(This analysis is a preview of the
NASA chapter in the forthcoming AAAS Report XXXIII: Research and Development
FY 2009, a comprehensive look at the President's budget for R&D in FY
2009. 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 2009 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) budget would grow $497
million or 2.9 percent to $17.6 billion in 2009 (see Table
II-12), with the entire increase and more going to two big-ticket human space
programs. The Constellation Systems program to develop the next generation of
human spacecraft would receive $3.0 billion, an increase of 23.3 percent or $576
million, including a billion dollars each for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle
and the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle. The International Space Station would receive
$2.1 billion, a $247 million or 13.6 percent increase, as construction ramps up
toward completion in 2010.
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But increases for these two programs would leave NASA’s research-oriented programs
in decline once more. NASA support of basic and applied research would fall for
the fifth year in a row, down 5.2 percent in the 2009 request to $3.1 billion.
The Science portfolio would fall 5.6 percent to $4.4 billion after a modest gain
in 2008, with especially steep cuts in Astrophysics (down 13 percent) and Heliophysics
(down 31 percent). Planetary Science (up 7 percent) and Earth Science (up 7 percent)
would receive boosts, however, with a special emphasis on new earth science missions.
Aeronautics research would continue to tumble with a 13 percent cut to $447 million.
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The NASA R&D portfolio would increase 4.9 percent or $592 million to $12.8
billion (see Table II-12), with the entire increase
and more coming from Constellation Systems and the Space Station.
NASA R&D in the FY 2009 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
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. NASA’s total budget of $17.6 billion
in FY 2009 would be $497 million or 2.9 percent more than the current year (see
Table II-12), ahead of expected inflation but well below several NASA budgets
from earlier this decade in real dollars (see Figure 1).
NASA’s
R&D funding would climb $592 million or 4.9 percent to $12.8 billion (see
Table II-12 and Figure 1), 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 and
more, leaving all other NASA R&D programs combined with declining funding.
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 for this effort has exploded in recent years (see Figures 1 and
2). The 2009 budget would boost funding by a remarkable 23 percent or $576 million
to $3.0 billion, with the CEV and CLV receiving a billion dollars each. (Program
budgets for all NASA programs appear to be significantly less than in previous
years because of the proposed transfer of support costs to a separate Cross-Agency
Support account (see Table II-12). Figures for all three years in Table II-12
have been adjusted to reflect the proposed transfer.) Although
the longstanding goal has been to launch these vehicles in 2014, the current project
timetable is working toward a launch date of 2015, with a mission to the moon
by 2020.
Unfortunately,
the current timetable would leave a gap of 5 years between the 2010 planned retirement
of the Space Shuttle and the 2015 CLV launch when the U.S.
will not have the capability to launch humans into space. During this time, NASA
will have to rely on other nations, notably Russia,
to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The
International Space Station (ISS) budget would climb 13.6 percent or $247 million
to $2.1 billion in 2009 for a ramped-up construction schedule aiming for final
assembly of the Station in 2010, followed by full operations through 2016 sustained
by the purchase of Russian space flights to and from the Station after the Space
Shuttle retires in 2010. The Space Shuttle, a non-R&D NASA program, is almost
exclusively in operation to finish assembly of the Space Station with a $3.0 billion
request in 2009, down 8.7 percent. The current NASA plan is to have another $3.0
billion Shuttle request in 2010 to finish Station assembly, but then retire the
craft with less than $100 million in 2011 for close-out costs. The Shuttle savings
in 2011 and later would then be transferred to other NASA programs, primarily
Constellation Systems.
Figure 1. (click on image for PDF)
Together,
the Constellation Systems increases for development and ISS increases for R&D
facilities would take up the entire increase for NASA R&D, leaving all other
NASA R&D programs combined with cuts, following similar cuts in each of the
last five 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 continue to fall in the 2009 budget. NASA’s basic and applied research
support would fall 5.2 percent or $171 million down to $3.1 billion, the fifth
year in a row the NASA research portfolio would fall. Aeronautics research
funding would tumble 13 percent down to $447 million in 2009 following similar
cuts in previous years; in real terms, the aeronautics research portfolio would
be less than half the 2004 portfolio (see Figure 1).
Figure 2. (click on image for PDF)
The
Science portfolio of earth observations, astronomy, and robotic exploration of
the solar system and universe would fall in 2009 after a slight increase in 2008
(see Figure 2). The Science portfolio would fall 5.6 percent to $4.4 billion,
with especially steep cuts in Astrophysics (down 13 percent) and Heliophysics
(down 31 percent). Planetary Science (up 7 percent) and Earth Science (up 7 percent)
would receive boosts, however, with a special emphasis on new earth science missions.
In
the Earth Science portfolio (up 6.8 percent to $1.4 billion), the 2009 request
would attempt to rebuild a robust earth-observing capability after sharp cuts
in earlier years. Last year, a National Academy of Sciences decadal survey of earth
science expressed concern that the number of earth-observing sensors on NASA spacecraft
could decrease by 40 percent during this decade if recent trends had continued.
In response, NASA would add at least three new missions by 2013 compared to previous
plans, and would boost funding for Earth Systematic Missions by 28 percent to
$678 million. The account funds costs for future missions such as the multi-agency
NPOESS satellites, the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, the Glory
mission to measure aerosols, and the Landsat Data Continuity Mission. The account
also funds operating costs for current missions such as Terra, Aqua, Aura, and
the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRIMM).
The
Planetary Science portfolio would also receive a boost, of $87 million or 7 percent
to $1.3 billion. While there have already been expressions of deep concern about
a 30 percent cut in the Mars Exploration account down to $387 million, due to
the postponement of a launch within the 2011 launch window until the 2013 window
and other program restructurings, other Planetary Science funding would increase.
Outer Planets funding would increase 23 percent to $101 million because of an
added mission, Planetary Science Research funding would climb 12 percent to $271
million for an expanded program of lunar research, New Frontiers funding would
double to $264 million to gear up for the launch of a Juno mission to Jupiter
beginning in 2011, and Discovery funding would climb 61 percent to $247 million
for early planning on a Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) to investigate
the lunar interior.
Astrophysics
funding would fall 13 percent down to $1.2 billion. Projected costs for the existing
Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope scheduled for a 2013
launch would fall. The Exoplanet Exploration program would suffer a 70 percent
cut in funding to $48 million as part of a tussle between Congress and NASA over
the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM). After Congress boosted a $22 million 2008
request to a $54 million 2008 appropriation, NASA would zero out the SIM and put
it back into the pool of candidates for a future mission. Astrophysics Research
funding, however, would climb from $102 million to $152 million, and the restart of the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescopic
Array (NuSTAR) would help the Astrophysics Explorer program get a 23 percent increase
to $131 million.
Heliophysics
funding would fall 31 percent down to $577 million, but primarily because funding
for Deep Space Mission Systems and Near Earth Networks would be transferred out
of Science and into Space Operations. Heliophysics Research would begin to recover
from past budget cuts with a modest $4 million increase to $185 million.
Impacts
of the NASA Budget
Figure 3. (click on image for PDF)
NASA’s R&D funding has been essentially flat
in real dollars going back to FY 1991. The proposed increase to NASA’s R&D
portfolio in FY 2009 would continue a modest upward trend for the last few years
after hitting bottom in 2005, as shown in Figure 1, but research funding has been
falling while development and R&D facilities funding have been increasing.. 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. 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. Thus, NASA’s R&D
funding is likely to stay at this year’s levels in inflation-adjusted dollars
for the foreseeable future, with increases in priority programs offset by cuts
in other areas; in practice, this is likely to mean continuing cuts in NASA research
to offset increases in development and R&D facilities.
Although
much of NASA’s R&D portfolio funds development and facilities projects, NASA is responsible for 7 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
with a third of the total portfolio. NASA funds 16 percent 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, and NASA accounts for a quarter 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.
NASA’s
R&D is performed by a mix of performers. Industry performs nearly half of
all NASA R&D (see Figure 3), because of industrial
firms’ key roles in big development and facilities projects such as the Space
Station and Constellation Systems. NASA labs perform 15 percent of NASA R&D,
while NASA’s contractor-operated Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) dominates in
the Science portfolio and performs 18 percent of the R&D portfolio. NASA is
also a significant though shrinking supporter of university research with $1.3
billion in 2007, making the agency the fourth-largest federal sponsor of academic
research behind the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science
Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Defense (DOD).
Outlook for the NASA Budget
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. It remains
to be seen whether the 2009 appropriations process will be any different: although
lawmakers of both parties would like to boost NASA funding above the requested
$17.6 billion, they were unsuccessful in both 2007 and 2008.
(More
materials on R&D in the FY 2009 budget, historical data and charts, and more
information on AAAS Report XXXIII: Research and Development FY 2009, can
be found on the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
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March 12, 2008
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
