SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2010
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POLITICS & THE NATION Funding squall buffets NASA
Government divided over spaceflight once shuttle has been retired
BY MARC KAUFMAN AND DAN EGGEN
NASA’s human space program,
long the agency’s biggest public and congressional asset, has be- come instead its biggest head- ache. As never before, NASA watch-
ers say, an agency that generally is funded and directed through White House and congressional consensus has become the focus of a brutal, potentially crippling and politically topsy-turvy battle for control that is likely to come to a head next week. NASA politics have always de-
fied labels. But now a series of unlikely alliances and negotiat- ing positions have left Congress in an especially difficult bind, with the distinct possibility that the fiscal yearwill endthismonth without an approved 2011 bud- get. The result, congressional negotiators and observers say, would be layoffs and a very un- predictable agency future. Consider: Amajor front in the contest of
wills has been funding for com- mercial rocket and spacecraft companies that can potentially provide inexpensive transport services to the international space station in the years ahead. President Obama proposed a
big boost for that effort in Febru- ary, initiated under President George W. Bush, but has gotten only tepid support from Demo- crats until recently and almost universal opposition from Re- publicans. The House bill await- ing action would give twice as much money to Russia for trans- porting astronauts and cargo to the space station as it would give to U.S. companies working to build that capacity. The Senate did pass a compro-
mise authorization NASA bill be- fore the August recess that pro- videdfarmore funds for commer- cial spaceflight, although it still halved Obama’s request. The bill directed the agency to instead immediately build a new heavy- lift rocket that can take astro- nauts to deep space by early 2017. In doing so, it required the
agency to design the project in a way that will benefit certain ag- grieved companies and NASA centers — writing the kind of congressional technical blue- print that NASA administrators have long warned about. None- theless, the administration has thrown its support behind the bill. At the same time, NASA is still
spending $200 million a month on the Constellation human space program initiated under Bush. A blue-ribbon panel con- vened by Obama and headed by former Lockheed Martin chair- manNormanAugustine conclud- ed last year that Constellation had been underfunded from the start andwould not be completed in time to perform some of its
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Discovery atKennedy Space Center in Florida. The shuttle fleet is scheduled to be grounded next year. Meanwhile, budget hawks
intended missions. Obama’s in- tention to scrap part of the Con- stellation program, which has already cost taxpayers $10 bil- lion, is what outraged many in Congress to begin with. A leader of the effort against
theObamaplanhasbeenMichael Griffin, the head of NASA under Bush.Griffin has been on theHill regularly in pastmonths arguing in favor of keeping the full Con- stellation program, and he has been especially influential in the House,where a Science and Tech- nology subcommittee passed a bill before recess restoring funds to Constellation.
House panel vote delayed AfullHouse committee vote on
the bill was put off at the last minute because, congressional sources say, it would have faced sure death in the Senate. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) had cob- bled together a complex compro- mise bill that passed by unani- mous consent — a procedural move that allows any single sena- tor to kill the bill later if it incorporates significant House changes. If Congress does not pass a
new NASA budget by Sept. 30, congressional staffers say, con- tractors will begin laying off workers. In addition, the agency could lose out on some of the $3 billion budget increase over three years proposed by the ad- ministration. NASA politics have become
both more personal and more focused on where jobs will be won or lost this year. The head of theHouse authorization subcom- mittee that supported Constella- tion is Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who is married to an astronaut. Astronauts are deeply divided on the Constellation- vs.-private-space debate, but the headlines went to Apollo pio- neers such as Neil Armstrong, who strongly opposed Obama’s plans.
such as Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) went on the warpath against Obama’s limited privatiz- ing proposals, in part, at least, to keep NASA government jobs at NASA facilities in their states. And Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) , a liberal onmost issues, held a fundraiser in Alabama last year, reportedly organized with the help of Shelby, as the Constel- lation battle was first brewing. Opponents of the Obama plan
have sought to make Elon Musk, founder of the start-up rocket company Space-X, into the villain of the piece. When Griffin was NASA administrator, Musk com- peted for and won a contract to provide cargo to the internation- al space station, and his company successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket in June. Musk’s political donations —
about $150,000 since 2003 — to Obama and other Democrats have become an issue, but cam- paign records show they are matched by contributions to Re- publicans. They are also dwarfed by campaign donations from large aerospace companies such as Lockheed and ATK that could lose under the Obama plan.
‘Propaganda war’ “It’s been quite a propaganda
war,” saidMusk,who complained that Shelby refused to even meet with him. “You know there is something strange going on when Republicans, who ostensi- bly should be pro-privatization, are arguing as though they are fromthe Soviet Politburo. There’s something wrong with that pic- ture.” Scott Pace, a Bush-era NASA
official who now serves as direc- tor of George Washington Uni- versity’s Space Policy Institute, said the fault lies elsewhere. “On both political and sub-
stantive grounds, the administra- tion has handled the NASA hu- man spaceflight side badly,” he said.
DIGEST TEXAS
Suspect surrenders after 22-hour standoff AWest Texasman suspected of
shooting two sheriff’s deputies and another man and then barri- cadinghimself inamakeshiftbun- ker was arrested Saturday after a 22-hour standoff, authorities said. Victor White, 55, surrendered
as SWAT team members in an armored vehicle closed in on his trailer in Odessa. Throughout the standoff,White sporadically fired on a police helicopter and on offi- cers froma large dirtmound that contained trenches, bunkers and fightingpositions, officials said. The two Ector County deputies
were hospitalized in fair condi- tion, and the other man — who had gone to the propertywith the deputies Friday because of an un- specified dispute — was treated andreleased. Police saidWhite has longtime
links to the Republic of Texas, whichassertsTexas is anindepen- dentnation.
—AssociatedPress NEWYORK
Muslimgroups plan summit In part because of a sense their
faith is under attack, U.S.Muslim organizations plan to gather Sun- day in New York City to discuss what they say is a rise inanti-Mus-
POLITICS
Pencewins straw poll overHuckabee Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) took
the top spot Saturday in a presi- dential strawpoll of social conser- vatives meeting inWashington, a surprise victory over last year’s overwhelming favorite, former Arkansas governor Mike Hucka- bee. Pence drew 24 percent of the
J.R. OPPENHEIM/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ahot air balloon drifts over White SandsNationalMonument on Saturday during the 19th annual White Sands Balloon Invitational near Alamogordo,N.M.
lim sentiment that has accompa- nied a national debate surround- ing a proposed Islamic center and mosquenearGroundZero. Shaik Ubaid of the Islamic
Leadership Council of Metropoli- tan New York, one of the groups organizing the gathering, said some AmericanMuslimswho ini- tially expressed trepidation about the center began supporting the planafter “itbecame a rallying cry for extremists.” The center’s proposed location
two blocks from the World Trade Center site has upset some rela- tives of Sept. 11 victims. —AssociatedPress
Minivan crashes,
killing at least six Aminivancarryingmembersof
a church crashed on theNewYork StateThruwayonSaturday,killing at least six people and injuring eight others, authorities said. Fourteenpeoplewereinthevan
when it crashed on the north- bound side of Interstate 87 in Woodbury about 3 p.m., authori- ties said. The accident occurred in Or-
ange County, about 47miles from Manhattan.
—AssociatedPress
723 social conservatives who vot- ed at the Family Research Coun- cil’s fifth annual Values Voter Summit—a decidedly unscientif- ic sampling that says little about the broader electorate but can draw attention to lesser-known candidates. Huckabee took second place
with 22 percent, followed by for- merMassachusetts governorMitt Romney (13 percent), former House speaker Newt Gingrich (10 percent) andformerAlaskagover- nor SarahPalin(7percent). —Felicia Sonmez
Lohan fails drug and alcohol test: Lindsay Lohan has confirmed on her Twitter page that she failed a court-ordered drug and alcohol screening. The test result could mean more jail time for the 24- year-old actress, who was sen- tenced in July to three months in jailafterviolatingprobationstem- ming fromtwo drug and drunken driving cases from2007. —AssociatedPress
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“It’s perfectly reasonable for
these companies to come out and say why they think they’re going to succeed,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean the government should take that at face value.” Given the attacks onMusk and
his company, the Senate compro- mise funding commercial space efforts passed only after Boeing gave congressional staffers a de- tailed presentation about its own space plans, participants in the negotiations said. The company announced an agreement last week to develop commercial space taxis for the space station. Unlike conventional NASA
contracts—which are “cost plus,” meaning they can and do grow substantially in cost — the com- mercial contracts do not have the “cost plus” provisions and so are expected to be considerably cheaper. Meanwhile, the current House
version of the NASA budget bill calls for spending more than $900 million in the next three years to buy transport to the space station on Russian Soyuz spacecraft after the space shuttle is grounded next year. The bill would spend half of that for commercial spaceflight. A group of Nobel laureates,
former NASA officials and astro- nauts wrote a recent public letter to Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), chairman of the NASA authoriz- ing committee in theHouse, say- ing, “NASA should invest far more in America’s launch indus- try than it invests in Russia’s launch industry, but the current House Science Committee autho- rization bill fails this test.” In an effort to restore a NASA
consensus and fund future hu- man space travel, negotiators from the House and Senate have been meeting frequently in re- cent weeks. Participants say, however, that the sides are dug in and that stalemate is a real possi- bility.
kaufmanm@washpost.com eggend@washpost.com
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