Showdown Over NASA Earth Science Budget Looms (Update)
House budget authorization mark-up slashes $500 million from NASA’s Earth science programs, Houston Chronicle
“The battle lines are being drawn between Congress and the White House in regard to NASA’s budget, and this year they’re moving closer to home the planet Earth. In the newly released House of Representatives budget authorization mark-up for fiscal year 2016 one step before Congress actually appropriates the money lawmakers have cut funding for NASA’s Earth science programs to $1.45 billion. In his budget request to Congress, shown below, the President sought $1.947 billion.”
House Science Committee Markup of NASA Authorization Act for 2016 and 2017
“THURSDAY, April 30 11:00 a.m. Full Committee Markup of: H.R. ____, the “National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act for 2016 and 2017”
Highlights of H.R. ____, the NASA Authorization for 2016 and 2017
“Aspirational levels create a balanced portfolio between Exploration and Science ($4.95 billion each), and within the Science Mission Directorate ($1.45B for Earth Science, $1.5 billion for Planetary Science, and $2 billion for Astrophysics, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and Heliophysics combined). The bill fully funds the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion crew vehicle (Orion) under both the aspirational and constrained authorization levels, and accelerates the development of SLS and Orion in FY17 under the aspirational level. Similarly, the bill fully funds the Commercial Crew program under the aspirational level and increases funding under even the constrained level by $331 million.”
Committee Plans to Restore Balance to NASA’s Budget,
House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
“The Obama administration has consistently cut funding for these human space exploration programs, while increasing funding for the Earth Science Division by more than 63 percent. The bill provides authorization levels consistent with NASA’s budget request, providing that current restraints within the Budget Control Act are satisfied.”
Both WH and House budgets give the combined earth and planetary “sciences” roughly 60-65% of the total NASA “science” money, there is no “showdown”, they just agree.
Comparing broad catagories is irrelevant and misleading. It is the exact line items for specific programs that matter. They DO NOT agree, in funding or policy.
But even using your view, it is misleading.
WH asked $5,288.6 Bil for science
House Budget $4,951.7 Bill for science, a six percent drop right from the get-go.
And as a percentage of the (shrunken) science budget the House version drops planetary and earth sci 3% of the science budget.
Now, what really matters is that Earth Sciences lose 25% in the House budget, which is a death number, which it is intended to be.
And what really matters is that in 2000 the NASA Earth Sciences budget in inflation corrected numbers was $2.29 billion dollars.
The House budget proposes $1.45 Billion, or a total gutting of 37%
Read the title before commenting. A showdown is supposed between congress and WH over roughly $500M, a tiny drop in the trillion dollar budget congress oversees. Congress and WH will not fight over that tiny drop, they have better things to do with their time. Earth scientists may want to fight with tooth and nail for that money, but that’s another story.
The whole “congress is cutting earth science” business sounds like the boy who cried wolf. The next time this is in the headline, I hope it is the complete removal of earth science from NASA budget, that will be far more interesting.
Bogus statement: “Read the title before commenting “.
Making spurious allegations just cheapens your comments.
$500 million (26%!) shortfall is catastrophic.
The WH will most certainly fight this. It is gutting the lead source of data for understanding the Earth’s dynamic processes.
As Bolden pointed out: “It is absolutely critical that we understand Earth’s environment because this is the only place that we have to live.”
Of course it is catastrophic, given that cut will effectively remove all the salaries for the slaves–those postdocs and “research scientists” who write programs, analyze data and publish papers, leaving only clueless civil “servants” to figure out which direction political wind will blow. Cutting a small fraction of the budget effectively kills the field simply exposes the disease of that field, nothing more. If planetary scientists can study all the solar system with $1.5B by sending probes and rovers to other worlds, there is no reason people can’t study this planet with the same budge without the need to send any deep space probe or rover. So stop whining!
You are remarkably rude. It seems to be a trait. Why?
You can’t think, you can’t debate, so you are blaming me for being rude to you. Oh, poor you!
Love you, too! 😛
Seeing this exchange, and Einstein’s rudeness (besides lacking any basis to his view), I’m reminded of a saying I’ve held with me since childhood, from a very good teacher – that it’s easy for a civilized person to behave like a barbarian, but it’s very difficult for a barbarian to behave like a civilized person.
My wife would put me in the Atlla the Hun side of that equation.
For no reason whatsoever your teacher’s saying made me think of an absolutely unrelated Groucho Marx quote:
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
Why the quotes around “research scientists?” Do you have facts that show they are not indeed doing research, or is the problem that they’re doing research that doesn’t agree with your sensibilities?
Because they have to use this term to separate disposable scientists from those so called scientists who don’t do research.
I see. You’re just using careful word choice to smear scientists whose work or mere existence you look down on. That certainly puts your thoughts in perspective.
There is a certain pervasive sourness that comes from one side of the political spectrum; it’s like viewing the world through very dark glasses.
I think planetary science is horrendously under-funded and we cannot study “all the solar system” for $1.5 billion per year (altho lower-cost private space can certainly help).
The Good Ol’ Party. If they spend enough on SLS that darned pesky AGW will just go away.
Will pass the house and the Senate will restore most of what was cut.
Just throwing this out there.
I think that the Obama admin has minimal concern over the short run for HSF in general, but they were early and strong supporters of commercial space, and that being stifled I lay mostly at the GOP door. Everybody on all sides bears much guilt. HSF has been the unwanted love child since the early 1970s.
That is why I am a fanatic for private space. They actually want to make it happen and have the cash, the control, the skill, and the will.
I don’t think there will (or should) ever be no government missions. It is doing government missions that supplies the real value of private space (in the sense of a private self-directed service vendor). Competitive and reliable systems for which the government pays for the service, but as Greyhound used to say, “Leave the driving to us.”
Some people at NASA “get it” like:
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Private space has nothing to do with who buys the service nor subsidies for particular capabilities. It is the difference between DoD or NASA or NOAA telling the vendor – “this is the design, build it and its ours” and the same agencies saying “We want a sample retrieved frm the north pole of the Moon. We are taking bids for the SERVICE”.
Now, if you mean “private space” in the sense of non-government customers rather than the sense of a private self-directed service vendor, the SpaceX is also that. Take a look at their launch manifest:
http://www.spacex.com/missions
Bigelow should simply dwarf US government flights.
Planetary goes up $140 mil and Earth Sci goes down $500 mill.
Gutting one and letting the other starve a little slower.
It is a sign of failure that the 2 divisions have to make it a zero-sum game anf fight each other.
It was bush era cuts that gutted Earth Science. I posted a graphic back in another thread. I will try to track it down.
Many years in the future. Non-gov unlikely to do the yeoman exploration, with the possible exception of the asteroids.
Why should NASA pioneer? It appears that the BFR will be flying somewhere at the end of the decade. Bigelow is strongly pushing its habitat/tug systems for deep space and lunar bases.
Ted Turner had a placard on his desk that read: Lead, Follow, or GET OUT OF THE WAY!
NASA’s days as leading are over. They are bogged in low funding, vast red tape, no direction, no goals, an emasculated political plaything.
So-called New Space, building (as was directly and specifically planned from NASA’s creation) upon the hard-won knowledge of NASA’s pioneering days, are now in front of the exploitation of space.
Greyhound was from the beginning a commercial venture.
We can talk about when the BFR will fly when it exists in more than a computer or just on paper. Again, let’s keep the horse in front of the cart instead of mucking up the order while cheerleading.
The raptors are definitely in active hardware development. My point was the general case that NASA no longer has to be the pioneer with commercial space following in the wake.
I see the model more like the various companies in the 16-18 hundreds that essentially conquered the Earth with governments following.
You can make your point without exaggerating or assuming what will happen in 10 years. The fact is, we don’t know what the state of the BFR will be in 10 years. No one here, no matter how charged up they are about SpaceX, knows that.
Let me phrase it this way. SpaceX’s CEO has stated that their target is Mars in less than 12 years possibly. The SpaceX prez makes it a bit longer. It does not matter if it is a reachable goal. It is that a private company – willing and anxious to partner with the government – sees itself capable of being the front of the wave, rather than following the government’s exploration. Paragon can supply environmental controls, Bigelow can make habitats, SpaceX can build boosters, etc. If a business case can be made, there is no expertise – from academia or industry – that a commercial enterprise cannot muster, at least as effectively as government, and I argue, far more effectively.
In the ’60s, NASA created computers and chips. In the 2XXXs, they BUY their technology often off-the-shelf from the commercial marketplace. NASA was a success story, and we are ready to harvest the fruits of their success and ride a wave of entrepreneurial vigor in space.
We’ll see whether that happens or not. It’d be nice to see things develop in such a fashion, but commercial space operating as they do now and hope to do is entirely new.
That is what is so exciting! We don’t have to wait til 2018 for a test flight, then 2022 for a crew flight, etc.
THIS YEAR we are to see a launch abort test, the debut of the world’s most powerful rocket, the landing of a giant rocket first on a barge, then on land. An inflatable module is being installed on ISS. Things are happening. The lethargy and miasma of the is starting to clear. Outer Space is approaching, not receding from our grasp.
Maybe, but as it stands, those things have not been accomplished. I’ll be excited if/when they happen.
When I plan a vacation i get excited right then, Part of the fun. An advantage is that if the vaycay later gets delayed or is a bust, I got to enjoy myself up til then! Tomorrow may never come, so we must live and enjoy today.
$1.4B 2k (1999 dollars) in 2015 dollars is $1.97 billion
NASA received not 1.4, but 1.28 billion in FY2008
$1.28billion 2k8 2015 dollars is $1.4 billion
So there was a drop of 29%.
Any evidence? Note that political bias isn’t evidence.