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Monday’s CSExtra features a roundup of space related news and commentary from the weekend and the start of a new work week: In Washington, President Obama presents his 2012 budget to Congress on Monday, with a pledge to hold down spending. The new NASA budget will top $18.5 billion; follow the blueprint of the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, including a retreat from the development of commercial transportation services, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee raised its own ante for reducing 2011 spending late Friday. Also, NASA reveals a new analysis of shuttle mission risk that suggests the earliest launches were much more hazardous than believed even by conservative engineers. A series of satellite-born NASA enabled telescopes have revolutionized astronomers’ understanding of the birth and evolution of the universe. NASA and Russia discuss a possible photo-op that would show shuttle Discovery as well as Russian, European and Japanese spacecraft docked to the station. NASA’s Stardust spacecraft is on course for a Valentine’s Day picture taking session with the Comet Tempel 1.
1. From the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 14: The White House will propose more than $18.5 billion in NASA spending in the 2012 budget that President Obama unveils today. The spending plan will adhere to the blueprint outlined in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, including a retreat from the development of commercial space taxis, according to the WSJ. The White House initially championed $1.2 billion in annual NASA expenditures on commercial transportation initiatives. Congress favored less than $500 million a year. The new spending plan will also emphasize increased international cooperation.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703515504576142391287397056.html?KEYWORDS=NASA
A. From Spacepolicyonline.com: President Obama presents his proposed 2012 budget to Congress on Monday. NASA will provide the specifics on the agency’s budget at a 2 p.m., EST, press briefing. The briefing will be broadcast on NASA TV. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
B. From Space News, Feb. 14: James Kohlenberger, chief of staff at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, will depart his post at the end of February. He is among those in the Obama administration credited with fostering NASA’s commercial space transportation initiative.
http://www.spacenews.com/policy/110213-kohlenberger-depart-ostp.html
2. From Space News, Feb. 12: The House Appropriations Committee upped the ante for cuts to the 2011 federal budget late Friday, including planned NASA expenditures. A panel-sponsored measure, H. R. 1, would cut $100 billion from government discretionary spending from March 4 through the end of the 2011 fiscal year, Sept. 30. The Senate and President must agree. In NASA’s case, the agency is spending at $18.74 billion for 2011, under a series of continuing resolutions that have locked the organization into the same top line budget as 2010. President Obama sought $19 billion for NASA in 2011. The latest House appropriations measure would take $303 million from NASA’s 2010 budget or $578 million from the 2011 request.
http://www.spacenews.com/civil/110212-house-appropriators-propose-deeper-nasa-cuts.html
A. From Spacepolicyonline.com, Feb. 13: The House Appropriations measures offers NASA flexibility in spending the reduced amount to carry out the blueprint contained in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act. The blueprint calls on the agency to develop a new heavy lift rocket and multi-purpose crew capsule by end of 2016. However, the details are unclear. The rocket and capsule would replace the shuttle and enable astronauts to explore destinations beyond low Earth orbit as well as to travel to and from the International Space Station.
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1413:house-cr-cuts-nasa-prevents-cooperation-with-china-allows-constellation-to-be-terminated&catid=67:news&Itemid=27
B. From Politico.com, Feb. 12: The House Appropriations Committee measure restricts NASA from working with China or Chinese companies, unless the projects are specifically authorized by Congress.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49404.html
C. From Spacepolitics.com Feb. 12: The website offers a NASA division by division comparison of the 2011 cuts proposed on Friday in the House Appropriations Committee bill, HR 1.
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2011/02/12/house-appropriators-cut-deeper-at-nasa/
3. From Florida Today, Feb. 13: NASA’s early shuttle missions were much more risky than initially believed, according to a new analysis by safety and mission assurance experts at the Johnson Space Center. As it nears retirement, the shuttle is 10 times safer than it was when the first missions flew three decades ago. The early flights carried a 1 in 9 chance of catastrophe, rather than the 1/100 and 1/100,000 chances of disaster attributed to missions by engineers and managers. Top risks include an orbital debris strike, main engine failure and heat shield damage. Shuttle program manager John Shannon believes the new assessment is crucial to the planning of future spacecraft.
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011102130319
4. From Spaceflightnow.com, Feb. 13: NASA is assessing a SpaceX request to combine the next two planned test flights of the Falcon 9/Dragon spacecraft into a single July mission. The flight would take Dragon all the way to a berthing with the International Space Station instead of a rendezvous followed by a berthing mission. Space X officials broached the prospect after their milestone Dec. 8 test flight that featured a successful launch and ocean recovery of a Dragon capsule.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/003/110213cots2/
5. From the Houston Chronicle, Feb. 13: A string of NASA spacecraft, from the Hubble Space Telescope to the Kepler mission, have added dramatically to astronomy’s understanding of the birth and evolution of the universe as well as the formation and variety of planets. The accomplishment of these spacecraft suggest ground-based observatories can take us only so far.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7425730.html
6. From the Birmingham News via the Huntsville Times, Feb. 13: The urgency for NASA’s mission has faded because of changing national security threats; and the changing times have left the space agency vulnerable to political opportunism, according to an Op-ed from John McDade of the One Giant Leap Foundation.
http://blog.al.com/birmingham-news-commentary/2011/02/my_view_nasa_needs_giant_leap.html
7. From Space.com, Feb. 11: NASA is discussing a proposed photo op during shuttle Discovery’s upcoming flight to the International Space Station. For the shot, three of the station’s crew would undock in a Russian Soyuz and take a picture of the nearly assembled space station, while the shuttle as well as Russian, European and Japanese cargo spacecraft are docked to the orbiting lab. Experts are examining the risks.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/10833-nasa-shuttle-discovery-photo-session.html
8. From the Coalition for Space Exploration, Feb. 14: NASA’s Stardust spacecraft is expected to make a spectacular rendezvous with Comet Tempel 1 late Monday. NASA will televise the event, which is scheduled for 11:37 p.m., EST, and host a news briefing after. Tempel 1 is the first comet to receive two visits from a NASA spacecraft. Deep Impact sent a projectile into Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005, exposing the heart of a comet for the first time.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/blog/valentine%e2%80%99s-day-comet-rendezvous-spacecraft-to-hit-the-sweet-spot
A. From the New York Times, Feb. 13: Astronomers are eager to compare imagery from the two Tempel 1 encounters. Tempel 1 has made one circuit around the sun since the 2005 Deep Impact encounter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/science/space/14comet.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=NASA&st=cse
9. From the Los Angeles Times, Feb. 11: Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmidt withdraws his name from consideration to head New Mexico’s Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department. The global warming skeptic was newly elected Gov. Susana Martinez’s choice for the position.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/02/astronaut-new-mexico-energy.html
10. From the Houston Chronicle, Feb. 12: The Chronicle ponders whether the world’s space faring nations have come as far as they can with chemical rockets. It is time to invest in a new approach. The newspaper looks to Slate and an essay by Neal Stephenson to address the question.
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2011/02/how_we_got_into_a_rocket_rut_and_why_we_might_not.html
11. From Spacepolicyonline.com, Feb. 13: Monday’s federal budget presentations and tonight’s counter between NASA’s Stardust spacecraft and Comet Tempel 1 head this week’s list of space-related activities and policy developments.
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1414:events-of-interest-week-of-february-14-18-2011&catid=67:news&Itemid=27
12. From Space.com, Feb. 11: A look at Mars 500, an experiment sponsored by the Russian Institute of Biomedical Problems to learn more about the psychological and medical challenges of long duration spaceflight. The exercise involving three Russians, two Europeans and a Chinese is simulating a 520-day mission to Mars. The isolation exercise got under way in June 2010. http://www.exploredeepspace.com/10828-mock-mars-mission-reality-mars500.html
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