Highlights
- The ambitious NASA plan to send humans back to the Moon and onward to
Mars hit a roadblock when the House Appropriations Committee, acting
on the FY 2005 NASA budget, approved a big cut to these new programs.
The FY 2005 total NASA budget of $15.1 billion would be $229 million
less than this year and $1.1 billion short of the request (see Table).
- The House plan would cut new initiatives first in order to spare existing
NASA programs, thus decimating the budgets for the new programs proposed
to get the moon-to-Mars missions underway.
- NASA R&D would fall by 6.2 percent or $674 million to $10.2 billion.
While funding for construction of the International Space Station would
increase 12 percent to $1.7 billion, NASA’s
support of basic and applied research would plummet 18 percent, primarily
from a halt or delay of new programs related to the moon and Mars.
- The non-R&D
Space Shuttle program would receive the requested $4.3 billion in preparation
for a long-delayed return to flight now scheduled for spring 2005.
- The Space Science
program would emerge a relative winner among science programs in the House
bill with $4.0 billion, down $105 million from the request because of
the elimination of moon-and-Mars supporting programs but still up 1.6
percent from this year. There would be large increases for Mars Exploration
(up 16.1 percent to $691 million) to build the next generation of robotic
explorers, but no funds in the new Lunar Exploration account to begin
preparations for the return to the moon.
NASA R&D in FY 2005 House Appropriations
On July
22, the House Appropriations Committee drafted its version of an FY
2005 VA/HUD appropriations bill that would dramatically cut funding
for most National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) programs
in FY 2005. The House bill would provide NASA with a total budget of
$15.1 billion in FY 2005, slightly below FY 2004 and $1.1 billion short
of the request. This would be far below the 5.6 percent requested increase
to $16.2 billion proposed by NASA in February to initiate grand new
plans for space exploration. NASA’s R&D (two-thirds of the agency’s
budget) would take a big hit of 6.2 percent down to $10.2 billion
because non-R&D programs, of which the largest is the Space Shuttle,
would be protected from cuts. The House appropriation would reduce NASA
R&D funding down to levels not seen since 1990 in today’s dollars.
(For details of R&D in the FY 2005 request, please see Chapter
10 of AAAS Report XXIX: R&D FY 2005.)
The House FY 2005
VA-HUD bill would provide $93 billion for discretionary programs, almost
$1 billion more than the President’s request and $2 billion more than
this year’s funding level. The bill funds science agencies including the
National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and non-R&D
programs for veterans and housing. Although the overall bill total would
be an increase, the House would devote all the additional funds and then
some to veterans and housing programs, complaining that the Administration
request significantly underfunds these needs. The House is constrained
from adding even more funds to the VA-HUD bill because both the House
and Senate are working with a total of $822 billion for all discretionary
programs in FY 2005 that is $1 billion lower than the President’s request,
necessitating difficult choices in funding priorities.
With the January
presidential announcement of plans to send humans to the moon again on
the way to Mars, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) was supposed to embark
on a new era in its history, with a major commitment of new resources
to enable the agency to begin preparing for a new lunar mission. The February
release of the FY 2005 budget request of $16.2 billion for NASA made the
agency one of the few domestic agencies favored with a proposed increase
(5.6 percent) in tough budgetary times even as other R&D funding agencies
faced cuts or flat budgets. But on closer examination, nearly all of the
increase would have gone to returning the non-R&D Space Shuttle to
flight (up 9.5 percent to $4.3 billion) and resuming construction of the
Space Station (up 24.3 percent to $1.9 billion).
Figure 1. (click
on the image to view or download a color, full-size PDF version of the
chart)
The House VA-HUD bill, ironically
drafted on July 20, the 35th anniversary of the first lunar landing,
would kill or at least delay NASA’s ambitious plans even before they get
started. Faced with extremely tight budget constraints in the overall VA-HUD
bill, House appropriators chose to preserve as much of NASA’s current program
funding as possible, with clear priority assigned to getting the Space Shuttle
back in flight so that it can then resume construction work on the
International Space Station. The House chose to sacrifice new programs, nearly
all of which are connected with the moon-and-Mars initiative.
The House would
fully fund the requested increase of 9.5 percent or $374 million for
the non-R&D Space Shuttle, bringing FY 2005 funding to $4.3 billion.
NASA hopes that the return to flight of the Shuttle will take place
in spring 2005, but there are already signs that in order to accomplish
the task NASA will need even more money to pay for needed safety upgrades
and other equipment before the next launch.
The House would give $1.7 billion to the Space Station, $190 million
less than the request but still a boost from $1.5 billion in FY 2004.
With the original deadline of February 2004 for completion of the core
station long shattered, the Station is now essentially in maintenance
mode of two astronauts supplied by Russian spacecraft, with construction
activities in limbo indefinitely until the Space Shuttle resumes its
role of carrying Station components into orbit. Thus, it is likely that
not all of the $1.7 billion appropriation will be needed, and some of
these funds could be transferred to the Space Shuttle in mid year.
New moon-and-Mars related programs in Exploration Systems (ES) program
would take a big hit in the House VA-HUD bill. The House would eliminate
the entire $428 million in requested research funding for the Crew Exploration
Vehicle (CRV), a project to develop the next-generation spacecraft capable
of taking humans beyond low-Earth orbit. The House bill describes the
reduction as a delay in CRV development, but it would set back the project
timetable by at least a year. The
CRV project is designed to replace the Space Launch Initiative, another
program to develop next-generation space launch vehicles. The House
would reduce the request for the Space Launch Initiative by $100 million,
bringing FY 2005 funding down to $151 million, a mere shadow of the
$967 million funding level for FY 2004. Together, these two programs
make up the Transportation Systems (TS) account in ES, and would fall
from $967 million down to $151 million, effectively halting NASA’s research
on the next generation of human spacecraft.
The House would
also sharply scale back proposed NASA initiatives outside the moon-and-Mars
plan. The new Human and Robotic Technology (HRT) program would receive
$862 million, down from the request but still up 26.9 percent from the
comparable programs in FY 2004. The House would cut $230 million from
the $438 million requested for Project Prometheus to develop new power
and propulsion technologies based on nuclear power for future NASA missions.
The remaining $208 million would delay plans to integrate new power
systems on the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter mission, scheduled for launch
in 2011.
The Exploration, Science, and Aeronautics (ESA) account, which funds most
of NASA’s research, would be battered in the House bill with a reduction
to $7.6 billion, down 2.7 percent from this year.
The Space Science program would see its budget rise modestly by 1.6 percent
to $4.0 billion, but the House would go along with NASA’s plan to dramatically
boost funding for Mars Exploration by 16 percent to $691 million.
Another Space Science program to receive an increase would be Astronomical
Search for Origins (ASO) with $1.1 billion, up 19 percent. Within ASO,
the House would provide the requested $155 million (up from $71 million
this year) for the Space Interferometry Mission, a mission scheduled
for launch in 2009 to detect planets around other stars. ASO also funds
the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA has attracted strong criticism in recent
months for canceling a previously planned shuttle servicing mission
to extend the life of the Hubble, instead focusing on robotic servicing.
The House bill urges NASA to keep alive the option of a shuttle mission
for Hubble, but does not provide any additional funds beyond the $130
million request (down sharply from $241 million this year). The ASO
also funds development of the next-generation James Webb Space Telescope
to replace the Hubble (scheduled for launch in 2011) and other space-based
observatories. Other Space Science efforts in Solar System Exploration,
understanding the Sun-Earth connection, and exploring the structure
and evolution of the universe would see their funding fall to make way
for the additional Mars funds. Another casualty would be $70 million
in requested new funding, reduced to zero by the House, for the Lunar
Exploration program to develop the new technologies needed for a human
return the moon.
The Earth Science
program would fall 8.6 percent to $1.5 billion in the House plan, confirming
the lower priority assigned to space-based observations of the Earth
within NASA’s portfolio of activities. In Biological and Physical Research,
the House would take $103 million out of the request for bioastronautics
research related to the moon-Mars missions, turning a requested increase
into a $28 million cut to $957 million. And the House would confirm
NASA’s trend of moving away from the first ‘A’ in its name by cutting
Aeronautics funding by 7.6 percent down to $955 million, a slight improvement
over NASA’s own plans. The House would add $32 million in R&D earmarks
to the request for Education Programs for a total of $200 million, down
$26 million from FY 2004. The House would add add $101 million in R&D earmarks to the NASA budget,
further squeezing the shrinking resources for these programs.
Impacts of the NASA R&D Portfolio
The proposed cuts
to NASA’s R&D portfolio in FY 2005 would put a sharp decline in
NASA R&D after level funding for the past decade, as shown in Figure
1. NASA’s R&D funding has barely kept pace with inflation going
back to FY 1991, and there are few signs now that it will grow significantly,
at least in the near future. Although the Bush Administration’s moon
and Mars plan promised new development efforts and increasing resources
in a time of fiscal austerity, a closer look at the FY 2005 budget showed
that most of the money would come from reprogramming from other NASA
programs rather than large funding increases in FY 2005 and later. With
a return to the moon nearly twenty years away and a possible trip to
Mars nearly three decades away, the presidential announcement did little
to change NASA’s near-term budget prospects, and now the House appropriation
could put the vision even further in the future.
Although much of
NASA’s R&D portfolio funds development and facilities projects such
as the Space Station, NASA is also an important source of federal
support for basic and applied research.
Engineering research makes up the largest part of the NASA
portfolio. NASA funds approximately a quarter of total federal support
for engineering research. NASA supplies nearly all the federal support
for some engineering sub-fields such as astronautical engineering and
aeronautical engineering. NASA is the leading federal sponsor of the
environmental sciences (oceanography, atmospheric sciences, geological
sciences). The environmental sciences are a quarter of NASA’s portfolio,
but NASA accounts for a third of total federal support for environmental
sciences research. NASA also
invests heavily in the physical sciences (astronomy, chemistry, and
physics). NASA is the second largest federal sponsor of physical sciences
behind the Department of Energy, and is by far the leading sponsor of
astronomy research.
The House cuts would hit NASA research disproportionately, with an estimated
18 percent decline in NASA basic and applied research, mostly from
cuts in applied research related to the new moon and Mars efforts but
also from cuts in Earth Science, Biological and Physical Research, and
aeronautics research.
Next Steps
The House VA-HUD
bill’s proposed cuts to NSF, NASA, and EPA look so steep, especially
in an election year, that the bill may be rejected by the full House.
If that looks likely, the House leadership may prevent the bill from
reaching the House floor in September. The Senate, facing the same fiscal
constraints, may not draft its VA-HUD bill at all. Thus, the bill is
almost certain to be included in a year-end omnibus appropriations bill.
There is already talk that funding for NSF and NASA will have to be
boosted through the infusion of additional funds in a year-end budget
deal. Where the additional funding might come from, however, is uncertain,
and it is possible that these House-proposed funding levels could eventually
prevail in the final FY 2005 appropriations package.
(This analysis is one of a series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates on the FY 2005 congressional appropriations
process. This analysis includes information on R&D in House appropriations
for NASA. The complete series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including
continually updated analyses of R&D by agency in FY 2005 appropriations,
is available on the AAAS R&D Web Site
(http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd) in the “FY 2005
R&D” or the “What’s New” sections.)
- July 26, 2004
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607; -6600
www.aaas.org/spp/rd
