy provisions related to space activities.  Among them is a restriction on the use of both FY2015 and FY2016 funds for the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and the launch of the last satellite in that series (DMSP-20) until the Secretary of Defense (SecDef) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) certify that the DMSP-20 launch is necessary and the most affordable solution to defense weather satellite requirements.  The bill also restricts funds for a DOD follow-on weather satellite system until the SecDef develops a plan for providing cloud characterization and theater weather imagery, briefs Congress on that plan, and the CJCS certifies the plan meets the needs of the commanders of combatant commands.  Furthermore, the bill prohibits DOD from relying on Russian or Chinese weather satellite data. 

DOD is still regrouping from the 2010 cancellation of the DOD-NOAA-NASA National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS).  NPOESS was intended to merge the separate military and civil weather satellite systems, but was terminated by the White House after years of cost overruns and schedule delays.  The two sectors were directed to resume separate systems.  NOAA moved out with a successor program, the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), but DOD is still determining its path forward while relying on the legacy DMSP series.  Several DMSP satellites were purchased in a block buy and put in storage.  DMSP-20 is the last, but DOD has been ambivalent about whether it needs to be launched or not.

Last Updated: Oct 15, 2015 7:37 am ET
SIA: Ex-Im Impasse Killing U.S. Contracts, Congress Must Fix

SIA: Ex-Im Impasse Killing U.S. Contracts, Congress Must Fix

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 6, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 6, 2015 12:41 pm ET

The Satellite Industry Association (SIA) renewed its push to convince Congress to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank today.  The industry organization said that at least three satellite manufacturing contracts have been lost since the Bank was closed to new business on July 1.

SIA and other aerospace industry organizations and companies have been warning Congress about the need to keep the Ex-Im Bank operating since last year when its usually routine reauthorization came into question.  The Bank was created in 1934, but needs to be reauthorized periodically.   It provides financing for sales of U.S. goods overseas, including aerospace products such as communications satellites.

The Bank’s existence was threatened about this time last year, but Congress temporarily reauthorized  it through June 30, 2015 in the FY2015 Continuing Resolution (CR).   Congress did not pass a reauthorization by that date, however, and another attempt in July also failed.  The Bank cannot make new loans, only administer those already granted.

The debate pits very conservative Republicans and very liberal Democrats against the rest of their parties.   Opponents argue it is “corporate welfare” for a few big companies like Boeing, while advocate argue that small and medium companies also benefit directly or indirectly because they are suppliers to the big companies.

SIA and the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) have written to Congress and issued press releases in the past supporting the Bank.  More recently, some of the affected companies have come out publicly themselves to highlight the impact on their businesses.   Individual companies often are reluctant to discuss specific contracts because they are proprietary, but Boeing has been particularly vocal in recent months, and at a September Washington Space Business Roundtable panel discussion, Orbital ATK identified a contract it says it lost because of the impasse.  

In today’s statement, SIA President Tom Stroup said that U.S. companies have had “at least three pre-existing commercial satellite orders withdrawn, lost other awards, and been barred from other competitions already.”   Calling that just “the tip of the iceberg,” he exhorted Congress to reauthorize the Bank.  “Our industry can dominate the market if Congress ensures a level playing field with European satellite manufacturers, all of which have access to foreign [Export Credit Agency] support.” 

SIA calls itself “the unified voice of the U.S. satellite industry” and has more than 35 members, including Boeing and Orbital ATK.   It said today that since 2010, 16 satellite projects worth $4 billion have been financed by the Bank “supporting tens of thousands of U.S. jobs.”  It asserts that satellites form the largest growth category of Ex-Im financing and has “generated a net profit … returning funds to U.S. taxpayers.”

The Senate has managed to pass provisions to extend the Bank, but they were blocked in the House.  The House Republican leadership has not allowed them to be debated on the House floor.  Rep. Steven Fincher (R-TN), a Republican who supports the Bank, reportedly is planning to use a procedure called a discharge petition to get the issue out of the Financial Services Committee and onto the House floor where he and other advocates believe they have more than enough votes to pass a reauthorization.

Last Updated: Oct 06, 2015 12:41 pm ET
What's Happening in Space Policy October 5-9, 2015

What's Happening in Space Policy October 5-9, 2015

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 4, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 7, 2015 10:02 am ET

Here is our list of space policy events coming up during the week of October 5-9, 2015 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session.

During the Week

Today is the 58th anniversary of the Space Age.  The Soviet Union launched Sputnik on October 4, 1957, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.  Nine months later, after considerable debate and many hearings, Congress passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958.  President Eisenhower signed it into law on July 29, 1958 and NASA opened its doors on October 1, 1958.   Hard to imagine anything happening that fast these days.

Kicking the can down the road seems to be the best Washington can manage at the moment.  Congress passed a Continuing Resolution (CR) last week to keep the government operating through December 11 without resolving the issues that have prevented the 12 regular appropriations bills from getting passed.   Now there will be a leadership transition in the House.  The election of a new Speaker to replace John Boehner (R-OH), who is leaving at the end of the month, will take place on Thursday.   Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is still the favorite despite controversial comments he made over the past week.   Two others have announced their own candidacies, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL).  If McCarthy wins, there definitely will changes in other leadership positions since his current post will become vacant, and if one of the others wins, changes also are possible.

Against this backdrop, Congress has a very busy schedule between now and December 11.  Must-pass bills include reauthorizing spending from the Highway Trust Fund (another issue that was kicked down the road in July when it was given a 3-month extension that expires on October 29), raising the debt limit by November 5, and, of course, doing something about appropriations before the CR runs out.  Many consider the FY2016 National Defense Authorization Act another must-pass bill and the House and Senate did reach a compromise on it, but most Democrats on the conference committee refused to sign the report and the White House has threatened to veto the bill.  The House passed the compromise last week and the Senate is supposed to take it up this week.  The fate of other bills, such as the House and Senate commercial space bills or attempts to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, remains up in the air.  The provision in existing commercial space law that had to be dealt with — the learning period for commercial human spaceflight regulations — because it would have expired on September 30 was given a 6-month extension (to April 1, 2016) in a hastily passed airport and airways bill that extended a number of expiring provisions to give Congress more time to deal with them.

The only space-related hearing that we know about as of Sunday morning is a House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Space Subcommittee hearing on Friday.  The topic is “Deep Space Exploration: Examining the Impact of the President’s Budget” with two former NASA human spaceflight officials (Doug Cooke and Dan Dumbacher) as witnesses.

NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot will talk to the Space Transportation Association (STA) on Wednesday.  The event is by invitation only, so we do not list it on our calendar, but anyone who is interested can contact STA’s Rich Coleman at rich@spacetransportation.us.  The NASA Advisory Council’s Planetary Science Subcommittee meets on Monday and Tuesday, and a National Academy of Sciences committee reviewing progress in achieving the vision outlined in the 2010 astronomy and astrophysics decadal survey meets in open session on Thursday and Friday.  All of those are in Washington, DC.

Elsewhere in the United States, the annual ISPCS (International Symposium on Personal and Commercial Spaceflight) is on Wednesday and Thursday in Las Cruces, NM, and there’s a LunarCubes workshop in San Jose, CA from Tuesday to Friday.    NASA will hold two briefings on Wednesday at Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA about cubesats that are flying on a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) launch scheduled for Thursday.  NASA sponsored four of the 13 cubesats that will tag along on the launch and funded a fifth in conjunction with NRO.  The remainder are NRO’s.

Elsewhere in the world, pre-meetings begin for the annual International Astronautical Congress (IAC), which will be held in Jerusalem, Israel next week.  The IAC combines meetings of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), and International Institute of Space Law (IISL).  IAC officially begins next Monday (October 12), but the associated 3-day Space Generation Congress starts this Thursday and the IAA has meetings over the weekend.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are listed below.  Check back throughout the week for any additional events we learn about and post to our Events of Interest calendar on the right side of SpacePolicyOnliine.com’s main page.

Monday-Tuesday, October 5-6

Tuesday, October 6

Tuesday-Friday, October 6-9

Wednesday, October 7

Wednesday-Thursday, October 7-8

Thursday, October 8

 Thursday-Saturday, October 8-10

Friday, October 9

Clarification:  The vote on Thursday for a new Speaker of the House is within the House Republican Conference for who the Republicans will advance as their candidate for the official election of a Speaker by the full House on October 29.

Last Updated: Oct 07, 2015 10:02 am ET

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