Friday’s CSExtra finds more congressional concern over NASA’s decision to reassign Constellation Program manager Jeff Hanley. A small bipartisan collection of lawmakers calls on NASA’s inspector general to look into the matter. Meanwhile, the latest in a new generation of Global Positioning System satellites rockets into orbit Thursday night. NASA imagery helps gauge the leak rate from the Deepwater Horizon.
1. From The Hill: U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison calls for NASA’s inspector general to inquire into the reassignment of Constellation program manager Jeff Hanley earlier this week. This was first reported by other media on Wednesday and Thursday,
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/100163-hutchison-questions-reassignment-of-constellation-program-manager
A. From the Orlando Sentinel: U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, Chair of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, as well as George LeMieux, a Florida Republican, join Hutchison in a similar request. The lawmakers say NASA may have violated Congressional restrictions on dismantling the Constellation Program. Prior to the reassignment, the General Accountability Office determined NASA was in compliance.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/2010/05/florida-senator-joins-call-for-nasainquiry.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+news%2Fspace%2Fspace_blog+%28Space+Blog+The+Write+Stuff%29
2. From the Huntsville Times: An editorial on NASA’s future decries the agency’s current identity crisis.
http://blog.al.com/times-views/2010/05/editorial_nasa_future_still_a.html
3. Spacepolitics.com and Spacepolicyonline.com offer additional reporting on a House Science and Technology Committee hearing on Wednesday in which NASA Administrator Charles Bolden testified on the cost and source of funding to convert the Constellation Program’s Orion capsule a space station life boat. Bottom line, the $4.5 to $7 billion reassignment will not be coming from NASA efforts to foster a commercial crew capability. Some lawmakers have charged that the Obama administration’s plans for NASA are just as vulnerable to underfunding as were the Bush administration’s.
A. Spacepolitics.com: The policy website offers additional heavily commented upon developments from Wednesday’s House Science and Technology Committee hearing on space policy and NASA’s future. Among them, NASA estimates the cost of assigning the Orion capsule a space station rescue role will cost $4.5 billion, an expense NASA must take from other programs.
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2010/05/27/other-notes-from-yesterdays-hearing/
B. From Spacepolicyonline.com: One place the $4.5 billion will not come from is the $6 billion NASA has committed to fostering a commercial crew space transportation system to low Earth orbit over the next five years. NASA makes the clarification after Wednesday’s hearing in which testimony from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden indicated that the 2011 commercial crew or technology development budget lines might be the source.
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=921:nasa-clarifies-orion-lifeboat-money-will-not-come-from-commercial-crew&catid=67:news&Itemid=27
4. From Spaceflightnow.com: The U.S. Air Force and United Launch Alliance launch the first in a new generation of U.S. Global Positioning System satellites late Thursday.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/delta/d349/
5. More from the Huntsville Times: New NASA Chief Technology Officer Robert Braun calls on workers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to help the nation emerge from the economic recession with a commitment to new technology.
http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/local.ssf?/base/news/1275038326185020.xml&coll=1
6. From the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post: As British Petroleum struggles to cap a gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, estimates of the leak rate climb. NASA satellites and aircraft help to establish the ground truth, 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day, confirming a disaster that exceeds the Exxon Valdez spill.
A. From the Los Angeles Times: NASA satellites play a crucial role in determining the leak rate of the Gulf oil spill.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/05/gulf-oil-spill-more-than-exxon-valdez-usgs-says.html
B. From the Washington Post: NASA surveillance aircraft also played a role in assessing the true oil leak rate.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052701957.html?sid=ST2010052704421
7. From the New York Times: Columnist David Brooks finds a link, the normalization of deviation, between the Deepwater Horizon disaster and NASA’s Challenger tragedy. “If there is one thing we’ve learned, it is that humans are not great at measuring and responding to risk when placed in situations too complicated to understand,” writes Brooks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/opinion/28brooks.html?scp=2&sq=NASA&st=cse
8. From space.com: Scientists are baffled over the source of a heavy form on nitrogen common on the moon. It’s not the same breed of nitrogen found in the solar wind. It may have come from comets that crash onto the moon. From a new report in The Journal of Science.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/scienceastronomy/moon-covered-odd-cosmic-nitrogen-100527.html
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