Senate Panel Near Agreement on Bill to Roll Back NASA Changes

[Rick]

Breaking News:

NEW ORLEANS — Republican and Democratic leaders on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation are moving toward an authorization bill that would reverse large swaths of President Obama’s proposed changes to NASA’s human space flight program, a ranking Republican involved in the talks confirmed.
The bill, which lays out the direction of the nation’s space program for the next three years, would add at least one more space shuttle flight, speed development of a heavy-lift rocket and move ahead with building a spacecraft to venture beyond low-Earth orbit. It would also slow down a rush to invest in commercial rockets by requiring companies to demonstrate their capabilities before receiving large contracts for delivering astronauts to the International Space Station, said a staff member who was not authorized to speak for attribution.

“We are moving in that direction,” acknowledged Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, the ranking Republican on the commerce committee’s space subcommittee
NASA’s human spaceflight program has been in limbo since February, when the Obama administration unveiled a budget request that would cancel the space agency’s current program to send astronauts back to the moon.
Under the president’s proposal, the human spaceflight program would shift its focus to developing new space technologies for several years before embarking on a program to reach more distant destinations of an asteroid around 2025 and Mars a decade later. The administration would also largely take NASA out of the rocket-building business and instead hire private companies that would provide a space taxi service for its astronauts.
Mr. Obama’s plan has not gained wide support in Congress, but neither has there been a groundswell to keep the current moon program, known as Constellation, which would need a large increase in financing to put it back on track.

A House subcommittee working on the 2011 budget last week agreed to finance NASA next year at $19 billion as requested by Mr. Obama, but sidestepped the controversy of what the money would be spent on by saying it would defer to what emerged in the NASA authorization.
The Senate bill resulted from negotiations between Senator John D. Rockefeller of West Virginia, a Democrat who is chairman of the commerce committee; Senator Kay Bailey of Hutchison, the committee’s ranking Republican; Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, a Democrat who is chairman of the commerce committee’s space subcommittee, and Mr. Vitter.

The bill marks a sign that Congressional opponents can move beyond their dislike of what Mr. Obama has proposed and devise an alternative that can attract bipartisan support.
Mr. Vitter, who attended a ceremony Thursday morning at a NASA factory here to mark the delivery of the last external fuel tank for the space shuttles, described the agreement as close, but added, “I don’t want to announce something as done until it is.”
In its current version, the bill would direct NASA to fly one more space shuttle mission in the second half of next year. The bill would also in effect restore full capabilities to the Constellation program’s Orion crew capsule by telling NASA to build a spacecraft that can undertake deep-space missions to destinations like the moon or an asteroid.

In April, President Obama said he wanted to retain the Orion crew capsule after shuttering the Constellation program, but as a stripped-down lifeboat for the International Space Station.
The authorization also directs NASA to start development of a new heavy-lift rocket immediately rather than waiting as late as 2015 in the president’s proposal.

Not all of the details of the Senate bill have been decided yet, and the corresponding committee in the House of Representatives has not yet begun work on its version of the authorization bill. It is also likely that the administration will fight to keep aspects of its plan that it still wants.

The Senate committee is scheduled to discuss and mark up the bill, known as the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, next Thursday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/sc...nasa.html?_r=2

[klydemorris]

A lot of "houses of cards" may come falling down a week from now.

[klydemorris]

The attempt by the Obama administration's change-heads to kill NASA's Human Spaceflight capability while at the same time set the agency up for final cancelation in Obama's lame-duck final year in office, has moved one giant step closer to being thwarted by the Congress. The Senate is, at this moment, in the process of passing the Nelson bill and the House will go along. Even the White House is said to be ready to rubber-stamp the bill. Thus giving us a dandy new HLV, a fully loaded orion and a nice finger in Obama's eye. Death is stalking ObamaSpace... stay tuned for the return of the Ares I-X.

[Rick]

Yup! Constellation work will continue. I can confirm that as of this morning.

[Rick]

Me2, what's your take on this change of events?

[Me2]

The attempt by the Obama administration's change-heads to kill NASA's Human Spaceflight capability while at the same time set the agency up for final cancelation in Obama's lame-duck final year in office, has moved one giant step closer to being thwarted by the Congress. The Senate is, at this moment, in the process of passing the Nelson bill and the House will go along. Even the White House is said to be ready to rubber-stamp the bill. Thus giving us a dandy new HLV, a fully loaded orion and a nice finger in Obama's eye. Death is stalking ObamaSpace... stay tuned for the return of the Ares I-X.

Yeah, right. What are you smoking? Cancel NASA was never in the cards.

Also, anything with Ares I is still dead, just wishful thinking on the part of Ares I huggers.

[Rick]

Yeah, right. What are you smoking? Cancel NASA was never in the cards.

Also, anything with Ares I is still dead, just wishful thinking on the part of Ares I huggers.

I think you are incorrect as far as the last sentence indicates Jim. There are strong indications that some type of Ares testing will continue.

[klydemorris]

Me2 will be in denial as the Ares I-X-2 goes into MaxQ. The fact is, I'm as right now about this as I was way back in Feb. and Me2 is still blindly stumblong through Ares I phobia land barking "It's Dead!" like some street wierdo shouting at traffic. If he had watched and listened to Nelson over the months since the Obama mess was released, he would know that Nelson has another Ares I test in mind. The Orion LAS needs a MaxQ abort, the 5 segment SRB needs at least one flight test, the politicians need to politically cover the Ares I sunk costs and thousands of people like Rick need a pay check- add it up.

I knew after the first hearing in the House concerning ObamaSpace that the FY2011 proposal had hit a brick wall in the Congress- soon it will be fixed- just like Nelson said it would.

Here's strictly my opinion, but a peek behind the scenes- First off, MANY on the Dem. side of the Congress saw right through the Obama facade when he took office. They saw him as not having paid his dues to be president and having only been well marketed. Still, they were willing to respect the office. Then in healthcare, many of them took politically suicidal positions to vote with Obama, for favors to be granted later- one such was Nelson. His exchange would be the NASA budget. But Obama's people stabbed Nelson in the back with this radical budget proposal. Nelson then had a talk with "the White House" and was promised that changes would be made. On April 12, Nelson said publically that the President would "...fix it, or we (the Congress) will fix it for him." Three days later he stood at KSC and was forced to smile while Obama and his administration sold Nelson out once again. Now Nelson went to the task of showing the junior Senator made president, what the Congress can do. This bill is the result and it is not being presented to the president- it's being force-fed to him and he is going to eat it.

I saw most of this move by Obama coming from a long way away... see my blog from August 2009 http://theklydemorrisproject.blogspo...to-cancel.html