NASA 2009 Budget

cIclops · 2008-01-12 02:15:53

It's almost time for the 2009 budget request! News has begun to flow about what Congress wants ... and it's good news:

NASA gets bipartisan push from Texas lawmakers for more money - 10 Jan 2008

By MARK CARREAU
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
In a show of bipartisan support, Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Democratic Rep. Nick Lampson said Thursday they will try again this year to get an additional $2 billion in NASA funding to help close a five-year gap between the space shuttle's retirement and the maiden voyage of the Orion moon ship.
The measure was approved by the Senate last year but died in the House. Hutchison and Lampson think the bill will pass both houses this year after the reality of the shuttle's retirement in 2010 sinks in. Only the Russians and Chinese will be able to launch astronauts until the Orion takes flight in 2015 at current NASA funding levels.
The United States has embraced Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada as partners in the development of the international space station. Washington, however, has shunned an alliance with China on grounds that its military controls its space program.
"I truly believe the gap of five years is a security threat to our country," said Hutchison during a visit by the two lawmakers to a Lockheed Martin test lab for Orion development near the Johnson Space Center. "I just hope we don't have to wait for a crisis."
With an additional $2 billion spread out over the next two years, NASA estimates it can launch the Orion to the space station in September 2013.
With the shuttle headed for retirement by Sept. 30, 2010, NASA now plans to turn to Russia for carrying Americans to the space station until Orion missions begin.
NASA is authorized to pay Russia for ferrying Americans for three years until 2012 because of an exemption to the Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act. Congress passed the law eight years ago to sanction Russia for selling nuclear and missile technologies to Iran and Syria.
"The worst-case scenario is that Russia does not like something we are doing and says it will not take our people into space, will not put them on the space station," said Hutchison. "Russia has not been an altogether reliable ally."
Hutchison and Lampson were joined during the visit by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin .
"It's critically important that we keep the presence of the United States strong in space, to not let other nations make technical leaps that would cause our own advances to diminish," said Lampson, whose district includes the Johnson Space Center.
Hutchison said she plans to join with Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who chairs an Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, to support an emergency measure. It would repay the space agency for the losses incurred in the 2003 Columbia accident and to Gulf Coast installations caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2008-01-12 06:22:16

http://www.marssociety.org

Mars Society: NASA Funding Bill Could Cripple Vision For Space Exploration
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - The Mars Society would like to express its disappointment concerning the NASA portion of the Congressional Omnibus Appropriations Bill that was signed by the President last week.
While the bill provides additional support for science missions - including for exploration of Mars - it fails to adequately fund NASA’s plans to return to the Moon and then send humans to Mars. One of the worst aspects of the bill is that it contains language that would prohibit “funding of any research, development, or demonstration activities related exclusively to human exploration of Mars”.
Not only is this language counter-productive to running a coherent multi-year exploration plan, but it is not consistent with the NASA Authorization that Congress overwhelmingly approved in 2005. In that Authorization bill, Congress approved NASA’s plans to send humans to Mars and supported the expenditures that will be necessary to make that goal possible - something that the Omnibus bill does not do.
“Although this bill is unlikely to have a large immediate impact on the program, it sets a terrible precedent,” said Mars Society Political Director Chris Carberry. “If this language makes it into future budgets, I guarantee that this program will slowly become a Moon-only effort - or worse. Congress and the next President of the United States need to accelerate this program rather than limiting it. We certainly will not be creating an effective program or be serving the tax payers well by keeping this program endlessly on ‘life-support.’”
The Mars Society calls on members of the United States Congress to oppose any efforts to include this language in any future budgets. It is time for the United States to fully commit to sending humans to Mars as soon as possible.
The Mars Society is a private international grassroots organization dedicated to furthering the case for human exploration of Mars. Since its founding in 1998, The Mars Society’s strong commitment to both outreach and research has put it at the forefront of Mars exploration proponents, with 7000 members in 40 countries. The organization currently operates multiple world class research facilities which investigate many technical and human factors associated with human space exploration. Significant political and public outreach has led to several hundred meetings with U.S. congressional offices, and has otherwise reached hundreds of millions of people through various media outlets.

cIclops · 2008-01-15 17:42:20

From Deputy Administrator Shana Dale's blog - 11 Jan 2008

NASA has settled with OMB on the FY 2009 budget. This is the end result of numerous discussions between NASA and OMB. This iterative budget discussion with back-and-forth between federal agencies and OMB, with input from other EOP offices such as the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Security Council, is a key part of the process. The FY 2009 President's budget is now being prepared and will be delivered to the Congress on February 4, 2008.

X · 2008-01-16 12:37:02

So would writing/calling Senators/Representatives be any use considering I live in a state with a NASA facility? They've got to be automatic votes for increasing its budget right?

cIclops · 2008-01-16 13:16:07

Yes. Your local politicians may already strongly support NASA, but adding support always helps. Many of them have homepages where they lay out their interests.

SpaceNut · 2008-02-04 10:57:25

Well here is the scoup...

The President’s 2009 Budget for NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION expecting 18,137

Build rockets and spacecraft that will enable us to explore the solar system;
Continue the assembly of the International Space Station, and encourage the development of commercial services that will provide transportation to the Station; and
Expand the frontiers of knowledge in Earth and space science and aeronautics.

Full details
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy … ix/nsa.pdf

cIclops · 2008-02-04 13:37:40

Summary (710 Kb PDF)

Full Document (5.9 Mb PDF)

Bottom line, $17,614.2 million has been requested for NASA, that's 1.8% more than 2008

cIclops · 2008-02-06 04:18:22

No Dramatic Changes - 4 Feb 2008

Frank Morring, Jr.
NASA's fiscal 2009 budget request, the last submitted by the Bush Administration, contains "no strategic changes" and tracks the previous five-year funding runout closely.
Still, in addition to maintaining funds to make the shift from the space shuttle to development of the follow-on Ares and Orion crew vehicles, the final Bush budget would find some new money for Earth-science from orbit, and promises an outer-planets "flagship" mission by 2017 and a Mars sample return by 2020.
David Schurr, the agency comptroller, said NASA's senior managers "think this is a very good budget for NASA."
In FY '09, NASA wants a topline of $17.614 billion -- up 2.9% from this year. Within that amount, science would get $4.444 billion; aeronautics $446.5 billion; space operations $5.526 billion, and exploration systems $3.5 billion. A new category -- cross agency support -- would draw $3.3 billion for overhead across all NASA programs that Schurr said would continue to be managed at the program and project levels.
The FY '09 figures would support five more shuttle missions as NASA services the Hubble Space Telescope one last time this fall and builds toward a six-person International Space Station (ISS) crew. Fifteen science missions are scheduled for launch in the fiscal year, and development of two new Earth-science missions would be started.
One of them, the Soil Moisture Active/Passive (SMAP) mission, would measure soil moisture following a planned 2012 launch. The Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) mission would measure the height of ice sheets, sea ice and forests when it orbits in 2015.
Five-year budget figures reflect the transition from the shuttle, due for retirement by October 2010, to the Ares I crew launch vehicle and the Orion crew exploration vehicle that would ride atop it beginning in 2015. In FY '11 exploration systems would get $3.738 billion, while space operations would get $5.873 billion. In FY '12 exploration jumps to $7.048 billion, while space operations falls to $2.9 billion.
"We moved the entire shuttle budget to exploration," Schurr said.
Other new items in the FY '09 request include a new space-science start - the Joint Dark Energy Mission -- and plans to fund a small lunar science orbiter and two small lunar science landers with $344 million over the five years covered.
NASA managers shifted funds to maintain the full $500 million promised to spur development of a commercial route to the ISS for crew and cargo under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) effort. The request also includes $2.6 billion over five years to buy transportation to the station for U.S. crew and cargo. Most of that money probably will go for space on Russian vehicles, although Schurr said it also could be used for commercial service providers under the COTS program and perhaps for the planned European and Japanese unpiloted cargo vehicles.
The request also reflects plans within exploration systems to begin development of the Ares V heavy-lift rocket, and the Altair lunar lander, in 2011. Richard J. Gilbrech, NASA's associate administrator for exploration, said Jan. 30 that his programs "did very well, with stable funding; our tweaks are in the noise."
Since he arrived in Washington last fall and started making the rounds at the White House and on Capitol Hill, Gilbrech -- the former director of Stennis Space Center -- has found "basically [exploration] still looks like a very well-supported program, both by the administration and bipartisan support."
In an election year the future course of the exploration program could very well change. But until it does, Gilbrech said, "I'm keeping focused on the policy and the law that's on the books now; when the policy and the law changes, that's when we'll re-vector."

This article fails to point out that in real terms the FY2009 budget request represents a decrease of $58m compared with FY2008 due to inflation (based on 2.1% used by DoD).

Mars_B4_Moon · 2008-02-10 14:30:20

Wish List: FY '09 budget proposal ups physical sciences
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20080209/fob7.asp
NASA's total science budget would increase by 0.9 percent, with some internal redistribution reflecting the agency's ongoing shift away from the space shuttle program and toward the President's stated goal of establishing a human base on the moon.

Griffin on Ares
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/s … 07griffin/

Q: On a different topic, the Ares rocket and the Constellation program continue to generate questions among outside observers as to viability of the rocket system, due to vibration and other issues, and the overall architecture of the moon program. Why is that?
A: Let me get down to the bottom of it. There were winners and losers in the contractor community as to who was going to get to do what on the next system post shuttle. And we didn’t pick (Lockheed Martin’s) Atlas 5, in consultation with the Air Force for that matter, because it wasn’t the right vehicle for the lunar job. Obviously, we did pick others. So people who didn’t get picked see an opportunity to throw the issue into controversy and maybe have it come out their way.

LockMart is behind the criticism of Ares !? Perhaps Griffin is now saying Lockheed Martin and Boeing/ULA are the people behind the criticism of Ares ? This is misleading statement from Mike Griffin because Lockheed did not invent Ares the problem, or the stories

GCNRevenger · 2008-02-10 18:33:51

Who says they didn't make up at least some of the stories?

cIclops · 2008-02-13 06:17:31

House hearing charter for budget request (PDF) - 12 Feb 2008

Detailed points to be raised during the House hearing

Griffin's Statement Before the U.S. House

webcast 10:00 ET 13 Feb 2008 (archived)

cIclops · 2008-02-29 05:52:54

A Review of NASA’s Fiscal Year 2009 Budget Request - 27 Feb 2008

Video of Mike Griffin appearing before the Senate (1:32 hours)

cIclops · 2008-03-08 00:18:38

Chairman's Mark FY 2009 Mar. 5, 2008 - 5 Mar 2008

NASA
The Chairman’s Mark funds the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at $18.7 billion, $1.0 billion above the President's 2009 request. This level of funding reflects the ongoing need to reimburse NASA for the catastrophic loss of Space Shuttle Columbia as well as the costs of investigating the Columbia tragedy. For the agency, this represents an increase of $1.2 billion, or 6.8 percent, above the 2008 level adjusted for inflation.

cIclops · 2008-03-14 03:51:41

House space subcommittee hearing on the science budget request

Statements from Alan Stern, Steve Squyres and others. General agreement that science and exploration need more funding.

SCIENCE BUDGET MAKES BEST OF LIMITED RESOURCES

Washington, D.C. - March 13, 2008 – Today Members of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics heard from Dr. Alan Stern, Associate Administrator of the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD), along with a panel of leading research scientists on the fiscal year 2009 (FY09) budget request for science programs. At the hearing, there was a common view among both witnesses and Subcommittee Members that overall, NASA needs more money for all of its programs, including those in the SMD.

DonaldSpace · 2008-03-16 07:20:56

Sounds like it could be a tough year for funding

SpaceNut · 2008-03-22 22:02:21

With the rumors continuing to come out as to what is causing the problems for going to mars even with unmanned vehicles that are built and being thought of for the future. We know that MSL is coming in over budget but is it that bad as to be significant?

Mars, Outer Planets - NASA’s Dollar Dilemma

cIclops · 2008-03-23 02:12:26

MSL is fine and on schedule for launch 15 Sep 2009. Once again Congress is pushing to appropriate more funding and that will help to reduce the "gap" between Shuttle retirement and Orion operations. With Shuttle retiring in 2010, a big slice of funding will be available that will enable Ares V and Altair to begin development.

SpaceNut · 2008-03-26 13:11:25

As much as we need to support Nasa, its future programs ad projects it is the methods of funding, financing and business practices that are not the way to go.
Projects over budget and behind scheduel is not the way to go..

Major NASA projects over budget

Two-thirds of NASA's major new programs are significantly over budget or behind schedule, according to the agency's latest report to Congress.
Under a 2005 law, the space agency must tell Congress when a major project under development will exceed its budget by more than 15% or fall more than six months behind schedule. Four of the 12 new major projects are over budget, and eight are behind schedule to the point where lawmakers needed to be notified.

Project Percent over budget Amount over budget Purpose
Glory 31% $52 million Measure sunlight, atmosphere
Kepler 25% $78 million Search for Earth-like planets
Polar satellite preparatory project 19% $111 million Record ocean, atmospheric temperatures
Orbiting Carbon Observatory 18% $33 million Measure carbon dioxide in atmosphere

cIclops · 2008-03-26 13:49:36

NASA's science budget for FY 2009 is over $4.4 billion. These overruns are relatively small, in fact very small considering these are high risk advanced technology projects.

cIclops · 2008-05-02 01:37:10

Texans in Congress try to boost NASA budget - 29 Apr 2008

By STEWART M. POWELL
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — The Texas congressional delegation pressed ahead Tuesday with an uphill, election-year effort to boost NASA's $17.3 billion budget so the space agency can close the five-year gap between retirement of the shuttle fleet and the next generation of manned spacecraft.
Twelve House members from Texas and 18 others from across the country, led by Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Stafford, urged House leaders to add $2 billion to NASA's budget. Hutchison asks $1 billion In the Senate, Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, said she was asking colleagues to add at least $1 billion to the NASA budget.
Hutchison said she wants to add one more shuttle flight in order to ferry the $1.5 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the international space station to study the energy-producing possibilities of cosmic rays.
"We're not giving NASA the priority it should have," said Hutchison, a member of the Senate Republican leadership. "It should remain the premier agency for innovation and research."
Lawmakers are confronting a looming gap in manned U.S. spaceflight, as NASA prepares to retire the three-ship shuttle fleet in 2010 and rely on Russia's Soyuz program to ferry Americans to the space station until NASA's Orion crew exploration vehicle becomes fully operational in 2016.
"Minimizing the gap in human spaceflight, currently projected to last between 2010 and 2015, requires a national commitment, a willingness to maintain our nation's technological leadership in this field and a desire to provide the funds necessary," NASA's House supporters wrote Tuesday in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and four other congressional leaders.
"We believe these funds will provide an immediate and long-term economic stimulus for our nation's economy ... contributing new jobs, industrial development and stimulus to struggling communities," the lawmakers added.
Signers of the letter included all nine House members from the Houston area — four Democrats and five Republicans. The other 21 signers were all Democrats.

SpaceNut · 2008-05-08 05:49:20

With the recent suggestion to extend the shuttles life, the need to make use of Russian soyuz and progress for long periods of time until Ares I as well as the Cots programs vehicles get going there is an ernest it would seem effort to try and bolster the cash flow so as to keep it all on track.

Nelson seeks $2B for NASA

Nelson and other legislators from states with NASA facilities failed in attempts to snag an additional $1 billion in agency funding in this year's federal budget. Now, Nelson is hoping to get an additional $1 billion in each of the next two fiscal years.

cIclops · 2008-05-10 04:51:30

The 'Vision' is in trouble says Hill panel - 7 May 2008 by Mark Matthews

WASHINGTON -- NASA needs more money and new ideas to accelerate its new space program, several witnesses told Congress this morning.
Among the ideas: greater cooperation with international partners, more investment in private industry and a greater focus on education and technology that could lead to new rockets and spacecraft.
The brainstorming session was part of a U.S. Senate hearing on Wednesday aimed at examining the Vision for Space Exploration, a 2004 plan unveiled by President Bush to return American astronauts to the moon by 2020.
Hanging over the discussion -- as is the case with most NASA’s hearings -- was the issue of money.
Critics, including U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, have argued for years that NASA does not receive the funding necessary to build the space station, construct a new spacecraft and do science and aeronautic research.
"NASA is in trouble. This little agency has been asked to do too much with too little. And that is the problem. It is my hope that within the last eight months of the Bush administration that we can get the president … to adequately fund it," said Nelson, D-Fla. Nelson is pushing to add an extra $1 billion to NASA’s proposed budget of $17.6 billion in 2009.
Similar measures have failed the last two years and Nelson was candid about its chances this year. “We don’t have a prayer without White House support … but I believe in miracles,” he said.

Gregori · 2008-05-10 05:19:37

depressing

cIclops · 2008-05-10 08:35:11

This has been the situation for a long time, NASA will probably never have all the funding they want or even need. Fortunately NASA aren't depressed, they get on with it and do amazing things.

mork_from_seattle · 2008-05-11 20:56:22

I just wish they could dig up the change to get back to work on the terrestrial planet finder. I'd rather see that than another dude golfing on the moon.

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Re: NASA 2009 Budget

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Re: NASA 2009 Budget

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