FY 2013 NASA Budget Released
NASA’s FY 2013 Budget: A Quick Snapshot, SpaceRef
“This budget is just the beginning of a conversation. The past several years have seen budgetary roller coaster rides as the new norm. Add in possible future cuts due to other, broader budgetary issues, congressional push back, and the extra combustible politics that go with a re-election, and mush of what is in this proposed budget will morph before all is said and done. That said, it is clear that NASA still hasn’t figured out what it wants to do – or why. Absent a clear, strategic plan, any budget is O.K. since you can just change the briefing charts when political winds shift or Congressional hearings loom.”
NASA FY 2013 Budget Press Confeence – Full Transcript
“This year, we are trying something a little different. As well as traditional media representatives, for the first time we have invited members of the social media community to be a part of today’s presentation, and we will be taking questions via Twitter using the #AskNASA. So we thank everyone for joining us for today’s presentation.”
Science Pushed to the Brink: Proposed FY 2013 Budget Would Devastate Planetary Science in NASA
“If Congress enacts the proposed budget, there will be no “flagship” missions of any kind, killing the tradition of great missions of exploration, such as Voyager and Cassini to the outer planets. NASA’s storied Mars program will be cut drastically, falling from $587 million for FY 2012 to $360 in FY 2013, and forcing missions to be cancelled. The search for life on other potentially habitable worlds — such as Mars, Europa, Enceladus, or Titan — will be effectively abandoned.”
Keith’s note: NASA will hold a budget press conference at 2:00 pm EST today. You can watch it live here. Several dozen Twitter guests or “citizen journalists” will also participate at NASA HQ. The press event will be followed by telecons focus on HEOMD, SMD, Technology, and Aeronautics budgets. More information. NASA FY 2013 budget and supporting information will be available online at 1 pm EST here. Questions for the speakers at this afternoon’s budget press conference can be tweeted with the hashtag #askNASA and NASA will try and answer some of these questions.
Keith’s update: The OMB Budget page goes live with FY 2013 budget information at 11:15 am EST.
– NASA FY 2013 Budget Factsheet, OMB
– NASA Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA Excerpt) FY 2013 Budget Summary , OMB
“Following a thorough management and technical review, the Budget funds the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble, to enable a launch later this decade. This decade also will see the launch of a new robotic mission to visit an asteroid and return with samples–helping us understand how our solar system formed and how life began–and paving the way for human missions to an asteroid. Some important, but currently unaffordable missions are deferred, such as large-scale missions to study the expansion of the universe and to return samples from Mars.”
Keith’s 11:45 am update: President Obama just spoke repeatedly about the importance of education yet he cuts the NASA FY 2013 budget for education by $36 million from the 2012 budget of $136 million. Paradox.
Keith’s 12:55 pm update: Detailed NASA FY 2013 Budget information is now online
If the quality of NASA’s education programming is best illustrated by what is shown on NASA TV, I’m not sure what value even that $100 million is buying.
Haha agree with John. Shouldn’t NASA be focused on exploring space? Leave education to the Dept. of Education.
Do you really want to leave the training of the next generation of STEM -literate students to the Dept of Education?
Well we should fix DoEd, not burden NASA with educational priorities that detract from exploration and science.
I think this is just the first iteration of the budget process, congress hasn’t had their say yet.
Is the HLV necessary to launch JWST?
OMG – ISS shows $2B between 2011 and 2012 for ISS Resupply (on top of $500M for COTS). How many missions have we sent to ISS for that??
NASA should be doing what it supposedly does best, pushing the envelope of Space Exploration, manned and unmanned. NASA’s greatest impact on education in our society and the world is its ability to strike at the heart of the Education matter, unlike any other government agency or organization, in that it directly motivates and inspires people; a level of fundamental human psychology that no one in our government seems to comprehend. One simple look at college enrollments’ in math, science and engineering over the past 100 verifies this comment. So why does the space program constantly have to fight for every cent of its meager pittance of the US budget when the military out spends it by several orders of magnitude? What has the military done in the past 50 years to inspire and motivate children to study math, science and engineering? Nothing! Why can’t NASA make TV commercials to recruit when the military can (just one symptom of the ongoing problem)? If the space program had half their budget, this world would be a very different world, and most likely for the better. It’s all a matter of priorities and ego inside the beltway and a lack of understanding and voice outside that has and will continue to hamper and erode our Space Program.
So decrease planetary exploration by 20% and increase space technology by 20%? It’s easy to see what they did. Just reverse this idiotic act and we have our Mars exploration program back. If we let this stand who knows what they’ll propose to cut next in NASA in the 2014 budget request, if they win the election–terminating MSL early? Although I’m not a Republican, I’d have to agree with one former presidential candidate that there are some “stupid people” running America, specifically in OMB.
Everyone should contact their congress person and support their favorite NASA program.
Well that’s not ture. Mr. Obama’s first NASA budget had big increases to science and technology, but was shut down by the jobs programs in Florida and Houston by about 8 months of continuing resolutions and over a billion dollars of cuts.
* Invests in new space technologies, such as laser communications and zero-gravity propellant transfer.Never thought of how they would feed the pumps.Spacecraft fire thrusters to settle the fuel.How many orbits would thrusters have to be fired to transfer the fuel?The news I liked was that a Max-Q Orion abort was going to be done.They will use the same Orion as the ’14 mission.I did not think it was reusable.Only to Max-Q,so a small rocket?Sounds like a good budget.