AAS Public Policy Blog

Today is my last day at the AAS – as I stated back in May, I’m leaving to be the AIP/AVS Congressional science fellow. Orientation for this and all the Science and Technology fellowships overseen by the AAAS begins on September 1.

My work at the AAS has been a wonderful combination of many things I enjoy – astronomy, politics, policy, and technical things like WordPress, PHP, websites, and blogging. It’s also been a privilege to work with the excellent staff here at the AAS Executive office, as well as meet a wide array of AAS members. I’ve sat in on AAS council meetings, and chatted with graduate students interested in science policy.

The next Bahcall fellow will be Anita Krishnamurthi, who will begin in late September. I’m sure she will enjoy her time at the AAS as much as I have.

Various news outlets cover the final public meeting of the NASA Human space flight review. The general theme of the meeting – there’s not enough money to properly do exploration. From CNET:

A presidential panel wrapping up a review of future U.S. manned space flight options delivered a grim assessment Wednesday, showing NASA’s current plan to retire the shuttle, finish the space station and return to the moon by the early 2020s is not remotely feasible without a significant restoration of previously cut funding. In the absence of a major spending increase, “our view is that it will be difficult with the current budget to do anything that’s terribly inspiring in the human spaceflight area,” said Norman Augustine, chairman of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee.

And the NY Times:

The United States cannot afford to send humans anywhere beyond the space station — especially Mars — unless it wants to spend more money. “You just can’t get there,” Sally Ride, the former astronaut, said over and over again on Wednesday as she presented calculations of the costs and timetables of various proposed space missions, ranging from establishing a base on the Moon to touring asteroids to landing on Mars.

The Office of Management and the Budget has a job opening for a program examiner that would work in areas relating to NASA and other scientific fields. Applications are due by August 24.

Serves in the branch of OMB that has budget responsibilities for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution and other federally-supported museums, small cultural agencies, and overall Federal research and development coordination. Serves as analyst for research and development activities including program areas for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (such as space station, space shuttle, exploration, aeronautics, and/or support functions and facilities), and/or Federal research and development policy including multi-agency programs in science and technology. Incumbent will analyze, evaluate, and develop creative and effective options and recommendations for policy, budget, legislative, and management issues pertaining to science and technology.

Here in Washington, the Norm Augustine-led human spaceflight review panel has a public meeting on Aug 12 at the Ronald Reagan Building.

1:00 to 5:00 p.m. Committee public deliberations: Discussion of final options Discussion of final report Discussion of close-out activities NASA Television will carry both meetings live on the agency’s media channel. The events may also be viewed on NASA’s Web site. Following the Aug. 12 meeting, committee chairman Norman Augustine will be available to answer questions from news media for approximately 30 minutes.

Further information is available at the NASA HQ website

Charles F. Bolden, the president’s nominee for NASA administrator, is scheduled to testify in front of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation committee today at 2:10PM. The nominee for Deputy Administrator, Lori Garver, will testify as well. A webcast link should appear on the committee schedule page shortly before the hearing begins.

Several nominees at other agencies are scheduled for the hearing as well. The full list is below:

• Nominee: Mr. Charles F. Bolden, Jr., to be Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• Nominee: Ms. Lori Garver, to be Deputy Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• Nominee: Ms. Deborah A.P. Hersman, to be Chairman and Member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
• Nominee: Mr. Richard A. Lidinsky, Jr., to be Commissioner of the Federal Maritime Commission
• Nominee: Ms. Polly Trottenberg, to be Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy of the United States Department of Transportation (DOT)

The webcast of the open session of the planetary science decadal resumes at 1:30 EDT

At the Keck Building at National Academies in DC next week, the Planetary Sciences decadal survey gets underway. Here is the final agenda in PDF form. There are open sessions on Monday and Tuesday, which the public can attend. You can also see the decadal in the current projects system at the Academies.

Open sessions at Academies events such as these occur when people from outside the committee are presenting to the committee. In this case, the decadal panel will be hearing from the agencies (NASA, NSF) as well as from OMB and staff from Congress.

Update There will be a webcast of the open session available as well. Open session begins at 11:30 EDT

The Senate appropriations bill covering NSF and NASA is out. You can see the press release which summarizes the bill as well as Sen. Milkuski’s statement.

The Senate’s NSF number is $6.916 billion, a 6.6% increase over FY 2009, but lower than the administration’s 8.5% increase request and the House bill’s 6.9% increase. However, the NASA number matched the administration’s request of $18.686 billion, with none of the cuts to manned spaceflight present in the House bill.

The latest FYI discusses the bill, as well as pointing to the administration’s response to the House bill. For example OMB says in the statement, “The Administration is concerned with the reduction of $670 million from the President’s FY 2010 request for Exploration Systems. This large reduction would likely cause major negative impacts to any options that may emerge from the ongoing blue ribbon [Augustine committee] review of U.S. human space flight plans.”

The conference report for the Senate bill is also available. Either on the Thomas Web Site or the full PDF from the GPO site.

Here is the section of the report on the NSF, or the text of the NASA Science section.

It’s interesting to note where the Senate CJS appropriation deviates from the President’s request. Overall, NASA Science receives $4.517 billion, where as the request was $4.477 Billion. By division the Senate versus Request are as follows:

Division - Request - Senate
Earth Science - $1.405B - $1.405B
Planetary - $1.346B - $1.355
Astro - $1.121B - $1.169B
Helio - $605M - $646M

In Astrophysics, $50 million is added to Cosmic Origins in a new line for servicing opportunities for science missions. (The House had added a similar amount in their appropriation bill ) The R&A request of $61.1 million is reduced to $60 million.

Within Planetary Science, notable changes from the request include an increase to Lunar Quest, in the form of $21 million for the International Lunar Network, and a reduction to Mars Exploration – specifically the “Other Missions and Data Analysis” line is reduced from a $162.1 million request to $150 million.

Within Heliophysics, the largest change is a $50 million appropriation to Solar Probe Plus, from a request of $3.4 million. Heliophysics R&A’s requested budget of $35.4 million is reduced to $31 million in the Senate bill, equal to FY 2009.

Below is the explanatory text directly from the Senate committee report that touches on a lot of these changes:

Read more »