President Bush submitted his budget request today, and while you all know how I feel about him, I have to admit this looks pretty good for NASA. Of course, Congress has to screw around with the budget too, but if they go along with this NASA will actually be able to get something done. NASA’s Associate Administrator for Science, Alan Stern, sent out an email with details, which I have posted below. I won’t comment more on this, since the budget is not final, but it’s nice to see an actual increase in the budget.
In the following, SMD stands for the Science Mission Directorate, basically NASA’s science division. I’ve highlighted bits I think are really worth noting.
Alan Stern
Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD)
NASA Headquarters04 February 2008
A month ago today I wrote you an email via NSPIRES about the work being done in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) to invigorate the flight and research programs we’re administering.
Although there was good news to talk about then, I could not discuss the content of the President’s FY09 budget request and what that budget portends for SMD.
The President’s FY09 budget was released today, so I am writing you again.
The news for NASA is good – we enjoyed a 1.8% funding increase that many other discretionary parts of the budget did not – and all of NASA’s major programs are intact. As you can learn from reading budget documentation at http://www.nasa.gov, there are a host of important initiatives within NASA’s budget request.
But in this message I want to focus on the highlights of the FY09 budget request as it affects SMD, and to be to the point: that news is also good.
To begin, the FY09 President’s request augments two areas of SMD’s budget significantly – Earth science and lunar science. More specifically, the budget request includes new initiatives to accelerate
the recommended flight missions of the Earth Science Decadal Survey (NRC, 2007), and to fly small lunar science missions that respond to goals of the 2007 NRC report, “Scientific Context for Exploration of the Moon”.Owing to budget wedges that are opening up as we launch a total of 13 orbital and planetary missions in 2008 and 2009, to some missions that we replanned to gain efficiencies, and to some cost increases that we avoided, the budget request for SMD is able to go beyond the Earth Science and lunar science initiatives I just mentioned, to also initiate missions in planetary science, in astrophysics, and in heliophysics.
In fact the President’s budget request allows SMD to initiate 7 new space missions. And it is worth pointing out that this exceeds the number of new SMD missions initiated in the past three NASA budgets combined.The 7 new missions to be initiated by the President’s FY09 budget request span all four of SMD’s Divisions; they are:
* The Earth Science Division’s SMAP soil moisture mission for launch
in 2012 and IceSat II decadal survey mission for launch in 2015.
Three additional Earth science decadal survey missions will be
enabled by this budget request as well.
* The Heliophysics Division’s new, lower cost Solar Probe mission
for launch in 2015.
* The Planetary Science Division’s long awaited Outer Planets
Flagship for launch in 2016 or 2017, depending on the mission
target and trajectory.
* The Astrophysics Division’s highly anticipated JDEM dark energy
mission for launch by 2015.
* And two new lunar robotic missions – a small science orbiter to
launch by 2011 and a pair of mini-landers for launch by 2014;
these lunar missions are to be developed in SMD’s Planetary
Science Division.If Congress agrees to these plans, then in FY09 (which begins in October!) you will be seeing a great deal of activity to solicit proposals to select payloads and science teams for these 7 new missions.
The President’s budget request also significantly increases R&A funding so that our program generates more discoveries and therefore provides the taxpayer with value from the missions we fly. The budget request also substantially increases funding for suborbital sounding rockets and balloon experiments in order to foster PI on-ramps, instrument technology demonstrations, and of course new science.
To learn more, you can find many details at http://www.nasa.gov. Additionally we in SMD will be talking about this new budget at the next round of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) and NAC subcommittee meetings, at MOWGs, with the leadership of professional societies such as the AGU, AAS, DPS, and AMS, and at upcoming large scientific gatherings such as LPSC, AAS, and AGU.
The primary message I hope you have received from this note is that the future that the President’s FY09 budget request paints is bright for SMD.
As I said in my message of January 4th, we continue to look to the Earth and space science research communities for advice, counsel, feedback, and most importantly, new results as we go forward, so I again invite that advice through your NAC subcommittees and professional societies.
I hope to see many of you in meetings and other venues in the coming weeks. In the meantime, best wishes.
Alan Stern
So this looks pretty good. I will need to look over the details, but to be honest I’m not sure I will. The Congressional budget will be different, and that will have to be approved by the President, so it’ll change a lot between now and then. But again, it sure is nice to see some good news for NASA for a change.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Strangely missing from Stern’s letter is NASA’s commitment to a Mars Sample Return Mission in the 2020 timeframe, when the Outer Planets Flagship has been paid for: While this may not count as a true ‘new start’ as comparatively little money will be spent in the next few years it’s certainly one of the most important ‘new directions’ in that budget request and the long term strategy behind it. See my account of today’s news and teleconferences around the NASA budget request – things turned out to be far more exciting than I had anticipated, though it’s of course very much unclear what the final FY’09 budget will look like. Already now there are press releases out from several constituencies full of scorn about the overall balance of the request …
February 4th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
$3.1 terrabucks in deficit spending is retarded. But hey, NASA got 1.8% bump. So it’s A-OK.
February 4th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Sounds good, though I still keep this phrase in my mind when I read it: “Hope for the best, expect the worst”.
In this situation, it is to expect for a president to be elected that would undo this headway, and possibly leave humanity stranded in LEO and space probes collecting dust in warehouses.
And unfortunately, not enough influential people care.
I know some of my classmates fall into the “anyone but Hillary” catagory when it comes to a presidental hopeful.
If they get their way, a time may come when people will regret that choice.
February 4th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
How did NSF and NIH fare?
February 4th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Outer Planets Flagship?!
Holy toledo that sounds interesting.
February 4th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Is Fermilab still left out?
February 4th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
I don’t care if they send a probe to Uranus as long as they leave mine alone.
February 4th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
I also agree that NASA deserves more money, but they should make the average citizens agree why space survey is so important, how wide effects it has. If space programs fall off, so do the mathematics and technological education – which has a visible effect on economy, thus on our wallet.
It’s not just a hobby, it’s a strong motor of science and technology!
February 4th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Is Uranus near the great negatron charged gas cloud.
February 4th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Correction:
…they should make the average citizens understand why space survey is so important…
sorry!
February 4th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I really like to see if the dems block the increase or allow it.
February 4th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Not to rain on the parade, or anything…
A 1.8% increase is a functional decrease in funding. Inflation rate is ~3%. So 1.8% increase will still buy less for NASA than the budget of the previous year.
(For the person who asked about NIH, NIH got about a 1% increase, so did even more poorly than NASA).
February 4th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
factician wrote:
Yeah, even the mainstream press is poo-pooing NASA’s slice of the pie.
February 4th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
If I read correctly, science at NASA got a boost (yay!) but education got a $60 million cut (boo!).
February 4th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
So much good money burned in futile conflict gone to crony contractors, add that to state-interested parties in tagging money for building the ISS. Imagine how many space telescopes alone we could have built for the cost of the ISS, all because some decrepit local economy depends on contracts for defunct useless component X.
February 5th, 2008 at 4:46 am
davidlpf: “Is Uranus near the great negatron charged gas cloud?”
Only when I eat beans.
February 5th, 2008 at 5:10 am
seriously the hole FY’09 budged is retarded, Bush wants to cut money for education (yay!) and raise the military budged to friggin 515 billion dollar, that’s a 7.5% increase. You know, that’s retarded. This is almost as much as the WHOLE annual budged of Germany and Germany is the most populous country in Europe… also, the FY’09 as it is now would could the money spend on social issues will be cut by 200 billion dollars.
Did I mention that this budged request will result in a deficit of 400 billion dollars? That’s “only” more than double the deficit of 2007 (163 billion). You know what? Bush is a demented idiot.
Congress isn’t much better, seeing what PZMyers wrote here: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/02/our_congress_takes_care_of_the.php
February 5th, 2008 at 6:26 am
[[we enjoyed a 1.8% funding increase ]]
Isn’t inflation running higher than that?
And in the new seven launches, I did not see the climate-mapping satellite that had been mothballed.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
The budget is DOA anyhow. The Democratic congress won’t give it a second look.
Putting on my conspiracy theory hat, it may be simply an election-year ploy by the Republicans so they can say “Look, the evil democrats refused to pass our military funding requests! Hillary (or Barrack) hates our troops!”
February 6th, 2008 at 1:05 am
“A 1.8% increase is a functional decrease in funding. Inflation rate is ~3%. So 1.8% increase will still buy less for NASA than the budget of the previous year.”
Keep in mind when you hear federal budget figures inflation is already figured in. some the 1.8% increase is on top of inflation.
Also keep in mind when you hear about a budget “cut” it not a cut but they aren’t getting there full inflation increase. I Don’t think there has been a real spending cut in Washington since Newt ran the Congress.