Smoke And Mirrors – and NASA's FY 2020 Budget Request
FY 2020 Federal Government Budget (NASA starts on page 97)
“- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is responsible for leading an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and bring new knowledge and opportunities back to Earth.
– The Budget takes steps to achieve lunar exploration goals sooner, improve sustainability of NASA’s exploration campaign, and increase the use of commercial partnerships and other procurement models to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of NASA programs.
– The Budget includes $363 million to support commercial development of a large lunar lander that can initially carry cargo and later astronauts to the surface of the Moon.
– The Budget focuses funding for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, a heavy-lift expendable launch vehicle, to ensure the rocket is operational in the early 2020s when it will be needed to carry astronauts to the vicinity of the Moon.
– The Budget requests $21 billion for NASA, a $283 million or 1.4-percent increase from the 2019 estimate.”
Keith’s note: NASA’s enacted FY 2019 budget was $21.5 billion. The White House budget request for NASA’s FY 2020 budget is $21.019 billion which actually means a 2.2% decrease in NASA’s budget. But NASA (at the direction of the White House) wants you to think that this is an increase. Congress will be weighing in on this.
– FY 2020 Budget Summary Briefing (2 MB PDF)
– FY 2020 Budget Agency Fact Sheet (300 KB PDF)
– – FY 2020 Budget Mission Fact Sheet (510 KB PDF)
Video: NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine’s Remarks on the FY 2020 Budget
– Earlier budget postings
I wonder if there is a ‘magic number’? A budget level commitment that would assure the speediest possible production of a finished STS?
And I’m asking because I don’t know, and because, at least in software development, there’s a limit to how effective the addition of new people really is; if this is true in manufacturing this critter, it would establish an upper limit on what the budget should be if the intent is to actually implement the program.
The Apollo rockets were developed very quickly in the 1960’s because NASA was given a very large amount of funding.
That’s a fairly gradual process, not a single number. It’s more efficient to do things in a particular order (e.g. full-up system tests are sort of pointless before the system is fully assembled.) But if you’re willing to put more money into staffing, you can speed up development and testing. I guess there is a limit, but most budget reserve for schedule margin tradeoffs happen at the ten percent or less level. I don’t think many (NASA) programs have looked into spending 50% more to cut the schedule by 25% or anything like that. That’s more like something a national security crash program might consider.
It’s already finished.
You are comparing Apples to Oranges and you need to be comparing Apples to Apples. It is a 6% increase over what the White House proposed budget was last year for NASA , and after Congress gets finished adding the Pork to it, especially for the SLS/Orion, NASA’s budget will be about about a billion dollars higher just like the current budget was over the proposed one.