Highlights
- The Senate would rely on $800 million in emergency funding to shore up
the FY 2005 NASA budget. The FY 2005 total NASA budget of $16.4
billion would be $1 billion or 6.5 percent more than FY 2004, with most
of the increase going to returning the Space Shuttle to flight in spring
2005. NASA R&D, which excludes the Shuttle, would stay even at $11.0
billion (up 0.5 percent; see Table).
- By relying
on emergency funds that do not count against strict congressional budget
targets, the Senate would be far more generous than the House’s proposal
to cut funding for NASA down to $15.1 billion and NASA R&D by 6.2
percent through the elimination of proposed programs to get the new
moon-and-Mars missions underway. The Senate would fund most moon-and-Mars
missions, though not at the levels proposed by NASA.
- NASA R&D would increase by 0.5 percent to $11.0 billion in the Senate
bill. While funding for construction of the International Space
Station would increase 6.3 percent to $1.6 billion, NASA’s support of basic and applied research would fall 8 percent,
primarily from a delay of moon-and-Mars programs and the delay of some
Space Station research due to the grounding of the Shuttle.
- The non-R&D
Space Shuttle program would receive $4.8 billion in preparation for
a long-delayed return to flight now scheduled for spring 2005, with
$500 million in the Senate bill designated as emergency funding for
safety upgrades and other launch preparation costs.
- The Space Science
program would emerge a winner among science programs in the Senate bill
with $4.3 billion, up 9.3 percent, an increase due mostly to $300 million
in emergency funds allocated to a repair mission for the Hubble Space
Telescope. The Senate would provide $20 million in new funds for Lunar
Exploration to begin preparations for the return to the moon.
NASA R&D in FY 2005 Senate Appropriations
On September 21, the Senate Appropriations Committee
drafted its version of an FY 2005 VA/HUD appropriations bill (S 2825)
that would boost National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
funding for FY 2005 with the help of $800 million in emergency funding
for the Space Shuttle and the Hubble Space Telescope that would be exempt
from the Senate’s tight budget targets. The use of emergency funding
allows the Senate to be far more generous than a House version of the
bill (HR 5041) that would dramatically cut NASA funding. The Senate
bill would give NASA a total budget of $16.4 billion in FY 2005, $1.0
billion more than FY 2004, $135 million more than the request, and $1.2
billion more than the House appropriation (see Table).
The Senate would allow NASA to embark on grand new plans for space exploration
involving a return to the moon and a possible human flight to Mars in
coming decades, unlike the tight House budget which would squash these
plans for at least a year.
NASA’s R&D (two-thirds of the agency’s budget) would be $11.0 billion,
a 0.5 percent increase, less than the request but an improvement over
the House-proposed 6.2 percent hit to R&D programs. R&D
would show a smaller increase than the overall NASA budget because the
Senate would give the largest increase to the Space Shuttle, a non-R&D
program. While the Senate increase would fall behind inflation and would
delay some of NASA’s new moon-and-Mars projects, it would be a marked
improvement on a House appropriation that would reduce NASA R&D
funding down to levels not seen since 1990 in today’s dollars. (For
details of NASA R&D in FY 2005 House appropriations, see the July
28 AAAS R&D Funding Update. For details of R&D in the FY
2005 request, please see Chapter 10 of AAAS Report XXIX: R&D FY 2005.)
Both the
House and Senate FY 2005 VA-HUD bills would provide $93 billion in regular
funding for discretionary programs, almost $1 billion more than the
President’s request and $2 billion more than FY 2004. 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. But while the House
would devote all the additional funds and then some to veterans and
housing programs, leaving R&D programs with cuts, the Senate gave
itself more flexibility by designating an additional $2 billion in funding
as ‘emergency’ spending and thus exempt from the tight congressional
budget targets. $800 million of the Senate’s emergency funding would
go to the NASA budget.
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).
The Senate VA-HUD
bill would try to keep NASA’s plans on track, though with some modifications.
The Senate would fully fund the requested increase to $4.3 billion for
the non-R&D Space Shuttle and would provide an additional $500 million
in emergency funding for safety upgrades and other expenses necessary
to prepare the Shuttle for a return to flight in spring 2005, for a
total of $4.8 billion (up 22.2 percent).
The Senate would
trim the $1.9 billion request for the Space Station down to $1.6 billion,
which would still be 6.3 percent more than FY 2004 spending. 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. The Senate allocation recognizes that
the continued grounding of the Shuttle will delay Station construction,
and thus the project will require less money than estimated earlier.
With these two
big-ticket current programs provided for, the
Senate bill would also provide funds to start a new moon-and-Mars related
program within the Exploration Systems (ES) account, in contrast
to a cash-strapped House bill that would kill or delay it. The Senate
would provide $268 million to begin development of the Crew Exploration
Vehicle (CEV), a project to develop the next-generation spacecraft capable
of taking humans beyond low-Earth orbit, less than the $428 million
request but much better than zero in the House bill. 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 while the Senate would
at least allow the program to start.
The CEV project is designed to replace the Space Launch Initiative,
another program to develop next-generation space launch vehicles.
The Senate would
give the new Human and Robotic Technology (HRT) program $988 million,
down from the request but still up 45.5 percent from the comparable
programs in FY 2004. The Senate would give $430 million to Project Prometheus
to develop new power and propulsion technologies based on nuclear power
for future NASA missions, while the House could only find $208 million.
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, but would hold nearly
steady at $7.9 billion in the Senate bill for a 1.4 percent increase
(see Table). But most ESA accounts
would still fall in the Senate bill, with the bulk of the increase devoted
to emergency funds for the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Space Science program would see its budget rise dramatically by 9.3
percent or $371 million to $4.3 billion, but $300 million of the increase
would be emergency spending to fund a servicing mission to the Hubble.
NASA has attracted strong criticism this year 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 would not
provide any additional funds beyond the $130 million request for the
overall Hubble program (down sharply from $241 million this year), which
would not have paid for a mission. The Senate bill would provide core
Hubble funding plus the $300 million in dedicated funding for a servicing
mission after the Shuttle eventually returns to flight. Space Science
would also contain $20 million for the Lunar Exploration program to
develop the new technologies needed for a human return the moon, down
from the $70 million request. The Senate would leave mostly untouched
the proposed reductions in other Space Science efforts in Solar System
Exploration, understanding the Sun-Earth connection, and exploring the
structure and evolution of the universe.
Outside of Space Science, most of NASA’s research-oriented programs would
face cuts, even in the relatively generous Senate bill. The Earth
Science program would fall 6.0 percent to $1.5 billion in the Senate
plan and by a similar amount 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, both the
House and the Senate would take funds out of the request for a Senate
reduction of 4.9 percent down to $937 million. And both the House and
the Senate would confirm NASA’s trend of moving away from the first
‘A’ in its name by cutting Aeronautics funding, in the Senate’s case
cutting by 7.9 percent to $953 million, similar to the House cut and
NASA’s own plans. At the same
time, both the House and the Senate would add $101 million for a partially
overlapping list of earmarks to the NASA budget, further squeezing the
shrinking resources for these programs.
Impacts of the NASA R&D Portfolio
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. While the Senate would spare the new moon and
Mars efforts, cuts in the other programs would result in an 8 percent
cut in NASA support of research even in the more generous Senate bill.
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 never make it to the House floor
as a stand-alone bill. With the October 1 start of FY 2005 already past
and the October 8 target adjournment date looming with other legislative
priorities stacked up, the Senate will run out of time to debate and
approve its version bill as a stand-alone bill. Thus, NASA programs
will operate through at least November 20 at FY 2004 levels under a
continuing resolution (CR; temporary appropriations bill) approved by
Congress this week. After the November elections, Congress will try
to finish up appropriations; the most likely scenario is that the VA-HUD
bill will be rolled into an omnibus appropriations bill along with the
other unfinished appropriations bills in a post-election lame duck session.
The big unanswered questions are whether the steep House cuts or the
more generous Senate funding levels will prevail in the final FY 2005
NASA budget, and when NASA will receive its final budget.
(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 Senate 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.)
- October 1, 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
