LIVE: Congressional Hearings into Obama's NASA Budget FY2011 - Feb 24-25 Part 2

[Chris Bergin]

PAO are working overtime, surrounding items that Bolden seemed to be pushing on his "student inspiration" repeat-a-thon, etc. Here's the latest bunch:

"NASA HOSTS ROCKON! 2010 UNIVERSITY ROCKET SCIENCE WORKSHOP IN JUNE"

"SCIENCE TEAM FROM AMES RESEARCH CENTER WINS 2009 NASA SOFTWARE OF YEAR AWARD"

NASA GROUND-BREAKING UNEARTHS NEW GENERATION OF DEEP SPACE NETWORK ANTENNAS"

"Kansas Students Connect With International Space Station Crew for Out of This World Conversation"

Seems like a new PAO too, someone called Sonja Alexander - unless I've missed her name from some previous releases. Then again, there seems to be a boatload of PAOers based on the countless names I've seen send out these sort of releases.

[Bernie Roehl]

Sorry if this has already been asked/answered, but this thread has grown faster than I can keep up.

Is there another set of hearings today?  If so, what time and what's the best place (url) to watch them?

[zerm]

Thanks ploss- I forgot about the NASA Authorization Bill.

The question remains- does Obama want the political heat from a veto of that bill as a stand-alone act? This plan... as I said would happen a few months ago... takes his decision pn what to do about NASA, Constellation and HSF and simply puts it into the budget then slides it under the door for everyone to figure out. This gives him some political distance for his own comfort. A veto of the NASA Authorization Bill would mean a direct involvement where he has to sit at his desk and, with his own hand, kill NASA (as many will like to portray it).

[Cog_in_the_machine]

Sorry if this has already been asked/answered, but this thread has grown faster than I can keep up.

Is there another set of hearings today?  If so, what time and what's the best place (url) to watch them?

No more hearings for today. And I have no idea if there will be any in the future.

[psloss]

The question remains- does Obama want the political heat from a veto of that bill as a stand-alone act? This plan... as I said would happen a few months ago... takes his decision pn what to do about NASA, Constellation and HSF and simply puts it into the budget then slides it under the door for everyone to figure out. This gives him some political distance for his own comfort. A veto of the NASA Authorization Bill would mean a direct involvement where he has to sit at his desk and, with his own hand, kill NASA (as many will like to portray it).

Yup, that's why I think the action is still in front of us, after the public hearings.  Still remains to be seen what's in the two bills on the House and Senate sides and still remains to be seen whether the President would veto a bill that mandated something substantially different than his proposal.  It may turn out that a lot of negotiations are in private and all we see (at least at first) is a bill and a signature.  Or maybe there will be a confrontation.

[Cog_in_the_machine]

Does anyone have an idea when the budget will be finalized and approved?
By approved I don't mean necessarily accepted in it's current form.

[Chris Bergin]

Olson mentioned some guy (I didn't catch his name, but it's probably someone notable in NASA) on twitter that sent out the message "To those that don't like Obamas' new budget - bite me"



Obviously trying to demonize everyone supporting the new budget

And it's had an effect, as an e-mail just went out telling all employees they are barred from using Twitter from this point onwards - based on amendment to "CP-A-33, Basic – SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE".

That'll go down badly with the spacetweeps.

[svenge]

Bolden seems more and more like a puppet after these past 2 days...

[zerm]

Does anyone have an idea when the budget will be finalized and approved?
By approved I don't mean necessarily accepted in it's current form.

Could be a long, long time... enough to fly to Mars and back perhaps. There is a lot of other stuff in the overall FY2011 budget that hang it all up and cause a Continuing Resolution. We're under a CR right now because the FY2010 budget has not passed from over a year ago.

[psloss]

Does anyone have an idea when the budget will be finalized and approved?
By approved I don't mean necessarily accepted in it's current form.

To get some idea, you can look back at the time-line for the authorization bill in 2008:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.6063:

For appropriations, you can look at the FY 2010 time-lines:
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app10.html

[psloss]

And it's had an effect, as an e-mail just went out telling all employees they are barred from using Twitter from this point onwards - based on amendment to "CP-A-33, Basic – SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE".

That'll go down badly with the spacetweeps.

Ouch.

Could be a long, long time... enough to fly to Mars and back perhaps. There is a lot of other stuff in the overall FY2011 budget that hang it all up and cause a Continuing Resolution. We're under a CR right now because the FY2010 budget has not passed from over a year ago.

No, it passed and was signed into law at the end of last year (before Christmas).

[bad_astra]

Luxury. We've barred from any social networking sites. Or anything labelled humor/comedy, for that matter, for awhile now.

[nooneofconsequence]

Be advised that 9B of Cx resulting in one very limited test did not inspire these kids - many told me they saw it as a meaningless diversion.

A 7th grader said that? Amazing.

No, actually a 6th grader at a regional science fair who did a board on his hybrid launch vehicle concept. Spent 4 hours of him talking at me, letting him lecture me on the subject. About what you'd think in terms of mixture of knowledge, skill and voids.

Blew me away.

[zerm]

And it's had an effect, as an e-mail just went out telling all employees they are barred from using Twitter from this point onwards - based on amendment to "CP-A-33, Basic – SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE".

That'll go down badly with the spacetweeps.

Ouch.

Could be a long, long time... enough to fly to Mars and back perhaps. There is a lot of other stuff in the overall FY2011 budget that hang it all up and cause a Continuing Resolution. We're under a CR right now because the FY2010 budget has not passed from over a year ago.

No, it passed and was signed into law at the end of last year (before Christmas).

Whoops, my mistake- just looked at the link you posted... guess I was off planet around Christmas :0

[Cog_in_the_machine]

Olson mentioned some guy (I didn't catch his name, but it's probably someone notable in NASA) on twitter that sent out the message "To those that don't like Obamas' new budget - bite me"



Obviously trying to demonize everyone supporting the new budget

And it's had an effect, as an e-mail just went out telling all employees they are barred from using Twitter from this point onwards - based on amendment to "CP-A-33, Basic – SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE".

That'll go down badly with the spacetweeps.

Any idea who's the one who sent the tweet?

[Ben the Space Brit]

Olson mentioned some guy (I didn't catch his name, but it's probably someone notable in NASA) on twitter that sent out the message "To those that don't like Obamas' new budget - bite me"



Obviously trying to demonize everyone supporting the new budget

And it's had an effect, as an e-mail just went out telling all employees they are barred from using Twitter from this point onwards - based on amendment to "CP-A-33, Basic – SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE".

That'll go down badly with the spacetweeps.

First rule of thumb for any governmental bureaucracy when faced with embarrassing facts & leaks - Witchhunt and kill the messenger.

[psloss]

Olson mentioned some guy (I didn't catch his name, but it's probably someone notable in NASA) on twitter that sent out the message "To those that don't like Obamas' new budget - bite me"



Obviously trying to demonize everyone supporting the new budget

And it's had an effect, as an e-mail just went out telling all employees they are barred from using Twitter from this point onwards - based on amendment to "CP-A-33, Basic – SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE".

That'll go down badly with the spacetweeps.

First rule of thumb for any governmental bureaucracy when faced with embarrassing facts & leaks - Witchhunt and kill the messenger.

Well, I haven't seen any public confirmation of this yet, but 'bite me' doesn't really count as a fact or a leak.  (It would be more of a Ron Burgundy moment.)  If it's true (and I would think given the report there's an effort to track it down), it would be another example that style matters.

[Cog_in_the_machine]

Olson said (paraphrasing):
"Is that the essence of the new plan for the workforce at NASA?"

Bolden responded that that's unacceptable and he'll find out why that statement was made.

[Ben the Space Brit]

Olson mentioned some guy (I didn't catch his name, but it's probably someone notable in NASA) on twitter that sent out the message "To those that don't like Obamas' new budget - bite me"



Obviously trying to demonize everyone supporting the new budget

And it's had an effect, as an e-mail just went out telling all employees they are barred from using Twitter from this point onwards - based on amendment to "CP-A-33, Basic – SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE".

That'll go down badly with the spacetweeps.

First rule of thumb for any governmental bureaucracy when faced with embarrassing facts & leaks - Witchhunt and kill the messenger.

Well, I haven't seen any public confirmation of this yet, but 'bite me' doesn't really count as a fact or a leak.  (It would be more of a Ron Burgundy moment.)  If it's true (and I would think given the report there's an effort to track it down), it would be another example that style matters.

FWIW, I was referring to the ban on Twitter rather than the attempt to find the person responsible.  People really need to be more tactful, at least when using company computers. 

However, NASA blocking its staff from using Twitter will only encourage conspiracy theorists to suggest that NASA wants to hide stuff.

[nooneofconsequence]

If they make the worst possible choice and decide to continue Constellation with the same vehicles, I hope they at least have the sense to fund it properly this time.

As I see it the battle right now is to go back to the status quo - poorly funded Ares I.

Its ironic that DIRECT may lead a charge back into that idiotic outcome.