Tag: Congress
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NASA still looking for new human spaceflight chief
Ken Bowersox, acting head of NASA’s human exploration and operations mission directorate, listens during a hearing Wednesday before the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani NASA hopes to have a new leader for the agency’s human spaceflight directorate by the end of the year to replace…
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White House proposal to tap Pell Grant fund casts a pall over NASA’s moon plans
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, at left, discusses the plan to send astronauts to the moon by 2024 as three of his associate administrators — William Gerstenmaier, Jim Reuter and Thomas Zurbuchen — look on during a town hall at NASA headquarters. (NASA Photo / Joel Kowsky) Will NASA’s plan to land astronauts on the moon…
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Commercial crew capsules still beset by parachute problems
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated May 10 with NASA statement. SpaceX performs a parachute test for their Dragon capsule over the Delamar Dry Lake in this file photo from 2016. Credit: SpaceX A malfunction during a drop test over Nevada last month for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon program has engineers re-examining the crew capsule’s parachutes, and Boeing has also…
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NASA wrestles with what to do with International Space Station after 2024
Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA’s human exploration and operations directorate (left), and Paul Martin, NASA’s inspector general (right), testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness on May 16. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky Lawmakers last week questioned the Trump administration’s proposal to end direct U.S. government support of the International Space Station in…
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MSNW’s plasma thruster just might fire up Congress at hearing on space propulsion
Pulsed power units are arrayed around the business end of MSNW’s thruster. (MSNW Photo) How will we send humans to the moon, Mars and other destinations in space? The chances are good that electric propulsion will play a role, and a company called MSNW is at the cutting edge of that technology. The director of…
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House bill backs exploration at the expense of Earth science
NASA’s famous “blue marble” photo taken by astronauts on the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Credit: NASA A draft policy outline passed on a party-line vote by a House committee last week calls for redirecting funding from NASA’s Earth science programs into the space agency’s heavy-lift rocket and Orion crew capsule programs, an outcome NASA’s…
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New name for Space Launch System gets backing of lawmakers
Artist’s concept of NASA’s Space Launch System. Credit: NASA/MSFC A push to give NASA’s Space Launch System a new name is garnering support from lawmakers, who have written into legislation provisions that would order NASA to rename the heavy-lift rocket through a competition among schoolchildren. If passed into law, the bill would set policy for…
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Despite budget boost, Space Launch System will not fly before 2018
Artist’s concept of the Space Launch System lifting off from launch pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA/MSFC NASA’s heavy-lifting mega-rocket and its ground support systems at Kennedy Space Center in Florida will not be ready for launches until at least mid-2018, even with extra funding approved by Congress, the space agency’s…
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NASA gets budget hike in spending bill passed by Congress
Artist’s concept of SpaceX’s Dragon V2 crew capsule, one of two commercial vehicles contracted by NASA to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Credit: SpaceX NASA will receive $18 billion in the federal government’s 2015 budget passed by the U.S. Senate on Saturday, winning nearly all the funds the agency says it…