Highlights
- The National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA), expecting the Space Shuttle to return
to flight this year, would shift its focus to its many R&D challenges
next year. In the latest Senate plan, the total NASA budget of $16.4
billion would be a $200 million or 1.2 percent increase, but NASA’s
R&D funding would climb 7.1 percent or $759 million in FY 2006
as a decline in Shuttle costs frees up money for NASA’s R&D programs
(see Table).
- The large apparent
increase in NASA’s R&D is partly due to mid-year cuts imposed recently
in the 2005 budget. In May, NASA shifted $284 million from R&D accounts
to the Space Shuttle program to give it a record $5 billion budget in
preparation for a safe July return to flight.
- While the agency
would receive additional resources for its ambitious plans to finish
construction of the International Space Station, explore the solar system,
and develop the technologies needed for future moon and Mars missions,
there would also be steep cuts in an R&D portfolio growing substantially,
but not enough for NASA to fund everything on its full plate of missions.
Even from a 2005 base reduced by mid-year cuts, the Senate budget
plan would make further cuts in NASA’s aeronautics research portfolio
(down 13 percent to $838 million), the earth sciences portfolio (down
11 percent to $2.0 billion), and biological and physical research (down
13 percent to $800 million).
- The Senate
would allocate $250 million specifically for a Hubble Space Telescope
servicing mission in addition to regular Hubble funds.
- The Senate increases
would agree with NASA and House plans to shift resources to solar system
exploration and R&D for moon and Mars mission technologies. There
would be large boosts for robotic moon and Mars exploration (up 17 percent
to $858 million) and development of a Crew Exploration Vehicle within
a new Constellation Systems program (doubling to $1.1 billion).
- The International Space Station would receive $1.7
billion, up 2.8 percent, in anticipation of the Space Shuttle returning
to its role of transporting Station components into space.
NASA R&D in FY 2006 Senate Appropriations
On June 23, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved
its version of the FY 2006 Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations
bill (HR 2862), following full House approval of its version a week
earlier. The Senate bill would provide NASA with a total budget of
$16.4 billion in FY 2006, $200 million or 1.2 percent above this year’s
budget. (For details of R&D in the FY 2006 request, please see
Chapter 10 of AAAS
Report XXX: R&D FY 2006 or the
March 9 AAAS R&D Funding Update. For details
of NASA R&D in House appropriations, see the June
14 R&D Funding Update.)
Because
of an extensive reorganization of appropriations bill jurisdictions,
in FY 2006 the National Science Foundation (NSF)
and NASA will be funded for the first time with the Departments of Commerce
and Justice. NSF and NASA were formerly funded in the now defunct VA-HUD
appropriations bill alongside the Departments of Veterans Affairs and
Housing and Urban Development. As a result, the former Commerce, Justice,
and State appropriations bill in the House now has “Science” in its
name. The Senate version of the bill, however, has a different group
of agencies: although Commerce, Justice, NASA, and NSF are still funded
together in the Senate, the Senate bill excludes the Department of State.
The differing jurisdictions in the House and the Senate bills will make
agreeing on a final (conference) bill extremely difficult.
In an extremely
tough budget environment of rising deficits, restraints on domestic
spending, and cuts for many programs, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) would escape the tight funding squeeze facing
other domestic programs in the proposed FY 2006 budget. And because
of mid-year reductions in the 2005 base along with an expected decline
in Shuttle funding in 2006, NASA’s R&D funding would increase
dramatically next year to make up for a cut this year. The Senate
would provide $200 million more than this year for NASA’s total budget
to bring it to $16.4 billion (see Table)
after an $820 million increase in 2005. Both the House and Senate bills
should allow NASA to keep going on grand new plans for space exploration
involving a return to the moon and a possible human flight to Mars in
coming decades, after first returning the Space Shuttle to flight this
summer and using the Shuttle to finish construction of the International
Space Station.
NASA’s R&D (two-thirds of the agency’s budget) would total $11.5 billion
in the Senate plan, a 7.1 percent or $759 million increase that is certain
to be the largest percentage increase among the major R&D funding
agencies (see Table and Figure 1). R&D
funding would grow faster than the total NASA budget because the agency
anticipates a reduction in the non-R&D Space Shuttle program from
a record $5.0 billion funding level this year down to $4.5 billion next
year after the Shuttle returns to flight, and also because NASA reduced
the 2005 R&D portfolio mid year. The large Senate increase, matched
in both the House plan and the NASA request, would come after a cut
in 2005 (see Figure 1).
NASA has had a
turbulent year as it prepares to return the Space Shuttle to flight
this summer, two and a half years after the loss of the Columbia.
After extensive investigations and safety overhauls, the Shuttle’s return
to flight is currently scheduled for July, as early as July 13. But
in order to accomplish NASA’s top priority, the agency has had to juggle
its budget extensively to shift funds from R&D accounts to the Space
Shuttle program. For FY 2005, Congress gave NASA almost unlimited flexibility
to shift funds between programs in its $16.2 billion budget; in exercising
this flexibility, in May NASA released its latest FY 2005 operating
plan showing that it had shifted $284 million between R&D programs
in Science, Aeronautics, and Exploration (SAE) to the non-R&D Space
Shuttle and related programs in Exploration Capabilities (EC), along
with numerous shifts between SAE programs to accommodate Hubble Space
Telescope funding, changing mission requirements, and congressional
earmarks. Although the total NASA budget remained unchanged, the shifts
reduced NASA’s R&D funding from $11.0 billion from the February
estimate down to $10.7 billion now.
Looking forward
to next year, the Senate would concur with NASA’s plan to increase funding
for the International Space Station. The Station is now essentially
in maintenance mode until the Space Shuttle resumes its role of carrying
Station components into orbit. After shrinking to $1.4 billion last
year, the Senate plan envisions Space Station construction resuming
at $1.7 billion after the Shuttle returns to flight. The Space Station
and the Space Shuttle make up the Exploration Capabilities (EC) account,
which totals $6.6 billion in the Senate, a decline of 7.2 percent because
of the expected fall-off in Shuttle costs (see Table).
With these two
big-ticket current programs provided for in the EC account, the
Exploration, Science, and Aeronautics (ESA) account, which funds most
of NASA’s research, would rise 7.9 percent in the Senate bill for a
gain of $710 million to $9.8 billion, following on a similar House-proposed
increase. The Senate would confirm NASA plans for dramatic increases
in moon-and-Mars programs, especially within the new Exploration Systems
(ES) account. In next year’s budget, NASA would create the Constellation
Systems program within ES as the focal point for R&D efforts in
the space flight technologies needed to return humans to the moon and
then onward to Mars. From $527 million this year, Constellation Systems
funding would double to $1.1 billion, primarily for R&D on the Crew
Exploration Vehicle (CEV), a project to develop a next-generation spacecraft
capable of taking humans beyond low-Earth orbit. The first demonstration
flights are currently planned for 2008. Exploration Systems R&T
(research and technology) would surge more than 25 percent to approximately
$900 million in the Senate plan for R&D to meet the technical challenges
lying ahead for the moon and Mars missions. The Prometheus Nuclear Systems
and Technology program to develop new power and propulsion technologies
based on nuclear power for future NASA missions would receive $320 million
in a restructuring of program milestones, up from the current plan of
$270 million. Funding for the Mars and Lunar Exploration programs for
robotic exploration would total $858 million in combined funding, up
17 percent from this year to build on recent successes of the headline-grabbing
Mars rovers and to gear up for a 2008 robotic mission to the moon.
Figure 1. (click
on the image for PDF)
The Senate would provide $250
million specifically for a shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space
Telescope, to follow on $291 million provided this year. In an unusual
move, the $250 million is written into the bill itself instead of in the
accompanying bill report, thereby giving the allocation the force of law. The
$291 million for FY 2005 was in the bill report, so initially NASA allocated
far less for Hubble until congressional pressure led NASA to allot the full
$291 million in its May operating plan. The Senate language follows on a recent
decision by new NASA Administrator Michael Griffin to reassess the possibility
of a servicing mission to the telescope. NASA attracted strong criticism last
year for canceling a planned shuttle servicing mission to extend the life of
the Hubble, instead focusing on robotic servicing. The FY 2006 budget proposal
in February, prepared under the watch of the previous administrator, would have
canceled any servicing mission, but the specific Senate appropriation would put
a mission back on the agenda. The Senate funds would be in addition to funds
for regular Hubble operations.
The Senate
would delete funding for the Centennial Challenges program to award
competitive prizes for new technologies. The request of $34 million
would have funded NASA attempts to replicate the X-Prize program, but
the Senate bill criticizes NASA for requesting the funds but leaving
the technology challenges, prize levels, and other milestones unidentified
in a program that has yet to be authorized in law.
The Senate would
agree to NASA proposals to dramatically cut NASA investments in earth
sciences, aeronautics, and biological and physical sciences. Funding
for the Earth-Sun System program, restructured from the former Earth
Science program, would decline 11 percent to $2.0 billion. This NASA
program is a key part of the interagency Climate Change Science Program
and is responsible for space-based observations of the earth environment.
While the House would provide $906 million, the Senate would make a
steep 13 percent cut in the aeronautics research portfolio down to $838
million (see Table). Language accompanying the NASA appropriation makes
clear both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees’ support for
sustaining NASA’s investment in aeronautics research, especially at
a time when other industrial nations are increasing their investments,
but funding would lag behind the language. The Senate appropriation
would leave the aeronautics portfolio at just half the size of a decade
ago.
Both the House
and the Senate would endorse NASA’s proposal to dramatically restructure
and downsize its biological and physical research portfolio into
a Human Systems Research and Technology program more narrowly focused
on research topics relevant to human space flight. Human Systems would
receive roughly $800 million in the Senate bill, compared to $925 million
in the current year.
Elsewhere in the bill, both the House and the Senate would make the unusual
move of adding $50 million in R&D earmarks to the NASA budget, but
without itemizing them. The actual projects are expected to be named
in the final (conference) version of the bill.
Impacts and Next Steps
The Senate increase to NASA’s R&D portfolio in
FY 2006 would continue a modest upward trend for the last few years,
as shown in Figure 1, except for the drop in the 2005 budget. NASA’s
R&D funding has just kept pace with inflation going back to FY 1991,
and recent increases have been just barely ahead of inflation. NASA
has committed to carrying out its ambitious plans with a budget plan
that would just keep pace with expected inflation over the next decade.
Although inflationary increases are more than most R&D funding agencies
are likely to get in the next few years, NASA’s big plans for the next
few years will still require NASA to reshuffle its resources and to
meet ambitious targets for deployment, construction, and then phase-out
of the Space Shuttle and Space Station programs to make room for moon
and Mars programs.
The Senate is expected
to debate and approve the Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations
bill in July. Because the House-approved version of the bill includes
the Department of State, which the Senate would fund in another appropriations
bill entirely, the House-Senate conference to resolve differences is
expected to extremely difficult and may not conclude until the fall.
-
June 29, 2005
(This analysis is one of a series of AAAS R&D Funding
Updates on FY 2006 congressional appropriations. The complete series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including continually updated analyses
of R&D in FY 2006 appropriations, is available on the AAAS
R&D Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd) in the "FY
2006 R&D" or the "What's New"
sections.)
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607; -6600
AAAS R&D
Web site: www.aaas.org/spp/rd
