The latest Planetary Society Hangout discussed the question of how the US budget sequester process will affect
NASA’s programs and goals? How does the budgeting process normally work? How normal (or abnormal) a situation is this for planning budgets and reaching goals at the U.S. Space Program? We answer all of these questions with Dr. Jon Morse, Professor of Physics at RPI and previous Director of Astrophysics at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C
Politics and asteroids: Lawmakers: Not spacey to study asteroids – Breanna Edwards/POLITICO.com
Res Communis posts the latest collection of space and aviation law, regulation and policy links: Library: A Round-up of Reading.
Talk space policy on The Space Show tonight: Twitter / SpaceShow:
Open Lines tonight,7-9 PM PST (10 PM -12:00 AM EST). Space/Stem topics OK. Listen @ http://www.thespaceshow.com . Call 1-866-687-7223
The sequestration storm will soon hit NASA:
Update: If these comments to the Space Politics posting are correct, then commercial crew will be cut less than it initially seemed and SLS/Orion will be cut more. The numbers are complicated by questions over reconciling the percentage cuts with the funding under the continuing resolution (CR) , with what the administration originally requested for 2013, and whether the cuts apply to the whole fiscal year or to what remains.
The cut will apparently be taken from the Presidents request of over $800M for commercial crew and no from the amount in the CR of about half that. So it will result in a cut of about a quarter, which is a lot but it doesn’t zero out the program.
Here is an AvWeek item about the cuts: Cuts Would Hit Commercial Crew Efforts Hard – Aviation Week.
Here are more discussions of that survey of public views about human missions to Mars that I mentioned here earlier:
Trying to judge what such a poll means is problematic because the US public has always expressed conflicting views on space. A majority have a good feeling about it and support it in a general manner but they don’t think about space often and don’t see it, especially human spaceflight, has having any direct impact on them. When asked to rank space spending vs other priorities it is always at the bottom of the list for most people.
I prefer to focus on the 10-15% of the public who always express very strong interest and support for spaceflight in such polls. Those 30-45 million people are more than enough to build a spacefaring community and industry. They just need to see that human spaceflight is affordable and in the coming years I expect that the burgeoning commercial spaceflight industry will prove that to be true.
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An update on the membership of two Senate committees with big influence on NASA and US space policies: Senate committees get organized; Nelson and Cruz control space subcommittee – Space Politics
Res Communis post the latest collection of space and aviation law, regulation and policy links: Library: A Round-up of Reading.
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Leonard David reports on a somewhat surprisingly optimistic view by the public of the probability of having people on Mars in 20 years time: Humans on Mars by 2033: New Poll Shows High Confidence – Coalition for Space Exploration.
Update Feb.12.13: Stephen C. Smith questions the methodology and objectivity of the survey and the survey manager responds in the comments at Caveat Emptor – Space KSC.
Here’s another discussion of the poll: Americans Confident Humans Will Walk on Mars Within Two Decades- ExploreMars – Feb.11.13
Update Feb.14.13: A couple more responses to the survey: