Is There A 10% Budget Cut In NASA's Future?

It seems the reality behind rhetoric from the campaign trail is finally seeing the light of day. Go back in the archives here. I predicted Obama would stick to the first thing he said about NASA.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/12/20/is-obama-going-to-gut-nasa/

"On the campaign trail a year or so ago, then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama said he would cut NASA money to help fund education. Then he changed his tune, saying he would add money to NASA’s budget to help ease the transition from the Shuttle era — which will end abruptly with the last Shuttle launch in 2010 — to the age of Constellation, NASA’s program for future manned spaceflight using the new Ares rockets, still being designed and built.

It should be noted he said that while stumping in Florida and Texas, both of which are major states supporting NASA"

The other thing I predicted was that eventually, NASA would be folded into DOD. And people laughed at that. And I am not so naive to think people still do not think it is plausible. But the brain drain in this country is real. And even if Obama does not do it, the president come 2012 will certainly see this option as viable. It is time for everyone who cheers for NASA to wake up to reality. And China is in the dead-center of that reality.

No surprise here.

There is no source for this. At all. In fact, NASA just had it's budget cuts restored.

Er...I meant Robert Block and Mark Matthews. My bad.

Cutting the NASA budget and creating more unemployment in the space agency would be political suicide for Obama and the Democrats in Florida-- so that's not going to happen!

Marcel F. Williams

There are conflicting reports here

on one hand the Orlando Sentinel saying 10% budget cut, while the Houston Chronicle is saying we are getting 4 billion more.

See here
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/6706161.html

It would make sense that they are boosting the budget due to the Augustine Commissions findings.

......while the Houston Chronicle is saying we are getting 4 billion more.(Kori..whoever)

Re-read that old (Nov. 5)news--the Senate just restored a few $100M to the Obama NASA request of $4B for Constellation and MSF--not $4B MORE! And that has to go to Conference Committee for resolution with the House version. The rumored 10% cut on the $18B is a strong rumor and will likely come true!

One refers to the FY10 budget, the other the FY11 budget. The FY11 budget which will be the budget that points the way to Obama's space policy. It's that budget that the White House is considering cutting.

So those are the East Coast and Central... What's California saying?

In the article, it says that, according to a "senior administration official, the "agencies were given 'global' instructions to cut their budgets by 5 to 10 percent to help reduce the record $1.4 trillion deficit."

Since this is a generic order, I agree with that official when he "cautioned not to read too much into the proposed reductions." Congress seems to want to add at least a little more money, too.

Of more concern is that Gerstenmaier "does not expect to know what the White House will do until February." The date for a decision on NASA's future seems to keep slipping.

The Space Shuttle Program is definitely drawing to a close soon. I imagine one more flight could be added using existing hardware, but that's probably about it. The chances of new hardware being put into production are shrinking to just about zero now.

I can appreciate that NASA, with less than 1% of the federal budget, isn't going to be at the top of the administration's priority list, but the delay in decision making is becoming increasingly costly.

The prospect of spending billions on a manned space program isn't as tempting as spending a few million on a probe while putting the spare change into social programs.
This way he can look proactive on the moon-water thing while not having to make any commitments.

I think right now the powers that be are gauging up whether this will be an acceptable approach or if it will backfire when compared to what the constellation plan promised.

I think there is no hope of adding any more shuttle flights without a big delay. Gerstemaier did say they were looking at possibly spacing the remaining flights out some, but I suspect that would be on the order of a few months.

Using Wikipedia's 2009 budget numbers (and including DOD and war costs as mandatory), 82% of the budget is mandatory and only 18% is discretionary, so all cuts have to fall on that 18% of the budget, which is where NASA lives.

So NASA's share of the discretionary budget is about 3.3%, much higher than the 0.5% of the total budget.

Folks, please keep in mind the overall perspective of national $1,499 Billion deficits. This is not a sustainable level. Either the government ramps down spending ~20% across the board (including entitlements) or employment and economic activity has to go back to 2007 levels... The longer the current administrations overspending goes on, the deeper the cuts must be to stop the bleeding... Many signs say we are not going back to 2007 employment/GDP levels.