Congress

Local reaction to the NASA budget

Compared to the heated debate last year about how much money NASA should get, this year NASA’s budget sailed through with relatively little public debate, at least about the top-level figures. As such, there has been little public reaction now that the bill has been passed. Some politicians have spoken, such as Rep. David Dreier (R-CA), who told the La Cañada (Calif.) Daily Sun that the budget “is critical to our efforts to continue robust space exploration”, then goes to heap praise on JPL: “With missions like the Mars Rovers, JPL has continued to demonstrate that it is a pioneer in NASA’s program of space science and exploration. This funding will allow JPL to build on its track record of success by ensuring that current and future missions remain on schedule.” (Well, there is that delay with the Dawn mission, and the cancellation earlier this year of the Mars Telecom Orbiter.)

While that viewpoint might seem a little parochial, it’s nothing compared to other news reports about the NASA budget, which have pointed out funding for items like UAV infrastructure upgrades at Wallops, a $1.5-million “Digital Discovery Lab” educational center, a “space center” at a New Jersey college, and another “space and science center” at a California college. These are all, of course, earmarks added by Congress to the budget, to the potential detriment of other NASA programs.It gives you an idea of what people think as the really important parts of the budget…

4 comments to Local reaction to the NASA budget

  • Any word on when the authorization bill is scheduled to be worked on? I was hoping that it would be possible to lobby to have Centennial Challenges funding restored in that bill since its the one that gives them the higher prize authority anyway…

    -MM

  • While Dreier is exaggerating Washington’s commitment to JPL, and while he may be speaking for parochial reasons, there is nothing fundamentally parochial about the praise itself for JPL. He’s simply correct: JPL is a leader in space science and exploration. It’s not only a leader within NASA, but in the whole world.

    Even in my work I see some of JPL’s lasting intellectual contributions to the world. In the theory of error-correcting codes, some of the best upper bounds on the parameters for error correction are called “the JPL bounds”. Why was JPL looking at this? Because spacecraft data links are an important use of error-correcting codes. Spin-off like this indicate basic technical strength in the organization. It’s not another Tang-and-Velcro urban myth; this spin-off is for real.

    Passing from the sublime to the ridiculous, Robert Park reports that the space station is not a leader in space science. Rather, science on the space station has finally been cancelled completely. I think that Jeff Foust in the Space Review once suggested that there was a “debate” about the value of science on the space station. There was never much debate among serious scientists. The real debate, if you can call it that, had NASA and Washington on one side and scientists on the other side. This week, NASA and Washington threw in the towel.

  • Jim Muncy

    Mike,

    to answer your question, the House Science Committee and Senate Commerce Committee are currently negotiating in staff conference over the NASA Authorization bill. Hopefully that will be complete by the time the House and Senate come back from Thanksgiving recesses in December, and get signed and sent to the President.

    The good news is that this bill will almost certainly give NASA legislative authority to issue larger prizes. Also, if the bill “authorizes” a certain amount for Centennial Challenges in FY2006, NASA may not only be able to use previously appropriated dollars but also have some flexibility to REQUEST to reprogram other FY2006 exploration funds towards prizes.

    The bad news is that the Appropriations bill, which actually cut the total check to NASA, with limits on how much NASA can spend on various projects, provided no funds for prizes in FY2006, so the prize money would have to be approved by the Appropriations Committees as part of a “reprogramming”.

    Bottom line: the key is for the authorization bill to legally authorize NASA to award significant prizes. Once that hurdle is solved, it will be easier (but not easy) to actually win funding for those prizes.

  • Thanks Jim! Its always good to get the real story from someone who knows what’s really going on. I assume this means a little public advocacy for Centennial Challenges would be a good thing?