The Political Action For Space blog notes a new feature on the NASA website which highlights all the spin-off benefits that we have earned over the years by funding NASA. So, the next time someone asks what we get out of funding space exploration, you will have a ready answer.
It will not come as a surprise to most of you to learn that many countries have ambitious space programs. This report (Guardian - Global space spending up 11 pct to $251 billion) follows the money and finds that the U.S. enjoys a sizable lead:
Revenues from worldwide government and private spending on space projects rose to $251 billion last year, up 11 percent from 2006 despite slowing growth in many countries, an analysis released on Tuesday said. [...]Combined U.S. defense-related spending totaled $45 billion, or 71 percent of U.S. government space spending. [...] China's civilian space spending may have totaled $1.5 billion in 2007, the Space Foundation said, calling this a conservative estimate. [...] Russian space spending rose 49 percent to $1.32 billion in 2007 from a year earlier, driven largely by increased investment in Russia's GLONASS global navigation satellite system, the analysis said.
In the latest edition of The Space Review Alex Kirk provides an overview (Blitzing Capitol Hill) of last week's effort by space activists who came to Washington to lobby members of Congress to support the NASA budget at this critical time:
If NASA and its budget—which represents roughly one half of one percent of all federal spending, and little more than 10 percent of the recent hastily-passed economic stimulus package—are to survive the next administration, Congressional support will be critical.
I really think those stats are the key to building and maintaining public support for NASA funding, as I doubt very much that most people are aware of just how small a percentage of the federal budget is devoted to NASA. If you ask people what percentage of the federal government is devoted to NASA and they tell you it's probably around 5%, this provides an opportunity to shock them with the "less than 1%" figure and then you can ask them if they would support a funding increase.
Some good news on the budget front: (Wired News - 2009 NASA Budget: Moon Missions on Track with Science and Climate Change Thrown In)
Yesterday, the White House released their 2009 NASA budget that Congress will amend, rework and hopefully pass by the end of the 2008 fiscal year. You can see some responsiveness to the science and environmental communities with increased dollars for the science directorate and two additional climate change monitoring missions added in. [...] Funding for the human lunar missions, the COTS program (which invests lightly in alternative commercial paths to Low Earth Orbit), and fulfilling our international commitments remained intact.
Here is a news report about the NASA budget, it also addresses the gap issue as well as growing international competition (Houston Chronicle - Refueling NASA):
Despite Congress' rejection of a billion-dollar funding increase for NASA next year, Texas lawmakers haven't given up the fight to increase the agency's budget. In a tour of the development lab for the Orion crew exploration vehicle at the Johnson Space Center, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, a Democrat, called for an additional $2 billion to speed up construction of the Orion and the Ares rocket system to launch it into space.
The NASA budget approved by Congress is just over $17.3 billion. The added funding is needed to shorten a dangerous 5-year gap between the decommissioning of the three aging space shuttles in 2010 and the first scheduled flight of Orion in 2015. During that time, the United States would have to pay Russia to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station using disposable Soyuz space capsules.
In laying out an ambitious plan to return Americans to the moon and then voyage to Mars, the Bush administration ignores the risk of leaving the manned space program grounded at a time when China is gearing up for its own efforts to go to the moon.
Space.com has more details on the NASA budget situation (Senator Calls for White House Summit on NASA Budget):
Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), chair of the Senate subcommittee responsible for NASA funding, formally pledged Thursday to again work with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) to increase NASA funding by $1 billion. Mikulski also called for a space summit with the White House to ensure NASA gets the support and funding it needs.
"The chairman of the U.S. House science committee said Thursday that NASA is headed for 'a train wreck' if the space agency isn't better funded to finish building the international space station and develop the next-generation spacecraft," reports the Associated Press (NewsMax - 'NASA Is Headed for a Train Wreck': Rep. Gordon). "The White House has cut NASA's five-year budget plan by almost $2.26-billion in the three years since U.S. President George W. Bush announced the 'Vision for Space Exploration' plan to develop new spacecraft to go back to the moon and then to Mars, said U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn. Gordon, chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology, spoke at a hearing in Washington on NASA's 2008 budget request."
Here is some more news on the budget front (News.com - NASA: Limited budget could lead to gap in manned missions):
Bush requested $17.3 billion for NASA for the 2008 fiscal year, a 3.1 percent increase over his request for the previous year. The president's proposed budget was made public on Monday.
While Griffin acknowledged that NASA is one of the few non-defense agencies to receive 1.3 percent budget growth instead of 1 percent, he said that 3 percent is still only on par with inflation.
[...]
If Congress' past behavior is any indication, NASA will not even get the 3.1 percent increase, Griffin said.
I'm really afraid of where the "do more with less" strategy is leading us. Do we really think we can design and build a next-generation spacecraft, return to the Moon and then go on to Mars, and do it all while cutting the budget? On what planet does that make sense? Of course, the real point of that report is the concern about a five year gap between the end of shuttle service and the debut of the Orion craft in which the U.S. will effectively have no manned space program. Is this acceptable?
Here is some very bad news regarding the NASA budget, the cuts recommended by the Appropriations Committee have been approved by the full House (St. Petersburg Times - House easily passes huge spending bill):
A must-pass bill covering about one-sixth of the federal budget swept through the House on Wednesday. A sizable chunk of Republicans joined virtually all Democrats in approving spending increases for education, veterans and the AIDS battle in Africa. [...] The White House has signaled that President Bush would sign the bill despite cuts to his requests for NASA, foreign aid and communities affected by the latest round of military base closings.
Thanks to Space Politics for the link to that news report, it's a great source for beltway news. I can't think anything optimistic to say about this situation except to hope that maybe the Senate would not approve it for some reason and the NASA funding could be saved in conference when they try to reconcile the two bills. Given the current political environment I don't see that happening, but we can hope.
To follow-up on Darnell's comment on an earlier post, here is a report from Space Daily on the proposed NASA budget cut:
The House Appropriations Committee has passed its version of the 2007 federal government budget. In it, funding for NASA was cut by $550 million (approximately 3.2%) from the amount proposed by the Bush Administration last February. The $16.2 billion budgeted for NASA for 2007 is the same as the amount approved for 2006. [...] The budget includes cuts of $576 million from the Moon-to-Mars program, $94million from shuttle and space station, and $78 million from NASA's Science programs. [...] It is too soon to tell how NASA will deal with the cuts if they are passed by the full Congress. But it does seem that the plans to get humans back to the Moon and on to Mars will at the very least be delayed -- if not outright lost.
The important thing to note here is that this is merely a committee recommendation that now must go to the full House for a vote and once that it is done it must then be approved by the Senate and then signed into law by President Bush, who of course has an opportunity to veto it. So, send out a call to all the space community citizen lobbyists to contact your legislators and express your support for continued funding for the Vision for Space Exploration.
Recent Comments