Tag: budget

NASA, the federal budget, and common sense

12:41 pm

Let’s be blunt: the federal government is broke. With deficits running in the billions per day, there simply is no spare cash for any program, no matter how important or necessary. Nothing is sacrosanct. Even a proposal to cure cancer should be carefully reviewed before it gets federal funding.

Everything has got to be on the table.

Thus, no one should have been surprised when word leaked two weeks ago that the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama administration was proposing cutting the entire unmanned planetary program at NASA, while simultaneously eviscerating the space agency’s astronomy program. No more missions to Mars. No probes to Europa or Titan. Further and longer delays before the James Webb Space Telescope is completed. And Kepler’s mission to find Earth Like planets orbiting other stars would end mid-mission.

The Obama administration has to find ways to trim the budget, and apparently it is considering eliminating these programs as a way to do it.

Yet, the money spent on space astronomy and planetary research is a pinprick. Considering that the federal government overspends its budget by approximately $3.5 billion per day, and the total amount of money spent on these two science programs equals about $2.4 billion per year, it seems senseless at first to focus on these kinds of cuts. Quite clearly, even eliminating them entirely will not put the federal budget into the black.

Now I am not one to say, “Cut the budget, but please leave my favorite programs alone!” I recognize the serious financial state of the nation, and realize that any budget suggestions I make must include significant total cuts to NASA’s budget.

As a space historian and science journalist who knows a great deal about NASA, however, I also know that there is plenty of room for cuts in NASA’s budget. By picking our priorities carefully at a time when our options are limited, NASA might even be able to accomplish more, not less, with a smaller budget.

Moreover, if I, as a space junky, think it is possible to continue NASA’s most important programs and still trim its budget by 15% to 20%, in real dollars, doesn’t that suggest that the same could be done across the entire federal government?

All it takes is a little knowledge, some common sense, and the courage to say no.
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NASA halting work on its J-2X rocket engine

6:30 pm

Par for the course: NASA, having successfully completed a 500 second test of the J-2X rocket engine, has halted all further development work on that engine.

The NASA program to build the heavy-lift rocket is expected to get $1.2 billion per year, and yet it doesn’t have enough money to develop both its first and second stages simultaneously? Kind of proves my point that NASA’s fixed labor costs, imposed on it by Congress, makes it impossible for the agency to ever build anything at a competitive price.

The result: every project dies stillborn.

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Supercommittee to the rescue

12:08 pm

The Supercommittee to the rescue!

They’re the new superhero group of Superfriends from the Supercongress who are going to save America from plummeting over the cliff and into the multitrillion-dollar abyss. There’s Spender Woman (Patty Murray), Incumbent Boy (Max Baucus), Kept Man (John Kerry) and many other warriors for truth, justice and the American way of debt. The Supercommittee is supposed to report back by the day before Thanksgiving on how to carve out $1.2 trillion dollars of deficit reduction and thereby save the republic.

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We’re still not cutting

8:49 am

The day of reckoning looms: We’re still not cutting.

In the spring fight to avert a government shutdown, Republicans promised $100 billion in real cuts but then compromised for $38.5 billion in future savings. In reality, the Congressional Budget Office found the deal still resulted in an increase of more than $170 billion in federal spending from 2010 to 2011. The “largest spending cut in history” ended up being a spending increase.

And this:

But the [super]committee isn’t really trying to cut spending. It seeks only to spend the country into bankruptcy a little slower. Rather than letting the country rack up $23.4 trillion of debt by 2021, the supercommittee hopes to keep it to $21.3 trillion. It’s the difference between speeding off a cliff at 91 miles per hour versus 100 miles per hour.

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Finally some substance in the Presidential campaign

11:20 pm

Up until tonight I had not watched any of the Republican Presidential debates. To me, the game show formats of each debate were such that I had no expectation of seeing any substance. Quick one-liners and gotcha attacks — the only thing that generally comes from these formats — can’t tell me anything about the deeper philosophical underpinnings of each candidate. And without that knowledge I can have no idea whether or not the candidates will follow through with what they say they’ll do.

Tonight however I did watch the Herman Cain-Newt Gingrich debate, which CSPAN has made available to watch in its entirety. The format was basically Cain and Gingrich for an hour and a half, answering a variety of questions about the three big entitlement programs, Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. Each man could essentially take as much time as he desired to say what he wanted.
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A NASA senior review of all planetary missions?

12:37 am

Here’s a tidbit I just spotted on the EPOXI (formerly Deep Impact) status website, buried in a November 1, 2011 update::

Meanwhile, NASA has decided that there will be a senior review of all operating planetary exploration missions. That will likely include a review of the status of the Deep Impact Flyby spacecraft to determine whether an additional extended mission should be approved. Decisions will not occur until early 2012.

Though Deep Impact is still a functioning spacecraft in orbit around the sun, up until this notice I had not heard of any plans to use it again after its flyby of Comet Hartley-2 in 2010. However, there is no reason its cameras could not be used for astronomy, though unfortunately its high resolution camera has a focus problem which prevents it from taking the sharpest images.

However, the timing of this review of planetary missions, combined with the story last week that the Obama administration might end all funding for future planetary missions, is intriguing. I wonder if they are tied together in some way. That the notice above says the decision will be made in “early 2012” — the moment when the Obama administration will unveil its 2012 federal budget recommendations — strongly suggests that they are linked.

Could that the administration be thinking it can salvage the bad press it will receive for shutting down all future planetary missions by spending a small amount on extending missions already in space? Or is this planetary review another indication that the rumors are true and the administration plans to end the planetary science program entirely?

Unfortunately, I am speculating here, without any real information. Stay tuned to find out.

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Senate approves NASA budget

6:35 pm

The Senate today approved a NASA budget of $17.9 billion, 2.8 percent less than last year and about equivalent to NASA’s 2009 budget.

The Senate bill included $500 million for commercial space, $3 billion for NASA’s heavy-lift rocket, and $500 for the James Webb Space Telescope. This must now be reconciled with the House budget, which called for a $16.8 billion total budget, with $300 million for commercial space and no money at all for Webb.

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Herman Cain speaks out about NASA and space

9:41 am

Herman Cain speaks out about NASA and space:

When President Obama decided to cut, it put the United States in a position that we don’t like. We don’t like to have to thumb-ride with the Russians when we were the first ones and the leaders in space technology. It’s not just about getting to the moon and outer space. The space program inspires other technological advances to business and the economy. In the Cain presidency, it will be reversed back to where it should be.

As much as I might like Cain for some things, I could not help cringing when I read these words. They suggest a great deal of ignorance about what the Obama administration has done, a willingness on Cain’s part to pander to his audience (speaking as he was at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville), and a desire by this self-declared fiscal conservative to spend lots more money for a big government space program at a time when the federal government is broke.

I’d rather have Cain take a more thoughtful approach. Alas, this is a campaign. Moreover, whoever ends up as president after this election will probably be less important than the make-up of the next Congress. It is that part of the 2012 election that really counts.

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According to Zubrin, Obama about to terminate all NASA science

8:32 am

According to Robert Zubrin, the Obama administration is planning to terminate all funding to NASA’s planetary program, while cutting back significantly on its astronomy program.

Word has leaked out that in its new budget, the Obama administration intends to terminate NASA’s planetary exploration program. The Mars Science Lab Curiosity, being readied on the pad, will be launched, as will the nearly completed small MAVEN orbiter scheduled for 2013, but that will be it. No further missions to anywhere are planned. After 2013, America’s amazing career of planetary exploration, which ran from the Mariner probes in the 1960s through the great Pioneer, Viking, Voyager, Pathfinder, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, Spirit, Opportunity, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Galileo and Cassini missions, will simply end.

Furthermore, the plan from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) also leaves the space astronomy program adrift and headed for destruction. The now-orbiting Kepler Telescope will be turned off in midmission, stopping it before it can complete its goal of finding other Earths. Even worse, the magnificent Webb Telescope, the agency’s flagship, which promises fundamental breakthroughs in our understanding of the laws of the universe, is not sufficiently funded to allow successful completion. This guarantees further costly delays, with the ensuing budgetary overruns leading inevitably to eventual cancellation.

I suspect these cuts have been leaked now, months before the budget is publicly released, in order to whip up support for funding these programs. I also find it distressing that these programs, which cost practically nothing, are targets, while others that cost many many more billions (in NASA and elsewhere) remain fully funded.

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Doubts on Display from Congress during hearing on Private Space

8:59 pm

Several Congressmen expressed doubts about and resistance to the new private space manned effort by companies like SpaceX during hearings today in the House.

Let’s be honest: it’s all about pork and only pork. Unfortunately, the new companies don’t deliver the same kind of pork to the right congressional districts, even if they might deliver a real product faster and for less money. To quote the article:

Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., rallied to the industry’s defense, citing a “hostility” to the private space industry. “Much to my dismay, I see some of the worst elements of decision making,” he said. “I see an anti-commercial-space attitude that could have very negative consequences.” Rohrabacher (who represents a district near SpaceX’s headquarters) seemed to chide Hall and Johnson, the two Texans who chair the panel, for parochial views. “Focusing on one’s own district and directing federal funds seems to be having a major impact on this decision,” he said.

As we anticipated yesterday, there were other regional pleas connected to the word of choice heard in the halls of Congress: jobs. Rep. Hansen Clarke, D-Mich., for instance, asked how the space contract could be used to create jobs in his district of metropolitan Detroit. The witnesses made the most diplomatic kowtows they could. “I’ve been pushing SpaceX to use more automotive suppliers,” Musk responded. Other space industry execs went on to claim Michigan subcontractors, to praise the auto industry, and to speak of spin-offs from space science programs.

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Tea Party in Space argues for more money for commercial space

7:43 am

Andrew Gasser at the Tea Party in Space website today argues strongly for Congress to fully fund the new commercial space program at the $850 million amount requested by the Obama administration.

As much as I am for these new commercial companies, I do not think it a good idea to fund them at these high levels.

For one thing, the government is still broke. It can’t afford to spend that much money. It is therefore unseemly for a website that uses the “tea party” label to advocate more spending at this time.

For another, the more money the government commits to these companies, the more control the government is going to demand from them. Far better to keep the government participation as small as possible. Make it just enough to allow the companies to succeed but not enough so as to make the whole effort a government program.

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House Panel Lays Out Spending Preferences for science programs

5:30 pm

The Republicans on the House science panel lay out their recommended spending plans for science.

Updated and bumped: First a correction: in my original post I had incorrectly assumed these recommendations were from the entire House panel, not from the Republicans alone. (You can read their actual letter here [pdf].)

Second, that these recommendations come from the Republicans alone is quite depressing, as it seems they don’t have the guts to cut much of anything. All these recommendations do is trim some programs around the edges. Overall, very little is cut at all, with almost all departments ending up with budgets greater than they had in 2008. Even NASA, whose budget is cut from the 2011 $18.8 billion down to $16.6 billion, still includes the billions allocated for the Congressionally-designed Space Launch System. As these Republicans depressingly enthuse, “We also strongly support proposed funding levels for the Space Launch System and the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle.”

With this kind of budget-cutting wimpiness from the Republicans, I expect the federal government to continue to grow in an out-of-control manner, even as the rest of the economy continues to tank.

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Elon Musk and the forgotten word

6:48 pm

Elon Musk at National Press Club

When Elon Musk gave his speech at the National Press Club on September 29, he was asked one question to which he really did not know the answer. He faked it, but his response illustrated how completely forgotten is one fundamental fact about American society — even though this fact is the very reason the United States became the world’s most wealthy and powerful nation less than two centuries after its founding.

To explain this fundamental fact I think I need to take a step back and talk about the ongoing war taking place right now over how the United States should get its astronauts into space. On one side we have NASA and Congress, who want NASA to build a new heavy-lift rocket to carry its Orion capsule beyond Earth orbit. On the other side we have a host of independent new space companies, all vying for the chance to launch humans and cargo into space for fun and profit.

Which is right? What system should the United State choose?
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Space News suggests Congress use the billions for NASA’s heavy-lift rocket to fund JWST

3:51 pm

In an editorial yesterday Space News suggested that Congress use the billions it is allocating for NASA’s heavy-lift rocket to fund the James Webb Space Telescope instead.

This is not surprising. Webb already has a strong constiuency (astronomers, the public) while the Space Launch System has little support outside of Congress and the specific aerospace contractors who want the work. With tight budgets as far as the eye can see into the future, and the likelihood that Congress is going to become more fiscal conservative after the next election, it would not shock me in the slightest if SLS gets eliminated and the money is given to Webb. And if the SpaceX and Orbital Sciences cargo missions to ISS go well then cutting SLS would almost be a certainty, as this success would demonstrate that these private companies should be able to replace SLS for a tenth of the cost.

And I also think this would be a much wiser use of the taxpayers money.

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House proposes a budget increase for NIH

6:35 pm

The Republican-controlled House has proposed a budget for National Institutes of Health (NIH) that is one billion more than last year’s budget, an increase from $30.7 to $31.7 billion.

What evil budget-cutters these Republicans are! Their mean-spirited budget increase has the nerve to reduce Obama’s budget request by about $120 million, equivalent to a whopping one third of one percent!

This is all shameful. For context, in 2008 NIH’s budget was $29.2 billion. Considering the state of the budget it seems unconscionable for the House to agree to any increase over $30.7 billion. In truth, it is perfectly reasonable to reduce NIH’S budget back to its 2008 number.

Too bad our present Congress, both Democratic and Republican, isn’t reasonable.

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