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Budget

NASA Budget Preview

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
January 31, 2015
Filed under ,
NASA Budget Preview

Keith’s note: You can expect to see a NASA budget for $18.5 billion to be announced on Monday. Planetary gets treated well and Europa mission planning gets significant money and a Phase A start. NASA also gets what they asked for in SLS and Orion requests. Commercial crew gets over $1 billion. No one got everything that they asked for but this is a move in the right direction for all concerned. More to follow.
NASA Budget Media Briefing
“At 4 p.m. Monday, agency Chief Financial Officer David Radzanowski will brief media on NASA’s 2016 budget proposal.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

18 responses to “NASA Budget Preview”

  1. Michael Spencer says:
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    Hard to understand the politics on this given the prevalence of deficit hawks in the House. Good news, though, apparently.

    • DTARS says:
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      deleted

    • Todd Austin says:
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      Deficit hawks are generally interested in cuts when it’s not their favorite program getting the axe. National Security has long been a convenient fig leaf for expenditures that exceed the limits that their rhetoric would imply. Vote buying is another popular exception.

    • JadedObs says:
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      Who says the House will go with this? Lets hope that more money for NASA doesn’t suffer from the same fate as other Republican initiatives that are disowned as soon as Obama adopts them (e.g. Obamacare – modeled after what Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts as governor).

  2. planetfan says:
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    Not so hard to understand, really: news.sciencemag.org/funding…

    • Todd Austin says:
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      What an interesting collection of contrasts in Culbertson. A passion for exploring Europa, even as he declares that science uncovering the connection between human activity and climate change is all part of a vast liberal conspiracy to raise taxes. Oh, but I see that his passion for Europa is driven by religion – he wants to be the one who funds his conception of proof that God put life in many places.

      Sure, whatever works. Happy to have the funding.

  3. anirprof says:
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    Curious about the inside politics of this. Obama’s OMB has been distinctly and consistently down on planetary missions, especially Europa. What changed?

    For all the importance of the topic to us, it’s obscure enough relative to the overall President’s budget submission that it could just be a change of one OMB staffer. Or maybe it was a more thought out political calculation — responding to pressure from somewhere in Congress?

    • anirprof says:
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      OK, Culbertson as the new chair makes sense. Why fight it if the new chair is a Europa fan if you’re the White House? A deal to plan on using SLS as numbers_guy suggests would seal it.

      OK, suitably cynical explanations found. I was getting worried I’d have to chalk it up to a decision made on merits.

  4. numbers_guy101 says:
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    Europa isn’t about Europa. Its likely about finding things for SLS to do. The Europa mission will be backed if they make that deal, to go only on SLS. Were a cheaper ride available, they will not be allowed to take it. C’mon people. You have to get this much from keeping up with NASA politics and bedfellows.

  5. RocketScientist327 says:
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    We have no reason to doubt Keith. If this is really what is about to happen the commercial folks just need to duck and cover and then just be quiet. Boeing and SpaceX are selected and their milestones are presumably funded.

    I have serious doubts about Boeing putting their own skin in the game but you cannot deny what that money would do for SpX.

  6. Matt Johnson says:
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    I just wish we could get somewhere with SLS & Orion a lot sooner. It seems to me if we have to wait until 2018 for the first unmanned test flight and then another 4 years for a manned flight, someone needs to step up and say this is ridiculous and declare it a non-starter! Given the current operational cost and flight rate projections, is there really any hope of finding additional money for a lunar lander or the crazy asteroid redirect mission, and actually sending astronauts to do more than re-create Apollo 8 once every 4 years or so?

  7. Jonna31 says:
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    Let me guess how this is going to go:

    – The SLS will very be financed, and then some, just like every year. It’s detractors will continue to pretend it’s somehow underfunded and way behind schedule.

    – Commercial Space will get most of what it’s asking for. The most vocal Commercial Space boosters will spend the next year incenced that congress dare… I mean dare!… give money to anyone but commercial space (never mind that the biggest beneficiary of Commercial Space money is now SLS-core builder Boeing and the vehicle they’ll be using is the Atlas V).

    – ISS somehow ticks up another hundred million or so. ISS community goes on pretending their 3rd and 4th rate journal application-lite science is the most important thing NASA is doing and worth the $3 billion.

    – Europa will get initial funding. The Mars Community will go nuts and make up some nonsense how we’re losing our lead on Mars exploration due underinvestment.

    -The JWST will continue to be one of the greatest albatrosses in modern government spending. SMD will continue to crow about AMerica is going to “lose it’s lead” in Space Science due to underinvestment. Listen SMD… JWST may have been moved out of your jurisdiction, but it still counts.

    -ARM will spend another year as all talk, as no one actually wants to do this thing.

    The problem with the Modern American Space program isn’t programs or goals. It isn’t vision. It’s not even money really. It’s people. It’s uncompromising people who play zero-sum games and want all the marbles for their chosen favorite programs.

    • ChuckM says:
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      I agree with you rocket. SpaceX will go further with its share than Boeing. Boeing mentioned a few weeks before the award, that it couldn’t afford to fund commercial unless they won. Makes sense since Boeing is a public company and its number one goal is to promise a dividend to its stockholders. Right now Boeing has a shaky schedule with its air-refueling contract; is fighting off Airbus, and trying to sell F-18s to South Korea.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        To say that Boeing cannot go forward because it’s a ‘public company’ blah blah blah is silly. Witness latest statements by Tim Cook on the soft projects the company undertakes and nobody says word one about it. Other companies with similar policies making non-revenue expenses abound.

        Boeing has a different mind set that’s all. Most people call it leadership.

        • ChuckM says:
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          zzzzz, zzzzz, zzzzz. And boeing is still a public company interested in dividends for its stockholders. You should join the boeing marketing department.

  8. ChuckM says:
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    Giving NASA more funds is just part of obama’s $4T budget scheme to bait the republicans into cutting the federal budget.