NASA to Cut Back Scientific Missions Because of Budget
By DENNIS OVERBYE
The New York Times
March 1, 2006

The report looks pretty bleak. If I get this correct, the budget for Science, Aeronautics, and Exploration (ie. UnmannedSpaceflight) of FY2006 to FY2007 is slashed from $7.6b to $5.3b? A 30% reduction?! I just don't see the job market looking very inviting in the near future.

For you guys that have been in the field for a while and have a nice historical perspective, is this slashing as terrible as it seems? Does this sort of thing happen every decade, or has the LEO space excursion club hijacked the budget for the foreseeable future?

Phil Plait (aka "The Bad Astronomer") has an interesting take on this in his blog.

I do not have access to that that NY Times link, but at a guess I would say the VSE has struck again.

[rant mode]
Many on this board and out in the general science community probably cheered when it was announced that the VSE would be gobbling up the shuttle's budget after 2010. They probably shrugged their shoulders (or maybe muttered a "what do you expect?") when they learned that science on the ISS would be cut back even further to help pay for the Bush vision (eg "NASA's life science and microgravity science research programs have been decimated over the last two years and funding for ISS research has been cut back to the point where it is unclear exactly what use NASA intends to make of the ISS").

Yet one might equally have argued: once a cannibal, always a cannibal.

Now we find that it not just a matter of the VSE feeding off the shuttle, or even the ISS. Whole missions of a robotic sort are being cut or deferred, of which the latest casualty appears to be Dawn (as has been reported elsewhere on this board in the past day or so). Presumably it will not be the last.

If that keeps going on, the VSE will end up going down the same path as the ISS: eventually opposition will build to (if not focus on) the VSE itself, to the point where attempts may be made to wind it back too--and maybe (eventually) to wind it up--so as to try to give more money to space science and robotic missions in general. Indeed, that opposition is already growing, judging from such reports as this one in The Mercury News for March 2.

"Scientists who study the sun, moon, planets and stars on Thursday protested the Bush administration's plan to send humans back to the moon and on to Mars. They say the president's two-year-old Vision for Space Exploration program is gobbling up billions of dollars that they think could be better used for less expensive projects, including new telescopes and unmanned robots such as the twin rovers on Mars."

The VSE needs its own separate pot of money which does not require it to steal somebody else's. If it does not get that then it's hard to see it surviving long enough to send anybody to the Moon, much less to Mars. Sooner or later the cannibals will turn on it as well, and either "de-scope" it or ditch it, possibly to fund the latest in the long line of grandiloquent presidential space visions.
[/rant mode]

======
Stephen

Everybody can do mistakes.

But persisting into mistakes against every evidences and against advice of everybody...

The shuttle and ISS are probably mistakes, although it was not obvious at the time when these projects were launched. So nobody is to blame.

But now it is more than obvious mistakes, it is mistakes which cost much to keep mistaking...

I'm not particularly up to speed on US politics and the way these budgets get approved or adjusted and so on..

What potential is there for the budget submitted to be changed before being signed off?

Doug

Considerable Potential.
New Horizons is entirely the result of Congress rubbing NASA's nose in stuff Goldin's office wanted indecently buried.

Scientists On Capitol Hill Decry NASA's Science Budget Request
By Jefferson Morris
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report
03/03/2006 09:39:43 AM

At the Europa meeting, Ron Greeley told us: "I have been connected with NASA since 1967, and I have never seen the space science situation as bad as it currently is." The fact remains: Congress is NOT going to hike NASA's total budget any further, and they are justified in not doing so. The only rational solution is to eliminate Shuttle/Station.

I quote Bruce here, but the reply is for everybody.





In Europe we have some experience of this situation. For instance the Concorde supersonic airliner was hailed everywhere as a great technology achievement, as a "must do", as the next mandatory step on modernism, progress, etc... until came the commercial release. And it was a spectacular flop. No matter the exact reasons, they can be summarized as "why to pay much more to do just a little bit more".
So we found ourselves with a marvel of technology, but realizing it was useless. What to do? Some clever guies had the correct idea: use the technology level to do something useful, something the people ask for. And it was the Airbus, much modest in scope, much less romantic, much less sci-fi, much more down-to-earth. But it was a success, and even a tremendous and unequaled success. Who even imagined that we could beat Boeing 30 years ago?
This story to tell that we must not do what we want must be done (in french we call this "ideological development") but what is needed to do. Not the Concorde, the Airbus. Not the shuttle/ISS, the... hey, I have some ideas, but I will give them to the NASA only if they ASK me and retain my name.

With that logic, NASA should never started to build shuttle. They should have proceeded like the Russians using capsules and build simple space stations like Mir.

Well, Soviet Union did build Buran, which became even more spectacular flop than shuttle despite the fact it was technically superior in certain areas.

Buran was a victim of the politics and finances of the Soviet Union break up - it never had the chance to become a flop for reasons that might lie at the feet of its designers or managers.

Doug

Buran was not a flop: it is the country economy which collapsed, together with its political will. Without that unfortunate event, Buran would perhaps be still flying, eventually with more success that the US shuttle.

It is true that it was superior in some areas, for instance in robotics (automated landing)

Shuttle/ISS appear as a mistake TODAY, but where these projects were launched, they appeared as mandatory, and as THE solution for cheap occupation of space. Only after this was found not true. Of course, if at the epoch the NASA had extra-sensorial perceptions of the future, nobody would have engaged in the project.

European shuttle project Hermès came just at the juncture point: there was already many persons warning of a super-hight cost, and the agreement to start the project was difficult to obtain, and to the condition that the development would keep into the initial budget. This condition showed impossible to fulfill: only some months later, the bill was inflated of 30%, so the whole project was cancelled.

Doug:

Indeed; and the Energia LV system is still flying, in the form of Zenit.

And as for the engines from the N-1, or the Zond circumlunar upper stage... ...or the Soyuz LV itself...

...it's actually astonishing how much sheer longevity the ex-Soviet designs have, compared to the (nominally) technically superior, short-production-run, high-unit-cost US efforts!

Shoulda stuck with the Saturn V!

Bob Shaw

Proven in the use of the RD180 in the Atlas 3 and 5

Doug

My understanding from reading a good deal about Buran vs. STS some time ago is that there is nothing in principle preventing the Shuttle from being capable of doing fully a automated launch-to-landing mission -- except that if they started doing that, people might start asking why they needed the astronauts! I understand that the shuttle's descent is mostly managed by computer anyway, and that the main task of the pilots is to lower the landing gear at a specific time - something which could obviously be automated.

If this is the case, you'd think that unmanned STS test flights (especially when there's a present danger to human life, as currently) would be routine, but NASA has never flown an unmanned shuttle mission and I don't expect them to start now. Every other manned system had unmanned tests to work out its capabilities and dangers first, however - except, of course, LEM landing!

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0603/03dawn/

Let's hope there'll be some money left

By "flop" I meant just that, the shuttle never flight except for the automated test flight. It no doubt took huge amount of resources to built, all for (almost) nothing. Ironically, the spacecraft was better than the American shuttle, but it was too ambitious for a country whose economy was on the brink of collapse.

Err, they did not knew that their country was on the verge of collapse. To be frank, USSR seemed so deeply rooted that nobody would have predicted it could ever collapse, and more that it could collapse so easily. Nobody inside it, nobody outside. Very few people had some premonition that this was to happen, and they were certainly not authorized to tell it in the USSR...

Given this, Buran was a tremendous technical success, and also an incredible economic achievement. There was something really strong linking all these people together, despites the huge problems which were already crippling USSR economy and industrial network long ago before collapse.

[size=2]Back to the topic of Space Science, particularly unmanned probes to other
planets, in NASA's FY07 Budget. As I see it, the chief cause of our anguish this year is
the substantial boost in the FY07 request for the VSE. As far as I can tell, it is getting
a boost from $3 billion in FY06 to $4 billion in FY07. That is quite a jump.
If we in the space community can persuade Congress to divert $0.5 billion of that
increase to Space Science, then the VSE will still have $3.5 billion to play with, and we can
see progress on the Europa Orbiter, TPF, SIM, as well as new Discovery and New Frontiers
missions. I am not that enthused about the Space Shuttle or the ISS, but I see no chance
that Congress will divert one dime from those programs. Our only hope of seeing a
healthy unmanned planetary exploration program will be for us to convince Congress
to re-adjust the budget for the ESMD.
Congress needs to be reminded that they bought into the VSE concept because of NASA's
pledge to not divert money from Space Science, to proceed with the VSE on a "go as you
can pay" basis. The Administration's OMB has decided not to increase NASA's budget by
the needed amount. Therefore, the VSE needs to proceed more slowly, no matter how fast
Mr. Griffin wants to go. The "Firewall" between Manned and Unmanned Space needs to
be preserved.
The importance of the struggle over the FY07 budget is not just limited to one year.
If Griffin's NASA succeeds in this attempt to cut back Space Science in FY07, then they
will be emboldened to cut even more deeply in future years. I know that Griffin has said
that Space Science will be frozen for 5 years. However, are we foolish enough to believe
him? We all know what he recently said about not taking one nickel from Space Science.
I submit that he can never be trusted again. What is to stop NASA HQ from maintaining
the freeze in Space Science funding for more than 5 years? In fact, what is to stop Mr. Griffin
from requesting a 10% or 20% or 30% cut in Space Science funding next year?
I submit that the next several months will be crucial in the fight to preserve our
amazing unmanned planetary exploration program. If Mr Griffin's NASA can pull off
this massive heist this year, then I fear for the future of Space Science.

[size=2] To continue on the subject of NASA's budget and how more of it can
be directed to unmanned spaceflight, especially planetary probes. I invite those on
this forum to examine NASA's budget closely and suggest programs whose budgets
could be re-directed.
I'll start with NASA's Education program for primary and secondary schools. This
has an annual budget of $47 million according to the proposed FY07 submission. That
is a huge amount of money going to waste. WHY is NASA involved AT ALL in primary
and secondary education? I have given talks in primary school and I have used the various
web sites for NASA missions, projected on a screen, as my lecture resources. That cost
NASA exactly nothing, except for what they may spend on maintaining web sites.
If totaled over a decade, this one item in NASA's budget will add up to almost
$500 million, a half-billion dollar pile that could fund one Discovery planetary mission,
with about $50 million in change.
I welcome more suggestions. Let's see how much we can add up from just one year's
budget. That might make some impact on those who ask where the extra funds for Space
Science could be found. This is not even mentioning possible cuts in the VSE budget.

Sorry - educationa and outreach is the #1 thing I would NOT cut.

Doug

I imagine that the websites are part of the outreach program, so there go your lecture resources.

Chris

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) sent the following AGU Science and Legislative Alert (ASLA) today to its membership:

****************************************************
ASLA 06-07: Action Needed to Support Science at NASA
****************************************************

President Bush has proposed $16.79 billion for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in FY2007, only a 1% increase from FY2006 appropriated levels, and $1.14 billion less than Congress legislated in the 2005 NASA Authorization Act (see ASLA 06-01). This budget marks the second consecutive year that inflation outpaces the President’s NASA request. At a recent House Science Committee hearing, Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) called it “bad for space science, worse for earth science.”

Scientists should take this opportunity to contact their Representatives and Senators via phone, email, or fax and urge them to support science in the FY2007 NASA budget. If you are unsure who your representative is, visit http://www.house.gov/writerep and enter your zip code.

Scientists may want to refer to AGU’s position statement “NASA: Earth and Space Sciences at Risk” (http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/position...pace_risk.shtml) that warns “shifting financial resources from science threatens vital investments and capabilities that have taken decades and tens of billions of tax dollars to build.” The statement calls upon the U.S. Administration, Congress, and NASA to renew their commitment to Earth and space science research.

The FY2007 budget proposal reflects the pressure at NASA from financial demands to fund the space shuttle, the space station, and the Moon-Mars initiative. The Science, Aeronautics, and Exploration (SAE) account, which includes almost all the science and academic programs, would receive an increase of 8.3 % to $10.52 billion for FY2007. However, the Office of Exploration Systems, which includes the majority of the programs included in the President’s Moon-Mars initiative would receive the lion’s share, a $928.2 million boost to total $3.978 billion, a 30.4% increase over last year. In contrast, the Science Mission Directorate(SMD) would only receive a 1.4% increase, or $76.3 million, to $5.33 billion, and the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate would receive an 18.1% decrease to $724.4 million.

The three accounts within SMD would receive slight increases. Solar System Exploration (SSE) would be allotted $1.61 billion, a 1.7% increase; the Universe would receive $1.51 billion, a 0.1% increase; and Earth-Sun Systems would receive $2.21 billion, a 2.2% increase.

Each budget request projects five years into the future, and the future does not look good. The 2007 budget calls for reducing SMD funding by $3.2 billion over five years compared to the 2006 budget request.

Specifically within the 2007 budget request, the Mars Exploration program would receive a 7.7% increase to $700.2 million, although more than $600 million has been removed from the five-year run out. The Discovery program would receive an 11 % increase to $161.9 million but it is projected to decrease significantly over the next four years. The Solar System Research program would see the largest cut within SSE, 16.2% to $273.6 million, including a 50 percent cut to the Astrobiology program.

The Explorer mission, co-managed by two accounts, would be cut by 20.7% for FY2007 to $67.6 million in the Universe account, and by 43.5% to $83.4 million in the Earth-Sun System account.

Within Earth-Sun Systems, the Pathfinder program would increase by 13.8% to $161.4 million, although the Hydros program would be canceled. Cuts include the Solar Terrestrial Probes (-11%) and Living With a Star program (-5.4%).

Within SAE overall, funding for Education Programs drops by 5.6% to $153.3 million. This marks three consecutive years of reduced funding for this office, although funding stays level in future years. Higher Education and Informal Education programs absorb most of the cuts.

Approximately 37% of NASA’s FY2007 budget funds the International Space Station (ISS) and Space Shuttle under the Exploration Capabilities account. Its $6.23 billion share in FY2007 is an overall decrease of 4.4% (excluding the one-time emergency funding for Katrina response and recovery in 2006), but funding would rise for ISS and for Space and Flight Support.

During a 2 March House Science Committee hearing on science in NASA’s budget, Space and Aeronautics subcommittee member Mark Udall (D-CO) called NASA science “the Agency’s intellectual ‘seed corn,’” and continued, “these cuts are damaging the... research that is critical to training the next generation of scientists and engineers.”

For official NASA budget info, visit http://www.nasa.gov/about/budget/index.html.

----------------

Brad Keelor, AGU, contributed to this ASLA.

Sources: AIP’s FYI #32, NASA.gov, UCAR’s Office of Government Affairs, Sciencedems.house.gov.

I have to wonder: if NASA was funded in one big lump, and the administration of NASA got to decide, on its own initiative, how much of that would go to manned and how much to unmanned spaceflight, what sort of percentages we'd see in the budget.