AAAS R&D Funding Update on R&D in NASA FY 2007 House Appropriations -

House Confirms Large Boost for NASA Development

Go to: -Table. NASA R&D by Program in FY 2007 House Appropriations PDF version of this document Main R&D in the FY 2007 Budget Page Supplemental Materials: "NASA R&D Gains, But Steep Cuts Loom for Research," AAAS R&D Funding Update on R&D in the FY 2007 NASA Budget AAAS Analysis of R&D in the FY 2007 Budget

Highlights - After the Space Shuttle’s return to flight, scheduled for later this week, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) hopes to get back to preparing for the next decade’s ambitious plans for space exploration. In its latest appropriation, the House would essentially agree to NASA’s request for FY 2007 and provide $16.7 billion for its total budget, essentially flat with this year’s funding level (see Table), confirming NASA’s plans to do more without new resources. - The non-R&D Space Shuttle budget is expected to fall $756 million to $4.1 billion after the Shuttle returns safely to flight in July and NASA finishes repairing hurricane-damaged Shuttle facilities. The Shuttle savings would help boost NASA R&D by $858 million or 7.6 percent to $12.2 billion (see Table), putting NASA near the head of the class among the top R&D funding agencies.  - But an acceleration of NASA efforts to develop human space vehicles to replace the Space Shuttle no later than 2014 would eat up the entire R&D increase and more, leaving all other NASA R&D with cuts. Although the House would divert some of the requested increase to the Constellation Systems program in order to shore up aeronautics and science programs, Constellation Systems funding would still nearly double to $3.0 billion in the House plan, while aeronautics research would fall 7 percent to $824 million, and Science funding would rise 3 percent to $5.4 billion but would still remain well below last year’s funding level. - The House would allow the remnants of the life and physical sciences effort to tumble 56 percent to $275 million after a 30 percent cut this year.  - Assuming the Space Shuttle will be available next year for its role of transporting Station components into space, the House provides $1.8 billion for the International Space Station construction project next year, up 3.3 percent.  NASA R&D in FY 2007 House Appropriations On June 20, the House Appropriations Committee approved its version of the FY 2007 Science, State, Justice, and Commerce appropriations bill (SSJC; HR 5672), sending it to the House floor for debate and expected approval this week. The large bill, the last of the 11 FY 2007 appropriations bills to be drafted in the House, is a major funding source for federal R&D, combining funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Department of Commerce.  (For details of R&D in the FY 2007 request, please see Chapter 10 of AAAS Report XXXI: R&D FY 2007 or the February 28 AAAS R&D Funding Update.)  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) continues to forge ahead with its full program of flying the Space Shuttle, building the Space Station, funding research across a broad range of disciplines, and developing the next generation of space vehicles, but tight budget constraints in the overall federal budget and NASA Administrator Michael Griffin’s promise to do everything within a budget rising no faster than the rate of inflation are forcing tough choices in the agency’s priorities. NASA’s total budget of $16.7 billion in the FY 2007 House appropriation would be just $51 million or 0.3 percent more than the current year, although the increase would be higher if FY 2006 emergency funds to repair hurricane-damaged NASA Shuttle facilities are excluded (see Table).  After the Space Shuttle’s brief return to flight in July 2005 followed by another grounding to fix foam shedding during the launch, the Shuttle is currently scheduled to fly again as soon as July 1 and return to normal operations in 2007, allowing for a sharp cut in the Shuttle budget after several years of ballooning costs to retool the Shuttle in the aftermath of the 2003 Columbia disaster and to rebuild Gulf Coast facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The Space Shuttle budget, after hitting $5.0 billion last year and dropping slightly to $4.8 billion this year, is expected to fall 16 percent to $4.1 billion in 2007, freeing up money to transfer to the R&D programs that make up the rest of the NASA budget. The House would agree with NASA’s plan to boost its R&D funding $858 million or 7.6 percent to $12.2 billion (see Table), continuing a rebound from a dismal 2005 when Shuttle cost overruns forced the agency to siphon money the other way from R&D programs to the Shuttle. But despite some House transfers of money, an acceleration of NASA efforts to develop next-generation human space vehicles to replace the Space Shuttle would take up the entire R&D increase and more, leaving all other NASA R&D with declining funding. NASA has reorganized its budget to create the Constellation Systems program to develop a new Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) and Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) to replace no later than 2014. This large program to fund development of the CEV, CLV, and related technologies quadrupled from just $422 million last year to $1.7 billion this year, and would nearly double in 2007 to $3.0 billion, a $1.3 billion increase that far outstrips the $858 million increase for all NASA R&D. Although the goal is to have the new vehicles ready by 2014, NASA will try to get them launched as soon as 2012 and possibly sooner, mindful that the Shuttle’s planned retirement by 2010 could leave a long gap in which the U.S. would have no vehicles capable of carrying astronauts into space.  The large increase for spacecraft development would leave most NASA research programs with sharp funding cuts, following similar cuts in 2006, even after the House siphons some money from spacecraft to research (see Figure 1).  Although NASA is a large supporter of physical sciences research, it was left out of the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) to boost physical sciences, and its support for physical sciences research and other research would fall dramatically in the 2007 budget. Although the House would add $100 million to the request, aeronautics research funding would still fall $60 million or 7 percent down to $824 million after large cuts the previous two years; in real terms, the aeronautics research portfolio would be half its size of a decade ago (see Figure 1). Human Systems Research and Technology would fare even worse and be cut in half in just one year, from $624 million down to $275 million in 2007, after enduring a 30 percent cut this year. Human Systems would be just a shadow of its former self, when it was the Biological and Physical Research portfolio and funded a broad range of life and physical sciences. Now, the program is tightly focused on research related to human exploration of the solar system such as physiology research and behavioral research on how humans respond to long space flights, with vanishing amounts for non-human exploration research. The Prometheus program of research on new nuclear propulsion technologies would be shelved indefinitely, falling from $270 million last year to just $9 million in 2007 because of budget constraints. The Science portfolio of earth observations, astronomy, and robotic exploration of the solar system and universe would be protected overall from cuts in 2007, but the $5.4 billion House appropriation for Science would still be below the $5.5 billion 2005 funding level. Science is divided into the three themes of Solar System Exploration (SSE), the Universe, and the Earth-Sun System (see Table). Funding for all three themes would increase slightly in the House plan, but would follow sharp cuts in 2006. The House would preserve the Terrestrial Planet Finder mission which had been proposed for elimination, but would leave in place steep requested cuts in other programs: the astrobiology research portfolio in SSE would be cut in half, work on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) project would end abruptly, many space science and earth science programs would be reduced, and missions such as the Space Interferometer mission would be delayed. The Explorers program of low-budget spacecraft would be reduced by 20 percent, resulting in no launches at all between 2009 and 2012. At the same time, some programs would gain, both inside and outside the Science portfolio: funding for the Mars Science Laboratory, planned for launch in 2009, would see its funding surge from $253 million to $348 million. Ballooning development costs would force the James Webb Space Telescope funding to increase 22 percent to $443 million in Universe, even as the launch date is pushed back to 2013. But these programs would be few and far between in an overall NASA research landscape marked by flat funding or cuts. Meanwhile, NASA plans to keep construction funding for the International Space Station (ISS) on track in the FY 2007 budget. The ISS budget would rise 3.3 percent to $1.8 billion; once the Space Shuttle resumes a regular schedule, it is expected to carry Station components into orbit so that construction can resume toward a target completion date of 2010, followed by decommissioning by 2014. But budget constraints would force NASA to further reduce an already minuscule research effort on board the station, and NASA is now seeking other government agencies and the commercial sector to fund research on the station.   Figure 1. (click on image for PDF) Impacts of NASA R&D The House increase for NASA’s R&D portfolio in FY 2007 would continue a modest upward trend for the last few years, as shown in Figure 1, except for the drop in the 2005 budget. But going back to the 1990s, NASA’s R&D funding has just barely kept pace with inflation over the last 15 years, and has been essentially flat. But in recent years, exploding development costs of the Constellation Systems project and the large facilities expenditures for the International Space Station have meant a steadily declining NASA investment in basic and applied research (see the “All Other NASA R&D” and “aeronautics” bars in Figure 1).  Although much of NASA’s R&D portfolio funds development and facilities projects such as the Space Station, NASA is responsible for 10 percent of all federal support for basic and applied research with far larger roles in key fields.  As Figure 2 shows, the flat budget and continual reshuffling has had impacts on NASA’s research portfolio: the total research portfolio has been flat for the past decade, with periodic drops from the diversion of research funds to development or facilities construction. The research cuts in the 2007 budget and House allocation, coming after cuts in previous years, would further reduce NASA research support across all disciplines. Engineering research makes up the largest part of the NASA portfolio (see Figure 2). NASA funds more than 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 with more than 70 percent of the federal total.   Figure 2. (click on image for PDF) Because of NASA’s reliance on large firms and large federal laboratories, NASA’s R&D is heavily concentrated in just a few states. Three-quarters of NASA’s R&D is performed in just the five states of California, Texas, Maryland, Virginia, and Alabama. California is home to three major NASA facilities: the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, and the Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards. Texas is home to the Johnson Space Center in Houston; Maryland houses the Goddard Space Flight Center; Virginia houses the Langley Research Center; and Alabama is home to the Marshall Space Flight Center. Outlook and Next Steps The full House will debate and likely approve the Science-State-Commerce-Justice bill this week. The Senate version of the bill, however, may not be drafted until July or later, by which time the Shuttle is scheduled to have returned to flight and the future of the human space program should be clearer. (This analysis is one of a series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates on FY 2007 congressional appropriations. The complete series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including continually updated analyses of R&D in FY 2007 appropriations, is available on the AAAS R&D Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd) in the “FY 2007 R&D” or the “What’s New” sections.) - June 26, 2006 AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program 1200 New York Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20005 (202) 326-6607 AAAS R&D Web site: http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd

Table. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
House Appropriations Committee Action on R&D in the FY 2007 Budget
(budget authority in millions of dollars)
			Action by House
	FY 2006	FY 2007	FY 2007	Chg. from Request		Chg. from FY 2006
	Estimate	Request	HOUSE	Amount	Percent	Amount	Percent
Summary of R&D by Appropriation:
1. Exploration Capabilities (EC) *
International Space Station	1,753	1,811	1,778	-33	-1.8%	25	1.4%
Space Shuttle 1/	4,813	4,057	4,057	0	0.0%	-756	-15.7%
Space and Flight Support	339	367	359	-8	-2.1%	20	5.9%
	____	____	____
Total Exploration Capabilities	6,905	6,235	6,194	-41	-0.7%	-711	-10.3%
2. Science, Aeronautics and Exploration (SAE) *
Science:
Solar System Exploration	1,582	1,610	1,635	25	1.5%	53	3.3%
The Universe	1,508	1,509	1,534	25	1.7%	26	1.7%
Earth-Sun System	2,164	2,211	2,236	25	1.1%	72	3.3%
	____	____	____
Total Science	5,254	5,330	5,405	75	1.4%	151	2.9%
Exploration Systems	3,050	3,978	3,828	-151	-3.8%	778	25.5%
- Constellation Systems	1,734	3,058	3,042	-16	-0.5%	1,308	75.5%
- Exploration Systems	693	646	511	-135	-20.8%	-181	-26.2%
- Human Systems Res. & Tech.	624	275	275	0	0.0%	-350	-56.0%
Aeronautics Research	884	724	824	100	13.8%	-60	-6.8%
Cross-Agency Support Programs	534	492	425	-67	-13.5%	-108	-20.3%
- Education	162	153	153	0	0.0%	-9	-5.6%
- Advanced Business Systems	156	108	82	-27	-24.5%	-75	-47.7%
- Innovative Partnerships	215	198	158	-40	-20.2%	-57	-26.5%
- Shared Capabilities	0	32	32	0	0.0%	32	- -
	____	____	____
Total SAE	9,721	10,524	10,482	-42	-0.4%	761	7.8%
3. Inspector General	32	34	34	0	0.0%	2	4.7%
	____	____	____
Total NASA Budget	16,658	16,792	16,709	-83	-0.5%	51	0.3%
minus non-R&D Activities:
Space Shuttle	-4,813	-4,057	-4,057	0	0.0%	756	-15.7%
Other non-R&D	-495	-475	-441	34	-7.2%	55	-11.0%
Inspector General	-32	-34	-34	0	0.0%	-2	4.7%
Education and Training	-24	-25	-25	0	0.0%	-2	6.7%
	____	____	____
Total NASA Non-R&D Activities	-5,363	-4,590	-4,556	34	-0.7%	807	-15.1%
	____	____	____
TOTAL NASA R&D	11,295	12,202	12,153	-49	-0.4%	858	7.6%
AAAS estimates based on FY 2007 appropriations bills.  Includes conduct of R&D and R&D facilities.
FY 2006 and FY 2007 request figures based on OMB R&D data and supplemental agency budget data.
Figures are rounded to the nearest million. Changes calculated from unrounded figures.
NASA proposes an extensive restructuring of its budget in FY 2007.
Figures for all years have been adjusted to reflect the proposed budget structure.
* NASA funds are not appropriated by program. The FY 2007 program-level figures are AAAS estimates based on report
language in the FY 2007 appropriations bill; NASA has broad flexibility to shift funds between programs.
1/ FY 2006 Shuttle figures include emergency supplementals for hurricane damages.
June 23, 2006 - AAAS estimates of House Appropriations Committee action.
These figures may be modified or rejected by the full House.