Obama campaign could trip over space policy
Stewart Powell - Houston Chronicle
President Obama's visit to the political battleground of Florida on Thursday will showcase a robust economic agenda, reap hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars and - he hopes - stymie any Republican effort to render the intricacies of his space policy into a bumper sticker.
Like, "Hey NASA, if you need a ride to the space station, call Moscow."
The Democrat's visit comes as NASA quietly deepens politically embarrassing reliance on Russia to loft U.S. astronauts and cargo to and from the $100 billion U.S.-built International Space Station. The development hands Republicans a potential avenue of attack on Obama in the fall campaign - a contest that could turn on the results in space-conscious Florida, home of the Kennedy Space Center.
Obama's political vulnerability has only increased with the delayed test of an unmanned U.S. commercial spacecraft to service the space station and continued snafus with Russia's workhorse Soyuz spacecraft.
"It's been foolish for us to give up the strategic national capability to send humans into space - and then to depend upon Russia or any other entity," says former NASA chief Mike Griffin.
"Access to space should have been a campaign issue in every election since Nixon cancelled Apollo in the 1970s," added Griffin, an adviser to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Congressman Pete Olson, a Sugar Land Republican, welcomes prospects for a partisan clash over space policy, figuring it might bolster congressional support for operations at Houston's Johnson Space Center, home of mission control for manned operations and the astronaut corps.
"Presidential candidates have an obligation to clearly outline their level of support for U.S. human space exploration," says Olson, whose district hosts JSC's multibillion-dollar contribution to the Houston-area economy. "President Obama's actions prove he doesn't believe a vibrant space program is important to American prosperity, technological advancement or national security."
Not a partisan issue?
But Democrats say Obama is not solely responsible for NASA turning to the Russian space agency to taxi U.S. astronauts into orbit.
"You'd have to distort reality to make that a partisan issue in the fall campaign," insists John Logsdon, a space historian and veteran of the Columbia accident board who helped Obama develop his policies. "We are where we are because of decisions by the last two presidents and both parties in Congress. This should not be a campaign issue."
NASA has contracted with its one-time Russian rival to ferry 24 U.S. astronauts to the orbiting laboratory aboard the Soyuz spacecraft over the next four years as the timetable slips for NASA-approved commercial spacecraft to step in to deliver U.S. astronauts to low-earth orbit.
But the agency is making provisions to extend its reliance on the Russians for another 18 months from July 2016 through the end of 2017. Doing so could require the administration to ask Congress to again waive the restrictions of Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA) to allow NASA to purchase Russian launch services.
William Gerstenmaier, head of NASA's human space exploration and operations, says NASA may end up buying seats aboard both the developing U.S. commercial spacecraft and the established Soyuz to assure astronauts can reach the space station.
Spacecraft 9 years away
As things stand now, NASA doesn't plan to have a government-owned spacecraft for manned operations until 2021, when a new deep-space, heavy-lift rocket and the Orion spacecraft are expected to be available. Those would be used to reach an asteroid by 2025 and Mars orbit by 2035. The space station is due to plunge into earth's atmosphere in 2020.
"I have long been concerned about the gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability which has led to the reliance on Russia for the delivery of crew to the International Space Station," said Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. "Our NASA goal should include the capability to launch crews to low-Earth orbit, including missions to service the space station, as we maintain space superiority by developing a robust heavy lift and crew exploration vehicle development to enable us to go beyond low-Earth orbit."
The timetable for relying on Russia is rooted in tragedy and economic reality.
President George W. Bush sought to revive the nation's space faring after the shuttle Columbia tragedy in 2003 by setting an end date for the 30-year space shuttle program and financing a back-to-the-moon effort. But a White House commission appointed by Obama in 2009 concluded the nation could not afford Bush's ambitious vision.
The sobering assessment prompted Obama to focus on supporting the commercial spacecraft industry to eventually service the space station and devoting the bulk of NASA's efforts to new technology and eventual deep space exploration.
"Americans don't like relying on Russia to get into space," says a space policy expert who has worked at the space agency, the White House and Capitol Hill. "This is one of those rare moments that transcend the intricacies of the space program."
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