Cruz Lays Out Space Agenda, First Up is CSLA

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) laid out his agenda on space issues today, issuing the transcript of an interview with the Houston Chronicle’s Eric Berger as a press release.  Cruz is set to chair the Senate Commerce Committee’s Space, Science and Competitiveness subcommittee, which oversees NASA.

One of his subcommittee’s first priorities will be reauthorization of the Commercial Space Launch Act (CSLA), he said.  He expressed support for SpaceX’s “substantial investments” in Texas, which has a rocket development and testing facility in McGregor and is building a launch site near Brownsville.  “I am an enthusiastic advocate of competition and allowing the private sector to innovate,” he told Berger.

He also signaled support for the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion, which he labeled “critical to our medium- and long-term ability to explore space, whether it’s the Moon, Mars or beyond.”  As for the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), he was noncommittal:  “The [ARM] mission has at times seemed to have had a changing and shifting focus.”  He said he wants to hold hearings “to help NASA articulate and formulate its priorities for space exploration, whether to an asteroid, the moon, Mars or beyond.”

A number of articles have been published in recent days expressing concern about the fate of science, especially climate change science, under his stewardship.  He is a climate change skeptic.  He is chairing an authorization subcommittee, which has an important policy role, but it would be difficult for him to get a law enacted to curtail that research.

Berger did not ask him about that, but in response to a question about whether he was interested in space while growing up, Cruz criticized the Obama Administration for losing sight of NASA’s “core mission” and vowed to refocus NASA on “its core priority of exploring space.”  “We need to get back to the hard sciences, to manned space exploration and to the innovation that has been integral to the mission of NASA.  We should not be allowing NASA to have its resources diverted to extraneous political agendas and apart from exploring space.”

What he means by that is not entirely clear.  Some speculate he was referring to climate change science, while others thought it might mean science overall or perhaps a reference to geopolitical competition.  Cruz made clear that he does not like the United States being reliant on Russia for launches to the International Space Station (ISS) and complained that the Obama Administration has provided “insufficient” responses to his questions about the consequences if Russia “shut off the Soyuz.” He also said he did not  want U.S. dependence on RD-180 engines.

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden told the NASA Advisory Council today that he has met Cruz once and he was “cordial,” but Bolden does not know if Cruz will be as active on NASA issues as was Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL).  Nelson chaired the subcommittee in the last Congress when Democrats controlled the Senate.  Bolden and Nelson are close friends.  Nelson flew on the space shuttle in 1986 (STS-61C) when he was a Congressman and Bolden was the pilot of that mission.  Nelson is widely credited with getting Bolden the job as NASA Administrator.  He is now the top Democrat on the full Senate Commerce Committee.