henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (08/16/90)
Lenoir says that the House Appropriations panel's recommended $200M cut in FY91 space station funding will cost the program $600-800M down the road. Bush sharply criticizes Congress's cuts to Moon/Mars budget and says he will fight for "a fully funded space program". The House has just about killed M/M. There have also been more modest cuts to the space station, which are making the international "partners" edgy, and a complete elimination of funding for ALS propulsion work [boo hiss]. USAF is shifting responsibility for its launch activities from Systems Command to Space Command, as planned when Space Command was formed. The transition will take several years. Systems Command is generally in favor but is a bit concerned about the ad-hoc non-production nature of some of the launch facilities. Titan 4 management begins transition to production operations, ultimately aiming at a launch rate of 10/year, roughly half for the USAF and most of of the other half for the spooks and generic DoD use. Letter from James Muncy observing that the question of licensing for the CRRES launch is not just a minor tiff between bureaucracies: The issue is not whether NASA has sufficient expertise to license the Atlas launch -- or to obviate the need for a license -- but whether NASA will serve as a true customer of a commercial launch service, instead of in its historic role of contract manager. Otherwise, the goal of lowering launch costs by limiting and focusing oversight of commercial launches will be sacrificed to NASA's technological ego... -- It is not possible to both understand | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology and appreciate Intel CPUs. -D.Wolfskill| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
enno@labtam.oz (Enno Davids) (08/17/90)
In article <1990Aug16.035644.16520@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >Bush sharply criticizes Congress's cuts to Moon/Mars budget and says he >will fight for "a fully funded space program". The House has just about >killed M/M. There have also been more modest cuts to the space station, >which are making the international "partners" edgy, and a complete >elimination of funding for ALS propulsion work [boo hiss]. I've always been intruiged by this. Why exactly is it that NASA must allow a bunch of know-nothing politicians dictate what their budget will be spent on. Surely they (NASA) must in the best position to know where to spend their budget allocation consistent with achieving the goals set for them. The politician can raise or lower the amount, but where they spend it should be their (accountable) decision. The setting of the goals is where the political animal should be concentrating on what direction the agency takes. Instead of just saying, "I know the Prez said you should investigate Moon-Mars but I'm not giving you any money to do it with, so there!" Enno. ----------- Enno Davids Labtam Information Systems P/L 43 Malcolm Road, Braeside, 3195. Australia enno@labtam.oz.au Voice: +61 3 587 1444 Fax: +61 3 580 5581 "... and in the event that this netnews item is caught or killed the secretary will disavow all knowledge of it or agreement with opinions expressed herein. This netnews item will self-destruct in 5 seconds."