Highlights
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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) suffered a budget setback
in 2007, but looks to rebound in 2008 with a large requested budget increase,
endorsed and added to by the Senate for a total budget of $17.5 billion in
the Senate plan, $1.2 billion or 7.3 percent more than 2007 (see Table).
The Senate would add $150 million to the request, primarily for earth science
programs.
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The Constellation Systems program to develop the new Crew Exploration Vehicle
and Crew Launch Vehicle would increase 11.3 percent from 2007 to $3.1 billion
in 2008. Funding shortfalls in 2007 and project delays recently led NASA to push
back the launch date from 2014 to 2015 at the earliest. Construction of the International Space Station,
now in full gear with the return of the Space Shuttle to flight, would receive
the requested $2.2 billion next year in the Senate, up $503 million from this
year.
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The Senate would give NASA’s Science portfolio $5.6 billion, a 4.3 percent
increase and slightly more than requested to shore up earth sciences, especially
satellite earth observing systems. But the Senate would not add funds to NASA’s
aeronautics research portfolio despite criticizing NASA’s planned budget cuts,
and would leave it down 21 percent at $550 million. The Senate would designate
$70 million for congressionally designated projects after a one-year moratorium
on earmarking in 2007.
NASA R&D in FY 2008 Senate Appropriations
On
June 28, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its version of the FY 2008
Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill (S 1745) providing funding for the
Department of Commerce, the National
Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA), for consideration by the full Senate in July. The House has drafted its
own version of the bill for consideration by the House Appropriations Committee
in July. Both the House and Senate bills contain close to $54 billion in 2008 discretionary spending, $3 to $4 billion more than the current year
and between $2 and $3 billion more than the President’s request for these programs.
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 as part of the Vision for Space Exploration, 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. The
Senate would try to make things a little easier by adding $150 million to NASA’s
2008 request for a total budget of $17.5 billion, $1.2 billion or 7.3 percent
more than the current year, but the Senate increase would still fall short of
past budgets in real terms after a sharp cut in 2007 (see Figure 1). (For
details of NASA’s FY 2008 request, see the March 21 AAAS
R&D Funding Update or Chapter 9 of AAAS
Report XXXII: R&D FY 2008.)
NASA’s
R&D funding would climb $992 million or 8.4 percent to $12.8 billion in
the Senate plan (see Table), continuing a rebound
from a dismal 2005 when Shuttle cost overruns forced the agency to siphon money
from R&D programs to the non-R&D Shuttle. But efforts to develop next-generation
human space vehicles to replace the Shuttle and ramped-up construction of the
International Space Station (ISS) would take up the entire R&D increase, leaving
all other NASA R&D programs combined with flat funding even after the extra
Senate dollars.
NASA’s
Constellation Systems program aims to develop a new Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle
(CEV) and Ares 1 Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) to replace the Space Shuttle as the
primary means of getting humans into space. This large program to fund development
of the CEV, CLV, and related technologies is part of the President’s Vision for
Space Exploration, announced in 2004, to get humans back to the moon and onward
to Mars. Funding quadrupled from just $422 million in 2005 to $1.7 billion last
year, and increased again to $2.8 billion in 2007. The 2008 Senate plan would
further boost funding 11.3 percent or $314 million to $3.1 billion, with $1.2
billion for the CEV, $951 million for the CEV, and the remainder for supporting
development projects. Although the goal is to have the new vehicles ready by 2014,
a nearly half-billion dollar shortfall in the final 2007 appropriation from the
2007 request and project delays have caused NASA to push back the projected launch
date to 2015 or later.
The
International Space Station (ISS) budget would climb 29 percent or $503 million
as requested to $2.2 billion in the 2008 Senate appropriation, partly because
of a transfer of support costs from Constellation Systems to the ISS account and
partly for a ramped-up construction schedule aiming for final assembly of the
Station in 2010, followed by full operations through 2016.
Figure 1. (click on the image for
PDF)
Together,
the Constellation Systems and ISS increases would take up the entire increase
for NASA R&D, leaving all other NASA R&D programs combined with flat funding,
or a cut in real terms, following steep cuts in each of the last four years
(see Figure 1). Ironically, NASA is a large
supporter of physical sciences research but was left out of the President’s American
Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) to boost basic physical sciences research, and
its support for physical sciences research and other research would fall in the
2008 request and just stay even with inflation in the 2008 Senate appropriation.
The
Senate would intervene to shore up NASA support of the earth sciences with
$1.6 billion for the Earth Science portfolio, $128 million more than the request
and $182 million or 13 percent more than the current year. $25 million in new
funding would go to implement recommendations of the National Research Council’s
recent Earth Science and Applications From Space:
National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond report. This decadal survey
of earth science expresses concern that the number of earth-observing sensors
on NASA spacecraft could decrease by 40 percent during this decade if current
trends continue, such as a 30 percent real decline in earth science funding so
far this decade. The report notes that NASA’s satellite capabilities for observing
the Earth from space are vital for environmental research, especially for understanding
climate change, and would be nearly impossible to replace. The Senate would
add funding to various earth science programs, including several earth observing
satellite missions, and would provide $15 million specifically to top up funding
for Earth Science Applications, a program that provides competitive grants for
scientists to use satellite data for environmental and other research.
The
Senate would also add funding for the Heliophysics program for a total of $1.1
billion, up 6.7 percent, for this portfolio focused on studying the Sun and its
impact on Earth. The Planetary Science portfolio would fall 2.4 percent to $1.4
billion, while the Astrophysics portfolio would gain slightly (0.9 percent) to
$1.6 billion. The increase would allow work on the Stratospheric Observatory for
Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) project to restart in 2008 after an abrupt halt in
2007, would allow the James Webb Space Telescope to ramp up development efforts
to $545 million toward a 2013 launch, and would fund a 2008 servicing mission
for the current Hubble Space Telescope ($308 million).
But
the Senate would join NASA in cutting other parts of the research portfolio. Aeronautics
research funding would tumble 21 percent down to $550 million in 2008 following
similar cuts in previous years; in real terms, the aeronautics research portfolio
would be half its size of just four years ago (see Figure 1), despite language
accompanying the Senate bill expressing concern over steady declines in aeronautics
funding. The Human Research program would have an increase to $183 million, but
only after a 60 percent cut in 2007 and cuts in previous years to leave it 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 (see Figure 2). Elsewhere
in the Senate bill, there would be $70 million allocated to congressionally designated,
performer-specific projects (earmarks), a return to earmarking in 2008 after a
one-year moratorium in 2007.
Impacts
of the NASA Budget
The
proposed increase to NASA’s R&D portfolio in FY 2008, now endorsed and added
to by the Senate, would continue a modest upward trend for the last few years
after hitting bottom in 2005, as shown in Figure 1. 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. Although the Bush Administration’s moon and
Mars plan ignited hopes of increasing resources in a time of fiscal austerity,
NASA 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 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.
Although
much of NASA’s R&D portfolio funds development and facilities projects such
as the Space Station, NASA is responsible
for 8 percent of all federal support for basic and applied research, with far
larger roles in key fields. NASA funds
nearly 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 also 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 almost a third of total federal support for environmental sciences
research and is the largest agency participant in the multi-agency Climate Change
Science Program (CCSP). 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.
Because
recent increases in NASA R&D have gone to development programs such as the
Constellation Systems project and facilities such as the International Space Station
(see Figure 1), NASA support of research has plummeted in real terms, and the
2008 Senate appropriation would arrest the slide but not reverse it.
Outlook and Next Steps
There
is growing congressional dissatisfaction over NASA’s course of doing everything
it has promised within a flat real budget. Congressional appropriators and authorizers
have criticized the agency for siphoning resources away from research to keep
the Space Shuttle, ISS, and moon and Mars programs on track, but have mostly been
unable to come up with the additional money needed to sustain research. The 2008
appropriations process has so far been the same: although Senate appropriators
tried to boost NASA funding, their relatively modest additions shore up the earth
science portfolio somewhat but still leave NASA research funding in decline.
The
full Senate is expected to debate and approve the Commerce-Justice-Science bill
in July, while the House Appropriations Committee is expected to consider its
version in July, also. Congress will try to send a final version of the bill to
President Bush before the October 1 start of FY 2008. The President has threatened
to veto any 2008 appropriations bill that exceeds his request, as the Senate bill
does by more than $3 billion, so the bill may have a long way to go before its
funding levels become final.
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July 5, 2007
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
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