January 7, 2013 —– For Immediate Release

Amazing Hearing in Congress Yesterday, 12/12/12, The Honorable Ralph Hall chaired his last hearing concerning American spaceflight. Sadly, it wasn’t attended by all the members of the full Committee on Science, Space and Technology. What a shame – it was the best hearing the committee has had in memory. Nothing against the hearing that included Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan, Maria Zuber, and Mike Griffin; but this hearing had real substance.

TEA Party in Space Congratulates the Golden Spike Company
Golden Spike: Affordable Space Exploration

December 6, 2012 —– For Immediate Release

TEA Party in Space Telecon Information

We hope you will join us on December 6th, 2012 at 9PM EDT - 6PM PDT for the TPIS national conference call.  The conference call will be lead by the TPIS Team of Andrew, Everett, and Gary.  Agenda items are:

• ITAR Reform Update and Action Plan
• New Mars Probe and Pu238 production
• The Golden Spike Company announcement
• Interacting with Congress
• Q&A

The call is toll free.  Follow these simple steps.

Last Thursday Congressman Culberson (Texas), along with Congressmen Wolf (Virginia), Posey (Florida), and Smith (Texas) introduced the “Space Leadership and Preservation Act of 2012”. It was widely covered by my media outlets and overall, and in some cases, wildly praised. However, monumental legislation like this deserves scrutiny as often times, monumental legislation contains monumental errors.

Here is a video of Andrew at NewSpace 2012 talking ITAR and what you can do to help.  
You can skip to 2:35 to watch the five minute presentation.

Space News is reporting that an “ad hoc” panel of the National Research Council (NRC) is looking into possible NASA Field Center closures. This is a codeword for “downsizing”. If NASA is to survive this must happen sooner rather than later. Here is a brief portion of the article:

The ad hoc panel of the National Research Council (NRC) has its origins in the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2012 (H.R. 2112), which funded NASA and other federal agencies. The law set aside $1 million for the NASA inspector general “to commission a comprehensive independent assessment of NASA’s strategic direction and agency management.”