(This analysis is a preview of the
NASA chapter in the forthcoming AAAS Report XXXI: Research and Development
FY 2007, a comprehensive look at the President's budget for R&D in FY
2007. This analysis contains revised AAAS estimates of NASA R&D, different
from figures originally presented in the President's budget. More tables and continually
updated supplemental materials on R&D in the FY 2007 budget can be found on
the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
Highlights
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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) may be a Bush Administration
priority because of the President’s Vision for Space Exploration of returning
humans to the moon as a stepping stone to a Mars mission, but like other agencies
NASA is being asked to do more with flat funding. The total NASA budget of
$16.8 billion in FY 2007 would be just 1.0 percent more than in 2006 (see
Table II-12).
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The non-R&D Space Shuttle budget is expected to fall $721 million to $4.1
billion after the Shuttle returns safely to flight in spring 2006 and NASA finishes
repairing hurricane-damaged Shuttle facilities. The Shuttle savings would help
boost NASA R&D by $907 million or 8.0 percent to $12.2 billion (see Table
II-12), putting NASA near the head of the class among the top R&D funding
agencies.
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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. The Constellation Systems
program to develop the new Crew Exploration Vehicle and Crew Launch Vehicle ballooned
from $422 million last year to $1.7 billion in 2006, and would nearly double to
$3.1 billion next year (see Table II-12).
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The heavy emphasis on development of new space vehicles over NASA’s support
of basic and applied research in the 2007 budget would lead to a 16.5 percent
cut in NASA’s research portfolio down to $3.3 billion. Although NASA would
protect the Science program overall from cuts, aeronautics research would plummet
18 percent to $724 million and the remnants of the life and physical sciences
effort would tumble 56 percent to $275 million after a 30 percent cut this year.
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The International Space Station construction project would receive $1.8 billion,
up 3.3 percent, in anticipation of the Space Shuttle returning to its role of
transporting Station components into space.
NASA R&D in the FY 2007 Budget
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 $16.8 billion in FY 2007 would
be just 1.0 percent or $169 million 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 II-12).
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 expected to fly again later
this spring 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
15 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.
NASA’s
R&D funding would climb $907 million or 8.0 percent to $12.2 billion (see
Table II-12), 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. Even in a year when several R&D funding
agencies would enjoy substantial increases to their R&D programs as part of
the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) to boost physical sciences
research, NASA would have the second-largest percentage increase for R&D among
the top R&D funding agencies, behind only the National Science Foundation’s
(NSF) ACI-fueled 8.3 percent increase.
But
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 the Space Shuttle no later
than 2014 as the primary means of getting humans into space. 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 $3.1 billion, a $1.3 billion increase that outstrips the $907 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.
Figure 1.
(click on the image for PDF)
The
large increase for spacecraft development would leave most NASA research programs
with sharp funding cuts, following similar cuts in 2006
(see Figure 1). Ironically, NASA is a large
supporter of physical sciences research but was left out of the American Competitiveness
Initiative (ACI), and its support for physical sciences research and other research
would fall dramatically in the 2007 budget. NASA’s basic and applied research
support would fall 16.5 percent down to $3.3 billion. Aeronautics research
funding would tumble 18 percent down to $724 million in 2006 after large cuts
the previous two years; in real terms, the aeronautics research portfolio would
be less than half its size of a decade ago (see Figure 2). 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 the 2007
budget, but the 2006 funding level is already well below the 2005 budget after
transfers to the space craft development programs. Still, even with a flat budget
there would continue to be difficult choices and program terminations because
of dramatic reductions from previous NASA plans. The total Science portfolio of
$5.3 billion (up 1.5 percent) would be a small increase, but would be down $600
million from NASA's projections as recently as last year, forcing cuts to many
missions. Science is divided into the three themes of Solar System Exploration
(SSE), the Universe, and the Earth-Sun System (see Table II-12). Funding for all
three themes would be flat or slightly increasing, after sharp cuts in 2006, but
even the 2007 budget would contain steep cuts: 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, missions such as the Terrestrial Planet Finder would
be eliminated, and other 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. Robotic Lunar Exploration
funding would double to $273 million within the Exploration Systems Research and
Technology account, with much of the funding going to the Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter scheduled for launch in 2008. 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 2.
(click on the image for PDF)
Outlook for the NASA Budget
The
would continue a modest upward
trend after hitting bottom in 2005 when transfers to the Shuttle program in midyear
dramatically reduced R&D funding. NASA’s R&D funding has just barely kept
pace with inflation over the past decades, and the 2007 increase would merely
recover lost ground (see Figure 2). But excluding the Space Station facilities
project and the burgeoning Constellation Systems development effort, all other
NASA R&D would continue to decline sharply (see “All Other NASA R&D”
and “Aeronautics” in Figure 2), including all of NASA’s support for basic and
applied research.
The
research cuts in the 2007 budget, coming after cuts in previous years, would further
reduce NASA research support across all disciplines. 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. Engineering
research makes up the largest part of the NASA portfolio. 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), with a third of
total federal support. 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, but was left out of the American
Competitiveness Initiative to boost physical sciences research, as was the Department
of Defense, another major sponsor of the physical sciences.
Because
the Vision for Space Exploration remains a high priority even in tough budget
times, NASA would receive an increase even as most other domestic agencies face
cuts within a declining domestic budget. Looking to the future, the Bush Administration’s
outyear budget projections show that in the push to
reduce the budget deficit in half over the next few years, funding for most domestic
programs would decline each year to 2011, but funding for NASA would continue
to increase steadily from $16.8 billion in 2007 to $18.5 billion by 2011 for an
average increase of 3 percent a year. Funding for the non-R&D Space Shuttle
is expected to decline steadily to 2010 and end entirely in 2011, freeing up more
money for R&D programs. As a result, the AAAS analysis of the outyear
projections in the FY 2007 budget shows NASA R&D growing steadily from $12.2
billion in FY 2007 to $13.8 billion in 2010, and then jumping to $17.8 billion
in 2011 after the Shuttle program ends. After adjusting for inflation, NASA R&D
could increase 45 percent over the next five years. But as with the 2007 budget,
future budgets would continue to emphasize Constellation Systems, which could
further grow from $3.1 billion next year to a $7.7 billion program by 2011. The
Space Station budget would also increase over the next few years as the project
nears completion.
As
a result, funding for Science, Human Systems, Aeronautics, and Education R&D
would all lose ground to inflation over the next five years, and Exploration Systems
would barely stay flat, thus signaling continuing cuts in NASA’s support for basic
and applied research. Although budgets are always determined one year at a time,
and Congress has not even acted on the first installment for 2007, Congress has
so far been generally supportive of the space exploration vision, even as it wrings
its hands over the offsetting cuts in NASA’s research portfolio. But without an
additional source of funds, appropriators will continue to be hamstrung by tight
domestic budget constraints in their attempts to boost NASA research.
(More
materials on R&D in the FY 2007 budget, historical data and charts, and more
information on AAAS Report XXXI: Research and Development FY 2007, can
be found on the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
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February 28, 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
