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Budget

Get Used To Having Less Money For NASA

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 30, 2016
Filed under
Get Used To Having Less Money For NASA

Trump’s First 100 Days: Space, Scientific American
“What is certain, [Bob] Walker says, is that Trump’s “space policy doesn’t contemplate any real increases in NASA’s spending.”, It will likely have to accomplish all that it is being asked to do now and in the future without significant boosts to its bottom line, and with the distinct possibility of deep budget cuts. And that, more than anything else, could be very bad news for the space agency and its programs.”

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

20 responses to “Get Used To Having Less Money For NASA”

  1. Donald Barker says:
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    Is anyone surprised? No Moon for decades, if even that, and no Mars during our lifetime (most of us that is). And like I keep saying, another 100 thousand people in this country and 2 billion on Earth by about 2045 and we run the risk of not getting anywhere at all. All associated issues and problems to be compounded accordingly. Am I the only one to see this? Oh, and Trump and most of them likely wont even be here in 20 years so they don’t care about it. Actions speak loudest. Integrity speaks softly.

    • P.K. Sink says:
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      If Trump supports NASA’s public/private partnerships, we will make great strides in space exploration, utilization and settlement.

  2. Yale S says:
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    The Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) was defunded by the House of Reps during the George H. W. Bush administration. It was reanimated in a House/Senate conference committee, but was finally cancelled the next year by Congress BEFORE the first budget of the Clinton administration.
    It had tripled in cost to $18 billion in today’s money.
    $2.4 Billion in foreign money promised never showed.
    And as an audit showed, the DOE cost estimate left out more than a billion dollars of key costs.

    While Clinton (BILL, not HILLARY) wasn’t very supportive of the SSC early on, when cancellation loomed he wrote:

    Letter to Representative William H. Natcher on the Superconducting Super Collider
    June 16, 1993

    Dear Mr. Chairman:

    As your Committee considers the Energy and Water Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1994, I want you to know of my continuing support for the Superconducting Super
    Collider (SSC).

    The most important benefits of the increased
    understanding gained from the SSC may not be known for a generation. We can, however, be certain that important benefits will result simply from making the effort. The
    SSC project will stimulate technologies in many areas critical for the health of the U.S. economy. The superconductor technologies developed for the project’s magnets will stimulate
    production of a material that will be critical for ensuring the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers, for improving medical
    care, and a variety of other purposes. The SSC will also produce critical employment and educational opportunities for thousands of young engineers and scientists around the
    country.

    Abandoning the SSC at this point would signal that the United States is compromising its position of leadership in basic science — a position unquestioned for generations.
    These are tough economic times, yet our Administration supports this project as a part of its broad investment package in science and technology.
    Our support requires making sure that the project is well managed and that the Congress is informed of the full costs and anticipated benefits of the program. The SSC previously had an unstable funding profile.
    The stretched-out funding proposed by our Administration of $640 million in FY 94 will allow better control of project costs. The full cost and scheduling implications of this stretch-out will be complete in the early fall, and will be examined carefully by the Administration at that time.

    I ask you to support this important and
    challenging effort.
    Sincerely,
    Bill Clinton

    He ultimately had to sign its cancellation:

    New York Times:

    Stating Regret, Clinton Signs Bill That Kills Supercollider
    Published: October 31, 1993
    WASHINGTON, Oct. 30— Lamenting its death as “a serious loss” to science, President Clinton on Friday signed a bill killing the $11 billion superconducting supercollider project.

    Mr. Clinton was forced to accept the termination of the Texas project when a budget-conscious Congress voted to abandon the program, which is one-fifth complete with a 14-mile-long underground tunnel and complex of laboratory buildings.

    About $640 million for the project had been in an energy and water spending bill. That money will now be spent to dismantle the project.

    “This project was an important element of our nation’s science program,” Mr. Clinton said in a written statement, “and its termination is a serious loss for the field of high energy physics.”

    • Rich_Palermo says:
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      Spot on. I remember the Nobels for America promises when the key theoretical work to be tested came from British and French scientists.

    • Dr. Brian Chip Birge says:
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      Now owned by Magnablend! I remember when all of us in the physics dept were sure it would become a mushroom farm.

  3. Yale S says:
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    What’s with the “Clinton’s”? Hillary was First lady, not Co-President. She did work on health care, but was not any kind of Science Czar.

  4. Yale S says:
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    NASA’s “Faster, Better, Cheaper” was initiated during the George H. W. Bush administration, not Clinton.

  5. Yale S says:
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    The old National Radiotelescope Observatory was recommended by National Science Foundation for closure so scarce funds could be allocated to new and continuing projects.
    The observatory was then set up to run as an independent entity getting a couple years of declining federal funds while ramping up private contracts.

    Here is the website of the new organization:
    http://greenbankobservatory

  6. mfwright says:
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    >Remember “Faster Better Cheaper” that slashed NASA?

    I do though seemed to violate the fast-good-cheap-pick-any-two-for-engineering-design rule. Oh, and TQM (ugh, I shudder to think I along with others got sweeped up in that craze). It seemed to kickstart many small spacecraft programs as previous programs were developing spacecraft so big and expensive the designers would be dead of old age by the time their item flew.. However the mindset of that decade was downsize, increase efficiency by reducing workforce, etc. including private companies and many managers got lots of praise for these actions (i.e. can they cut lower than other managers?). I felt NASA was targeted for huge cuts anyway, even the DOD was reduced i.e. BRAC. What Dan Goldin did was reduced way down to keep NASA off the targets by congress.

    • Search says:
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      “TQM” was a nefarious plot hatched in the waning days of the Cold War to unleash on China in hopes it would set them back a generation. Unfortunately they didnt take the bait but we did 🙂

  7. Search says:
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    Cancelling ARRM would free up a big pile of money that could be applied to other efforts

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Are you old enough to remember the end of the Vietnam war? That all of a sudden funds no longer being used for the war would be a huge domestic boon? Which never happened?

      • DeaconG says:
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        I remember!

        And what happened to the Peace dividend after the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War ended? Anyone seen it?

    • Paul451 says:
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      Exactly what is the current budget of ARRM?

    • chuckc192000 says:
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      Almost nothing is being spent on ARRM. Nobody ever really took it seriously.

  8. Odyssey2020 says:
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    I have no problems with slashing SLS, it is a complete waste of money.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      Regrettably Congress has shown no inclination to do so. It isn’t a waste of money when it creates jobs in your district and when some of that money comes back to you in political contributions.

  9. Michael Spencer says:
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    Less money? No big deal since climate research funds can be spread around for Real Science!

  10. SouthwestExGOP says:
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    Sigh. Not that I want to repeat myself too much but: Donald has consistently said (one of the few consistent things he has said) that he was gonna build a BIG wall and he was gonna increase the size of the military. The U.S. is gonna pay for the wall (with some idea that Mexico will one day reimburse us, but not soon) and costs have been estimated at 20 billion.

    No one has said where we could cut the budget to pay for two large expenditures – even the entire budget for foreign assistance, etc would not cover all of this new spending.

    So we are looking at spending cuts to other agencies and likely more deficit spending. Where might we get money to even keep NASA funding at the same level???

  11. Jack Lenburg says:
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    Fuhrer Trump’s budget cuts for NASA earn him the hatred and disdain of every intelligent citizen who recognizes the benefits of science and man’s quest for exploration. Hopefully Trump will soon contract an extremely painful, lingering, deadly disease before he takes his place in the burning fires of hell.