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Budget

NASA's FY 2015 Budget Process Is About To Get Nasty

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 18, 2013
Filed under , , ,

Cassini vs. Curiosity: Who Will Suffer the Space Budget Axe?, Wired
“NASA could soon be facing an awful choice. The agency, feeling a budgetary squeeze from Congress, might not be able to fund all its robotic planetary exploration missions after next year. This year NASA received $16.9 billion, which may sound like a lot but, once adjusted for inflation, is roughly what the agency got back in 1986. Just $1.27 billion of that budget goes into funding all robotic exploration in the solar system. And most space policy experts don’t see that number going up anytime in the near future. In 2014, NASA will put many of its robotic missions through what’s known as a senior review. Administrators will have to decide which of its missions will yield the highest scientific return and may recommend canceling some of them.”
Action alert!, Division for Planetary Sciences
“This week we are asking each of you to write letters and make phone calls to advocate for planetary science. This DPS members call to action is being coordinated with a simultaneous call to action for the planetary section members of AGU and GSA, so we have many planetary scientists to draw upon. Please participate regardless of whether you think your Members of Congress care about science or are on the “right” committees. What’s most important is getting as many people to contact as many Members as possible. And we encourage you to use social media to promote this call to action to help amplify the message and encourage others to act.”
Earlier budget posts

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

10 responses to “NASA's FY 2015 Budget Process Is About To Get Nasty”

  1. savuporo says:
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    SLS, time to meet your makers – Congress. If you go down, please take Orion with you.

  2. TheBrett says:
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    That pisses me off. I’d hate to cut Curiosity lose, but Cassini is only one of two outer solar system spacecraft we’ll have active for the foreseeable future out of NASA, and the other one is on its way out to Pluto. And just when we might have a better chance to see what’s in Enceladus’s water . . .

    Honestly, I’d probably keep Cassini, as cool as Curiosity is. We’re launching some more Mars landers in the relative near future anyways.

    • Rocky J says:
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      Cassini is truly one of the greatest NASA missions. An easy top 10, probably top 5. The Jovian and Saturn systems represent our closest encounters with another solar system beyond ours. They are practically solar systems unto themselves.

      Cassini is nearly in its 10th year in orbit around Saturn. I suspect that operational costs are quite streamlined and do not account for a lot of NASA outlay. It is more likely that Cassini’s extended mission will be cut but not abruptly. Once Maven arrives possibly Mars Odyssey could be decommissioned. To NASA’s credit and it is a great tribute to American engineering, interplanetary spacecraft are proving over and over that they can operate for decades, well beyond expected lifetimes; from Pioneers, ISEE-3 to Mars Odyssey and others. I suspect Cassini and certainly Curiosity will be around for awhile but there will be a lot of cherry picking and like before, some projects under development will be shelved for a few years. I hope this does not happen and Washington can rid itself of sequestration and do the right thing.

      There should be an alternative to decommissioning and literally turning off forever some of these space assets. It happened to Hershel space telescope. What could be created is a non-profit organization – a consortium of institutes of learning, that NASA or ESA could hand over operation. Some assets can be learning tools while others can still return science (WISE being one).

      • hikingmike says:
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        Wow, after reading what you said I thought this kind of sounds like animal rescue. The pet gets tossed out when it’s decided they don’t want deal with them anymore, or they are moving, or any of a dozen lame reasons, and then what? Some rescue organization jumps in if the pet is lucky, and hopefully adopts it out. I guess I just have that on the brain lately. It makes a lot of sense for this situation though.

        • Rocky J says:
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          Well, its a stretch comparing robots to animals. In space, no one can hear Spot bark.

          Handing over these space probes is problematic. There is intellectual property and time invested. These PIs are paid and make careers out of a mission but once NASA say – no more, can NASA do as they will and hand it to a consortium for continued operation? Perhaps the PIs could continue to have immediate access (along with everyone else) to any data generated. Anyways, it would be nice.

    • the guy with the cat says:
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      You forgot JUNO.

  3. dogstar29 says:
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    Both are now in the highest value portion of their missions. SLS/Orion is far more expensive and has no hope of any productive future for all th tax dollars it consumes. Unfortunately our political leaders have turned a deaf ear.

  4. Richard H. Shores says:
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    It is a shame that one of these great programs will get the budget ax, while money is being wasted on SLS, which will eventually be cancelled.