Space Access Society Political Action Alert
Tuesday 5/17/11
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Political Action Alert:
Defend NASA Commercial Crew and NASA Space Technology
in the FY’12 Budget
Action Summary:
Contact your Representative
by Friday morning at the latest, and ask that they tell the Appropriations
Committee that they support full funding for the NASA Commercial Crew and Space
Technology programs. (Scroll down to the
“Background” sections for more on why these and why now, and
“Action Details” for specifics on how to proceed.)
Background: The
Process
The Fiscal Year 2012 Congressional
budget process is getting underway. (The
budget process will be ongoing for the next few months, since FY’12 begins this
coming October 1st.) All budget “appropriations”
bills (where they write the actual checks) start this process in the House
Appropriations Committee, generally in whatever Subcommittee covers the
specific budget area.
NASA is funded by the House Appropriations
Committee’s Commerce-Justice-Science Subcommittee. At some point in the coming weeks, this CJS
Subcommittee will do a “markup” (a rewrite) of the White House FY’12
NASA budget proposal. This will be the
next critical step in the FY’12 NASA budget process.
This is a budget-cutting
year. The CJS Subcommittee’s overall money
allocation for FY’12 is down 6% from their FY’11 final total. The total of FY’12 White House requests for
CJS funding items adds up to a 7% increase over FY’11. (The WH FY’12 request for NASA within the CJS
total is $18.7 billion, up 1% from FY’11’s $18.5 billion.)
In other words, when the CJS
Subcommittee does its markup, it will have to cut the various White House CJS requests
by an average of over 14%. It’s going to
get messy. Any item not strongly
defended could be vulnerable.
Background: Why These Programs?
Here are descriptions from
draft appropriations request language of what we’re asking you to help defend -
the NASA Commercial Crew and Space Technology programs:
“NASA
Commercial Crew Program – When the Space Shuttle retires this summer, America
will be wholly dependent on Russia to launch our astronauts to the Space
Station, sending nearly $400 million overseas each year. Commercial Crew will
competitively fund the fastest-possible development of safe and affordable
made-in-America vehicles, creating thousands of American jobs and enabling full
use of the Space Station. We strongly support full funding of the requested
level of $850,000,000 in FY2012.”
“NASA
Space Technology Program (STP) – America must invest in new technology to stay
ahead of foreign space powers like Russia and China. NASA’s Space Technology
Program, which now includes Exploration Technology Development and
Demonstration (ETDD), is NASA’s primary cutting edge R&D initiative.
STP/ETDD funding enables NASA’s research centers and America’s small businesses
and innovators to assure America’s leadership in space. We support funding at
the requested level of $1,024,200,000.”
Background: Why Now?
The Commerce-Justice-Science
Subcommittee leadership has decided to poll their Congressional colleagues this
week to get a preliminary idea of what items under CJS jurisdiction the rest of
the House of Representatives thinks should be cut or increased. The response should have a considerable
impact on the eventual CJS Subcommittee markup (currently scheduled for early
July.) That means that if you can
persuade your Representative this week to actively support NASA Commercial Crew
and NASA Space Technology, it will significantly improve the chances of proper
funding for these (in our view) extremely useful programs.
We already made clear a few
weeks back what we think should be cut.
(Our understanding is that you all made an impression, by the way. The CJS Subcommittee is now definitely aware
there’s opposition to the SLS earmark. Thanks!) This week, the nature of the process is such
that suggestions for cuts will diffuse our effectiveness. Our greatest leverage lies in pushing
positively for the items we do NOT want cut.
Two final points:
– The House is not in session this week; many
Representatives are back in the home district.
If you look up your Representative’s local office, call, and find out
what their schedule is, you may be able to ask their support for this in
person, at a “Town Meeting” event, or possibly even at a personal
appointment to meet them.
– We’d really like feedback on what results
you get. When you make contact, ask the
staffer involved to take your contact info and get back to you with what your
Representative decides to tell the CSJ Subcommittee this week. Then drop us a brief email with the name of
your Representative and what they did (or did not) get back to you with. If you can do this, it will be hugely useful
in the coming months. Thanks!
Action Details:
– Call your Representative via the House
Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. (If you
don’t already know their name, grab an old utility bill and look them up via
your 9-digit zipcode at http://www.house.gov/zip/ZIP2Rep.html.)
– Tell whoever answers the phone that you’d
like to speak to the person who handles NASA appropriations issues for the
Congressman/woman. Ask for that staffer’s voicemail if they’re not
available. (If you’re given a choice
between a NASA person and an Appropriations person, go with Appropriations.)
– Politely tell that staffer your name, that
you live in the Congressman/woman’s district, and that you support full funding
for NASA’s Commercial Crew and Space Technology programs. Then ask them to send requests for full
funding for these two programs to the House Appropriations Committee’s website
before the Friday 6 pm deadline.
If they have any questions
about how to do this, tell them they can get help with the language and procedures
to use by contacting (if they’re a
Republican) Tony DeTora in Congressman Rohrabacher’s
office at x5-2415, or (if they’re a Democrat) Eleen Trang in Congresswoman Lofgren’s office at x5-3072.
(We are, by the way,
impressed with the high average intelligence of the people who support our
cause. Please don’t damage the cause by
either attempting to mess with the abovementioned website, or by contacting
directly the two already-overworked abovementioned staffers. Seriously.)
– Politely ask your staffer if they would get
back to you and let you know once your Representative decides what to tell the
Committee. Leave them your contact info,
phone or email as you prefer. Answer any
other questions they may have as best you can, then thank them for their time
and ring off.
– If you don’t get any feedback from the
staffer by Friday afternoon eastern time, call them again and ask what the
status of your request is. If you do get
any feedback at all, please pass it on to us in a brief note to [email protected]. Anything you can come up with now will be a
huge help over the coming months.
Thanks!
Perspective:
This is an important early
step in the months-long Congressional funding process. Your calls could make a big difference in how
much money there is in FY’12 for the things we strongly support at NASA: Commercial Crew & Cargo, Commercial
Reusable Suborbital, Exploration Technology, Space Technology, Propellant
Depots, etc – all things that bear on lower cost space transportation for the
future.
We’ve lived through decades
when the fraction of NASA’s space budget we saw as usefully spent was around 1%
– and that was in a good year. The current
FY’11 Exploration total ended up 21%
potentially good stuff, give or take. 21%
beats 1% handily… If we can improve on
that 21% for next year, we’ll have done well.
But if we don’t fight, if we sit back and take things for granted, that useful
percentage could easily drop to single digits, or nothing at all. One phone call from you could make the
difference.
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Space Access Society’s sole
purpose is to promote radical reductions in the cost of reaching space.
You may redistribute this Alert in any medium you choose.
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Space Access Society
[email protected]
“Reach low orbit and you’re halfway to anywhere in the Solar System”
– Robert A. Heinlein
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