Author Topic: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs  (Read 9855 times)

Offline Marslauncher

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Full Committee - Hearing

Status of NASA's Programs

Witness: The Honorable Michael D. Griffin, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

10:00a.m. - 12:00p.m.

2318 Rayburn House Office Building (WEBCAST)

Contacts:    

Republican Staff: Bill Adkins, 225-7858

Democrat Staff: Dick Obermann, 225-6375


Date: Thursday, November 3, 2005
Location: 2318 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC, US
Web Address: http://www.house.gov/science



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Just thought this would be interesting to mention, not sure what will be brought up.

John Cooke

Offline Launch Fan

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Is that unusual and should we be worried?

Offline Chris Bergin

Interesting. Anyone know if this was scheduled?
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Offline Bruce H

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Well surely he'll have good news if what Wayne Hale had to say is anything to go by.

Offline Shuttle Man

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Bruce H - 1/11/2005  4:51 PM

Well surely he'll have good news if what Wayne Hale had to say is anything to go by.

You'd think so, wouldn't you.
Ex-Apollo, waiting for NASA to finish what we started.

Offline Peter NASA

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I think this is routine, but you don't get too much of a pre-emption of it due to obvious security issues.

Offline Martin FL

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Quote
Peter NASA - 1/11/2005  7:58 PM

I think this is routine, but you don't get too much of a pre-emption of it due to obvious security issues.

That would make more sense given the current climate. I hope a transcript will be made available.

Offline SimonShuttle

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He better be more positive about the state of things as he's got a knack of making things sound out of context (see recent media interviews).

Offline Chris Bergin

Bump, given this is today.
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Offline discovery_fan

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Is it just me, or does the webcast not work:
http://boss.streamos.com/real-live/hscience/7845/150_hscience-scicmte_050125.smi

does anyone get access?

Offline MKremer

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RE: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs
« Reply #10 on: 11/03/2005 02:16 pm »
Works for me. It's a Realplayer media file type.

Offline Chris Bergin

Working for me and taping the audio.
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Offline Chris Bergin

"There is simply not enough money to carry out everything...on the current schedule". Chairman of the commitee.

Mr Gordon now giving examples of the "War of the Roses" :) (That was Yorkshire vs Lancashire)
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Offline Chris Bergin

Gordon said Griffin's testimony was not delievered in a timely fashion and they'll cancel the hearing if that happens again!
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Offline Chris Bergin

Gordon (paraphrased) believes there is not the money to carry out the VSE past 2008.

VSE looks like it's in trouble here! No mention of the Shuttle program yet. Very bad webcast, keeps dropping off.
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Offline Chris Bergin

Webcast down.
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Offline Marslauncher

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Offline FransonUK

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RE: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs
« Reply #17 on: 11/03/2005 02:49 pm »
Is the VSE in danger of slipping here?
Don't ya wish your spaceship was hot like me

Offline Chris Bergin

Webcast back up.
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Offline Dogsbd

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RE: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs
« Reply #19 on: 11/03/2005 03:15 pm »
I take it as "relatively" good sign that the politicians recognize that there may not be enough money to do everything (IE complete ISS, start VSE etc.)

That puts the ball in their court. Either pony up more $ to do it all, or decide what does not get done and be responsible for the consequences.

I think that has been Dr Griffins plan, show them the numbers and let them decide.

Offline Marslauncher

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RE: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs
« Reply #20 on: 11/03/2005 03:28 pm »
wow good question!

Coalitions of nations to do great things.

Offline Chris Bergin

Priceless quotes here, still taping.
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Offline discovery_fan

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RE: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs
« Reply #22 on: 11/03/2005 05:49 pm »
I got just some glimpses of the hearing (the webcast, at least on my end of the i-net, stoped more or less frequently). What was your impression?
I think Dr. Griffin tried to make a case for moon exploration (e.g. with reduced gravity research and the mention of the suns and solarsystems history "written" within the surface of the moon...), and the discussion followed along lines not unmfamiliar for readers of this and the space.com forum. But I just got (I think) about 20% of the discussion. I'm curios what you got out of the discussion or if it is possibly to draw a conclusion out of it.

Offline Chris Bergin

Tell you what, we want to make multiple articles out of this, so what I'll do is transcribe the interesting bits (that I at least got on tape) and post them here as I'll be doing this for the articles.

If anyone sees the hearing in full on a site, post a link.
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Offline Chris Bergin

The meat of what Griffin said is here:

Not the best recording (had to slap a recorder in front of the laptop), but you can make out what he's saying:

(Not needed anymore, see next page for video link).
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Offline Marslauncher

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Offline Chris Bergin

That's not the transcript, that's the prepared statement. Big difference on this one.
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Offline Marslauncher

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RE: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs
« Reply #27 on: 11/03/2005 08:39 pm »
ah ok sorry.

Offline Chris Bergin

No worries...

Things got quiet interesting, starting from here:

Griffin: "I'm confident of our techincal ability to get the Shuttle to return to flight next year. I'm concerned of longer term consiquences due to the hurricane over the next several years. There is a lot of uncertainty about whether or not we will have an adiqate workforce to return to Michoud. NASA's external tank production capability depends on that workforce as we still need several of those tanks to achieve nasa's desired 19 flights between now and the end of September 2010."

MAF have replied to this (well my source there) saying "We have multiple (over 10) ETs are various stages of production. Even with the reduced workforce we have no lost no critical hardware or critical staff in areas that would compromise supporting 19 flights on the timeline currently presented."

But he would say that, right.
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Offline Mark Max Q

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RE: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs
« Reply #29 on: 11/03/2005 09:14 pm »
I like how he said 19 flights. Seems like they still and I mean still are looking at 19. He went on to say there's no 'numbers' as for launches yet, but it's optimisic.

Offline STS Tony

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RE: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs
« Reply #30 on: 11/03/2005 09:34 pm »
I think when you've got a load of lawmakers breathing down your neck, the last thing you want to do is tell them you are absolutely launching 19 times, especially after them told him that money is a problem.

Offline Spacely

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RE: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs
« Reply #31 on: 11/03/2005 09:44 pm »
So today seemed to boil down to NASA arguing that things are tight but on track...until 2008, when all sorts of budget hell *might* set in. Meanwhile Congress argued that 2008 is pretty damn close and "budget hell" could mean the total breakdown of unmanned spaceflight and research, not to mention big-time manned delays.

I am a bit distressed on the subject of unmanned space exploration slowly eroding away. January will bring New Horizons, and presumably the JUNO contracts will be figured out later in 2006. After those two probes, though (and excluding Mars and MESSENGER), there's really nothing on tap.

Offline Martin FL

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RE: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs
« Reply #32 on: 11/03/2005 09:44 pm »
It started off pretty negative, but Griffin did a good job I think. He didn't roll over as it could have.

Offline discovery_fan

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RE: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs
« Reply #33 on: 11/03/2005 09:52 pm »
Thank you Chris and everybody else for the recording and your comments.
Thats very interesting (and the mainstream media missed this events as usually...).
I think Dr. Griffin did a good job, it is not easy to answer all these questions true and understandable.
Thanks again!

Offline Chris Bergin

Always a pleasure :)

The media's (the mainstream media that is) is starting to do some reports on it. Everyone's going with the obvious (as they should). I'm holding back as I'm trying to get a more Shuttle specific angle and a reaction to it for an article (expanded from the previous post I made).
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Offline Chris Bergin

Here's our round up, which is based specifically towards the Shuttle and ETs.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?id=3960
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Offline Dogsbd

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RE: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs
« Reply #36 on: 11/04/2005 06:59 pm »
Keith has some good links over at NASAWatch.com, including oepning statemenst by Griffin, Boehlert, Grodon, Udall and a link to an archived video of the entire hearing.

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2005/11/house_science_c_3.html

Good stuff Keith!




Offline Chris Bergin

Good stuff indeed....now I can take that crappy 13mb audio link off the server ;)
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Offline Avron

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RE: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs
« Reply #38 on: 11/05/2005 09:52 pm »
Quote
Chris Bergin - 4/11/2005  4:08 PM

Good stuff indeed....now I can take that crappy 13mb audio link off the server ;)


No ways, its history... here I was in North America listening to a recording in the UK of an event back in North America... short of close the loop...

On topic...

The key..IMHO

"While the committee chairing the hearing acknowledged Griffin was making hard direction calls on behalf of the agency, he'll need to continue in that vain by way of painful decisions"

Offline realtime

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RE: House Science Committee Hearing: Status of NASA's Programs
« Reply #39 on: 11/06/2005 04:18 am »
NASA TV is currently replaying a recording of this hearing.

http://www.nasa.gov/55644main_NASATV_Windows.asx

WinMedia.



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