House and Senate budgets for NASA give almost full funding to manned commercial space while boosting SLS.
House and Senate budgets for NASA give almost full funding to manned commercial space while boosting SLS.
The bill would provide $1.7 billion for the heavy-lift SLS rocket, some $350 million more than the White House requested for 2015, and $100 million more than the House has proposed. SLS is being built at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee, is an ardent defender of the center.
The bill also provides $805 million for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, under which the agency is funding work on three competing astronaut transportation systems with the goal of having at least one delivering crews to and from the international space station by the end of 2017. The White House requested $850 million next year for Commercial Crew, its top human spaceflight development priority. The House proposed $785 million, which would represent a high water mark on a program that has never received the full funding sought by the White House.
That the proposed budgets made only tiny cuts to commercial space indicates that the political clout of this program is growing, since in previous budget years Congress had trimmed this program’s budget much more significantly. That Congress continues to also feed gobs of money to SLS, even though it won’t be able to fly more than 1.5 missions because of a lack of a European service module, indicates that these legislators are really only throwing pork at whatever they think will buy them votes, without any concern for the overall federal budget, instead of using their brains to pick and choose the smartest projects to fund.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
House and Senate budgets for NASA give almost full funding to manned commercial space while boosting SLS.
The bill would provide $1.7 billion for the heavy-lift SLS rocket, some $350 million more than the White House requested for 2015, and $100 million more than the House has proposed. SLS is being built at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee, is an ardent defender of the center.
The bill also provides $805 million for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, under which the agency is funding work on three competing astronaut transportation systems with the goal of having at least one delivering crews to and from the international space station by the end of 2017. The White House requested $850 million next year for Commercial Crew, its top human spaceflight development priority. The House proposed $785 million, which would represent a high water mark on a program that has never received the full funding sought by the White House.
That the proposed budgets made only tiny cuts to commercial space indicates that the political clout of this program is growing, since in previous budget years Congress had trimmed this program’s budget much more significantly. That Congress continues to also feed gobs of money to SLS, even though it won’t be able to fly more than 1.5 missions because of a lack of a European service module, indicates that these legislators are really only throwing pork at whatever they think will buy them votes, without any concern for the overall federal budget, instead of using their brains to pick and choose the smartest projects to fund.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“a program that has never received the full funding sought by the White House.”
To be fair, Obama requests more money for every program. I would go so far as to say more money than is required. Obama views spending or requesting money as a measure of his leadership when he should be more concerned with the effectiveness of those programs and how the money is spent.
If only the money for SLS was split between Space Science Planetary exploration and matching grant programs for private launch and flight hardware! Mankind would benefit far more and we still would employ our workers in good Science and Enginnering (four letter) – joobs.
There is a poison pill in the Senate Bill!
read http://www.space-access.org/updates/sasalert060414.html
Henry has the straight scoop.
Senator Shelby is trying to turn Commercial Cargo and Commercial Crew
into just 2 more feudal fiefdoms for his dependants.
I’ve already called my Senator, Merkley, at his local office. I will call the DC office before 7:00a.m. Pacific time, because the markup starts at 10:00 Eastern Time. Better to call your Senator’s DC office at 5:00 Pacific Time, if their names are on the list in Henry’s post.