NASA FY 2011 Appropriations - preview

[psloss]

From the Huntsville Times:
http://blog.al.com/space-news/2010/11/nasa_could_be_in_budget_limbo.html

The prediction in there:

"Respecting the will of the country" that government should move another direction, Cramer said, the outgoing House Democrat leadership will likely OK a continuing resolution to keep funding at 2010 levels.

[psloss]

"WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation announces the following full committee hearing titled Transition and Implementation: The Nasa Authorization Act of 2010."

Scheduled for next Thursday (18 November) at 10 am Eastern.

Link

This is the authorizing committee, but the timing is probably relevant to whatever appropriations comes out of the lame-duck session.

[simonbp]

What's the model in the picture?

[Comga]

What's the model in the picture?

It's some model of the Zvezda FBG from the Russian segment of the ISS!  On the website for Hearings before the US Senate!  What does that say?

Sorry for the low resolution image and the imperfect position match.  It's the best I could find.  With Google SketchUp or the STK model of the ISS, it would be easy to pose the model in the matching condition, with matching lighting and all.  Someone else can try that.

[Jeff Bingham]

What's the model in the picture?

It's some model of the Zvezda FBG from the Russian segment of the ISS!  On the website for Hearings before the US Senate!  What does that say?

Sorry for the low resolution image and the imperfect position match.  It's the best I could find.  With Google SketchUp or the STK model of the ISS, it would be easy to pose the model in the matching condition, with matching lighting and all.  Someone else can try that.

Curious what you are suggesting about some reasoning for this picture on a Senate Committee website...and which one? and when was it posted?

[sdsds]

http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Hearings&ContentRecord_id=63c5863f-8419-4aa3-9474-cef769b345f3&ContentType_id=14f995b9-dfa5-407a-9d35-56cc7152a7ed&Group_id=b06c39af-e033-4cba-9221-de668ca1978a

[JohnFornaro]

...what you are suggesting about some reasoning for this picture ...

I would just say that the staffer who prepared the web page just picked an illustration.  That, as a Russian piece of the station, it could be some sort of quiet political statement, doesn't make sense to me, not on that webpage.

Will there be another one of those links to the video of the hearing?

[Robotbeat]

What's the model in the picture?

It's some model of the Zvezda FBG from the Russian segment of the ISS!  On the website for Hearings before the US Senate!  What does that say?

Sorry for the low resolution image and the imperfect position match.  It's the best I could find.  With Google SketchUp or the STK model of the ISS, it would be easy to pose the model in the matching condition, with matching lighting and all.  Someone else can try that.

That makes total sense since the "deficit commission" (kind of a joke to lower the deficit by lowering taxes) wants to cut commercial crew and outsource crew transportation to Russia...

[simonbp]

I would just say that the staffer who prepared the web page just picked an illustration.  That, as a Russian piece of the station, it could be some sort of quiet political statement, doesn't make sense to me, not on that webpage.

Or, more likely, they sent a staffer to take a picture of "something space-y" at NASM, and this is what they got...

[telomerase99]

The multipurpose crew vehicle seems like the obvious sacrifice if one has to be made. With all of the commercial vehicles in the works. I guess I feel a little bit better after Cots 1, provided it is a success.

Too bad they cant strap an orangutan into the thing just for good measure.

[Jeff Bingham]

http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Hearings&ContentRecord_id=63c5863f-8419-4aa3-9474-cef769b345f3&ContentType_id=14f995b9-dfa5-407a-9d35-56cc7152a7ed&Group_id=b06c39af-e033-4cba-9221-de668ca1978a

Thanks for the link...I've been traveling the past two weeks and just got back from California...that IS a strange picture to use in connection with the upcoming hearing! I will check with the Majority staff tomorrow and suggest something more in line with the subject matter of the hearing (I am pretty certain JohnFornaro is right, and the person who posted it likely is not aware of what the image specifically is.)

[TheFallen]

The multipurpose crew vehicle seems like the obvious sacrifice if one has to be made. With all of the commercial vehicles in the works. I guess I feel a little bit better after Cots 1, provided it is a success.

So we'll use Dragon and CST-100 for potential BEO missions?  The way that the House and Senate have treated commercial spaceflight companies prior to the passage of the new Authorization Bill, you think that's gonna happen?

Ending the shuttle program with STS-134 as the final flight is a more likely scenario in terms of making a sacrifice.

[yg1968]

http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Hearings&ContentRecord_id=63c5863f-8419-4aa3-9474-cef769b345f3&ContentType_id=14f995b9-dfa5-407a-9d35-56cc7152a7ed&Group_id=b06c39af-e033-4cba-9221-de668ca1978a

Thanks for the link...I've been traveling the past two weeks and just got back from California...that IS a strange picture to use in connection with the upcoming hearing! I will check with the Majority staff tomorrow and suggest something more in line with the subject matter of the hearing (I am pretty certain JohnFornaro is right, and the person who posted it likely is not aware of what the image specifically is.)

The same image was also used for the summary of the 2010 NASA Authorization bill:
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Legislation&ContentRecord_id=8d7c1465-f852-4835-ba84-25faf56bbb36&ContentType_id=03ab50f5-55cd-4934-a074-d6928b9dd24c&Group_id=6eaa2a03-6e69-4e43-8597-bb12f4f5aede

[yg1968]

"WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation announces the following full committee hearing titled Transition and Implementation: The Nasa Authorization Act of 2010."

Scheduled for next Thursday (18 November) at 10 am Eastern.

Link

This is the authorizing committee, but the timing is probably relevant to whatever appropriations comes out of the lame-duck session.

Some additionnal information on the upcoming Senate hearing:
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20101111/NEWS02/11110313/1006/NEWS01/Senate+to+review+NASA+funding

[psloss]

Senate authorization committee oversight hearing rescheduled to December 1st at 10:30 am Eastern:
http://space.flatoday.net/2010/11/senate-hearing-on-new-nasa-policy.html

No reason given.

[Jeff Bingham]

Senate authorization committee oversight hearing rescheduled to December 1st at 10:30 am Eastern:
http://space.flatoday.net/2010/11/senate-hearing-on-new-nasa-policy.html

No reason given.

Simply an emergent scheduling conflict that came up last night. Nothing more.

[psloss]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced today he will not support an omnibus FY 2011 appropriations bill.  This is being reported as killing it.  How long the second continuing resolution would last is apparently still under negotiation:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45344.html

[marsavian]

http://stgnews.com/archive/360

“NASA has signaled an interest recently in possibly circumventing the law,” Hatch said. “My purpose in calling this meeting was to explain in no uncertain terms the Utah congressional delegation’s interest in ensuring that Utah’s solid rocket motor industry is protected. Though they assured us that NASA would comply with the law, some of their answers reaffirmed my suspicions that we need to keep a very close watch on the agency. I will continue with other delegation members to ensure the agency abides by the law and protects this industry that is so vitally important to our national security and northern Utah’s economy.”
 
“It’s clear that congressional opinion on this issue isn’t going to change as we work to advance the mission of NASA,” Bennett said. “I join my colleagues in admonishing NASA to strictly adhere to the law and use solid rocket motors in the development of the new Space Launch System. Such adherence is a major step in saving thousands of jobs in Utah and sustaining an industrial base critical to our national security.”

“Today’s meeting confirms that we are in a long-term fight over the future of NASA’s manned space flight program,” Bishop said. “While I appreciate Administrator Charlie Bolden and Assistant Administrator Lori Garver’s willingness to meet with us, I remain very concerned that NASA continues to delay the transition from Constellation systems toward the new heavy-lift program while they needlessly explore private start-up technologies that remain unproven, require more money and are unfit for human-rated space travel. During the meeting, I expressed my disappointment that both Bolden and Garver continue to slow-walk the plans required by the NASA Reauthorization Act.

[marsavian]

http://www.spacepolitics.com/2010/11/18/mollohan-dont-know-if-congress-will-approve-an-appropriations-bill/

Mollohan had a clear preference for an omnibus that would incorporate “all the hard work” the appropriations committee’s staff had put into the legislation so far. “My intellect tells me that we should get an omnibus,” he said, adding that the outcome may depend on what will happen in the Senate, where the endorsement of a ban on earmarks by minority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “was not a good omen.”

“A CR would be bad for NASA,” he said, because they generally don’t support the start of new activities. He did acknowledge that a CR could permit “anomalies” that would support new programs, but he said even in such a case “the new direction enacted in the authorization bill is likely to be delayed as well.” (He added that the NASA authorization bill that was signed into law last month “was one of this Congress’s real legislative achievements.”)

[marsavian]

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/john-boehner-budget-cuts/2010/11/18/id/377506

Experts say there’s a good chance that at a minimum, a freeze on federal discretionary spending for a two- or three-year period will result. The various deficit commissions examining the deficit problem support that. But is just holding spending steady at record levels enough to put the economy on the road to recovery? Whether deeper cuts happen next year depends on whether Democrats and the president are willing to accept them. Otherwise, Republicans led by Boehner will be on a collision course with Obama.

So what are the chances that the end result will be an actual decrease in federal non-entitlement, non-defense spending will actually go down? History says the odds are not good. Other than the modest spending decline in 2010 as the stimulus spigot squeaked shut, the last time the federal budget actually went down was in 1965.That year, federal spending dropped from $118.5 billion, to $118.2 billion. And there’s a reason spending hasn’t been cut since. “You’re going to have special interests screaming,” Edwards says. “So it will be an interesting question whether they actually do it.”