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Budget

The Real Reason Why NASA Got A Big Budget Plus Up

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
February 12, 2018
Filed under ,
The Real Reason Why NASA Got A Big Budget Plus Up

Letter From OMB Director Mulvaney to Houe Speaker Ryan, OMB
“This addendum includes additional funding for a limited set of Administration priorities, but notably, it also proposes to use higher spending caps as an opportunity to fix some long-time budget gimmicks that the Congress has used to circumvent the spending caps and add billions to the Nation’s deficits. … National Aeronautics and Space Administration: $300 million to fund innovative exploration-related programs and address needs in other parts of the agency.”

Keith’s note: So … one would assume that had an overal budget deal not been reached last week (i.e. the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, mentioned in the opening of this letter) that NASA’s budget would have only increased by $100 million. Note that the letter says the $300 million is to be used to “fund innovative exploration-related programs and address needs in other parts of the agency”. Not very specific.
Keith’s update: Acting NASA CFO just admitted that this budget plus up was a “surprise” and that they have to adjust their detailed budget document to show where they will spend the money. This is a nice position to be in – but NASA’s budget is expected to be more or less flat in the out years which actually means a slow motion budget cut due to the eroding effect of inflation.

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

8 responses to “The Real Reason Why NASA Got A Big Budget Plus Up”

  1. Jeff2Space says:
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    Isn’t $400 million just 2% of their prior $19.6 billion budget? That doesn’t sound like a very big “plus up” in my book.

  2. JadedObs says:
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    Sad reality is that while this budget would be 1% higher than the last passed omnibus appropriation bill for 2017, its only $21M above what the House Appropriations bill contained for the 2018 budget. If we really want to make progress in space, its going to cost money – having OMB Director Mulvaney at the Space Council meeting clearly had zero impact.

  3. ghall says:
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    Assuming the 19.6B is not all salary (help provide annual pay raises) and literally this same time last year NASA staff was panicking and backing up hard drives, saving website/climate data and the world was coming to an end…create your own ALT twitter accounts…Dog and Cats living together…mass hysteria!. The NY Times Feb 2017 “NASA Budget News Is Not Good”. Based on all that…they got an increase in their budget! I would say this is good.

    • chuckc192000 says:
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      It IS bad if you look at all the proposed cuts to climate science missions and other research like WFIRST.

  4. richard_schumacher says:
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    It keeps SLS and kills WFIRST. LOL. WTF. OMG.

    • PsiSquared says:
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      It also kills Earth science and specifically climate science missions. The budget proposal is a demonstration of exactly what the current administration thinks about science, especially science that runs counter to their message.

  5. wwheaton says:
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    And NSS sent out an email today calling for members to contact McConnell & Schummer to support Trump nominee for Administrator of NASA. Some of us will do the opposite, I think.