February 17, 2019

Virginia Budget Includes $11 Million for Spaceport Improvements (Source: SPACErePORT)
A report to the Virginia Subcommittee on Transportation, dated February 3, includes recommendations for funding two projects at Wallops Island for the Virginia Commercial Spaceflight Authority. The first is an $8.5 million transfer from the state's Transportation Trust Fund to the Commonwealth Space Flight Fund for improving "waterfront facilities for multimodal unmanned vehicle test operations." An additional $2.5 million is recommended "for the completion of Launch Pad LC-2" at the spaceport for small rockets.

The $2.5 million is in addition to a $5 million state grant previously approved as an incentive for Rocket Lab. The $11 million has been approved by the Virginia Senate and awaits approval by the House of Delegates (2/17)

The New Space Race Gets a Reality Check (Source: Inverse)
Humanity could be on the verge of a breakthrough in space exploration, but one of its architects is a virtual unknown. Rick Tumlinson, 63, has spent the past three decades pushing for a new space race, testifying before Congress to “peel the fingers of the aerospace industrial complex” off of transportation and pave the way for the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Last year, he founded the SpaceFund, a venture capital firm aimed at bringing money into this new era.

Last month, Tumlinson’s team released “Reality Rating,” a database that ranks companies based on how well the hype lives up to their true potential. It’s the sort of information that could prove useful for investors, just as humanity gains the ability to send people and items into space cheaper than ever. "here are a lot of young male engineers who like rockets, who are playing into the excitement of what is about to happen. They see these announcements of these multi-thousand satellite constellations and think, my system will work better. There’s nothing negative at all about what’s happening; it’s exciting. But they are all going to run into what I call Darwin’s Spreadsheet, the harsh realities of business." (2/15)

Newly Signed Funding Bill Gives NASA’s Budget a Significant Boost (Source: The Verge)
After enduring the longest government shutdown in history, NASA stands to receive a big boost in funding for fiscal year 2019, thanks to a new budget bill signed by President Trump today. The legislation, which funds the federal government through September 30th, 2019, would give NASA $21.5 billion — an increase over last year’s budget of $20.7 billion and much more than the $19.9 billion the agency asked for.

Practically every major program within NASA will receive a boost. The agency’s science programs, which cover planetary missions and Earth science, will receive a total $6.9 billion, up from $6.2 billion from last year. The human exploration program will get $5 billion, while it got $4.79 billion in 2018. And many of the NASA missions that the president tried to get rid of still live on. The most notable of these is the agency’s WFIRST mission, a new space-based telescope that NASA has been developing to look for planets outside our Solar System and search for dark energy in the Universe. (2/15)

National Debt Soars to $22 Trillion (Source: Yahoo Finance)
Despite President Trump's early promise to eliminate the national debt, according to the Treasury department, the total public debt crossed the $22 trillion mark on Monday, with some $30 billion in debt added this month alone. When President Trump took office, debt stood just over $19.9 trillion. In 2019 the U.S. will need $338 billion for paying interest on the debt, which reduces the levels of funding available for infrastructure and other national priorities.

There are a few reasons. The most recent can be attributed to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). According to estimates by the CBO, TCJA will add $1.9 trillion to the national debt. Congress also increased spending on the military and domestic programs in a spending bill that topped $1.3 trillion dollars. But that isn’t all. An aging population has increased spending on healthcare, while retiring Baby Boomers put a strain on Social Security. (2/13)

NASA Ready to Risk Failed Launches and Landings to Return to Moon (Source: Fotrune)
NASA is aiming for a speedy — and lengthy — return to the Moon using commercial operators and is willing to accept higher risks to achieve it. “We care about speed. We do not expect that every one of those launches or every one of those landings will be successful,” associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen said Thursday. “We are taking risks.”

Zurbuchen and NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine announced a bevy of lunar projects during the briefing, including fleshed-out details of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contracts, which invite commercial firms to bid for the rights to develop vehicles to carry science and technology payloads that will ultimately operate on the surface of the Moon. (2/15)

Back Pay for Contractors at NASA Not Included in Budget Deal (Source: Houston Chronicle)
Contract workers at NASA's Johnson Space Center were denied back pay for the 35-day federal government shutdown in a budget deal signed by President Donald Trump on Friday. “The rejection of federal contract worker back pay by the GOP leadership in this funding deal is outrageous and unfair,” Robert Martinez Jr., president of the Machinists Union International, said in a statement. “It was a 35-day disaster that created extreme stress for federal contract workers and continues to put their financial well-being at risk. We need Congress to act now.” (2/15)

I Fell Under the Spell of NASA’s Most Notorious Thief (Source: The Atlantic)
I first heard of Thad Roberts during a lecture on black holes. November 18, 2000, was the University of Utah’s Science Day, a grand affair for visiting high-school students like me; the lecture hall was packed. The professor boasted that the university’s own rising star, Thad Roberts, had just been accepted to NASA’s internship program. At 23, Roberts was a triple major in physics, geology, and geophysics, as well as the founder of the Utah Astronomical Society. He was determined to be the first person on Mars. He was also about to change the trajectory of my life.

After the lecture, I asked my undergraduate guide, who was friends with Roberts, to pass him my email address. I wanted to be an astrophysicist, but my ambitions conflicted with my upbringing; as a 16-year-old Mormon girl, I felt pressure to focus almost exclusively on home, family, and church. I didn’t feel confident that I belonged in science. Maybe this rising star could light the way. He became my unofficial career counselor. But then the Mars-bound intern captured headlines for a different reason: In the summer of 2002, he stole more than $20 million worth of moon rock and Martian meteorite samples from under NASA’s nose. He was caught in an FBI sting in Florida and spent six years in prison.

The heist sabotaged not only Roberts’s own goals of space travel but also those of his accomplices: fellow NASA interns Tiffany Fowler, then 22, and Shae Saur, then 19. “Being an astronaut is something I had planned to do and aspired to do my entire life,” Saur told the Houston Chronicle before she was sentenced. “My own actions have shattered that dream.” The two Texan women were given three years’ probation and required to repay NASA $9,000 in damages. Click here. (2/15)

Branson Hunts Galactic Cash After Grounding $1 Billion Saudi Deal (Source: Sky News)
Sir ‎Richard Branson is hunting new funds for his commercial space ventures, months after halting a $1bn (£775m) Saudi-funded deal amid an international furore over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Sky News ‎has learnt that the Virgin Group founder has hired LionTree Advisors, a corporate finance firm, to help raise hundreds of millions of pounds to inject into Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit.

Discussions with prospective investors, including sovereign wealth funds, private equity firms, high net worth individuals and strategic partners, are already under way, according to people close to the process. LionTree's appointment is understood to have been made on the back of expressions of investor interest that followed Galactic's test flight in December to the edge of space. Sources said this weekend that Sir Richard was seeking funding that would value Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit, which launches satellites for commercial customers, at a combined sum of well over $2bn. (2/16)

China's Pouring Serious Money Into Potential Rivals of SpaceX and Blue Origin (Source: CNBC)
Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin have long dominated the news with their respective advances in private space travel industry. But two private Chinese companies are also making big moves and gaining billions in investments as China's state space agency announces its own ambitious goals. Here's what's going on in the global space race. Click here. (2/15)