Comments on: Mikulski: Congress didn’t cut NASA’s exploration budget http://www.spacepolitics.com/2007/03/06/mikulski-congress-didnt-cut-nasas-exploration-budget/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mikulski-congress-didnt-cut-nasas-exploration-budget Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway... Wed, 17 Sep 2014 13:35:41 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.38 By: Rand Simberg http://www.spacepolitics.com/2007/03/06/mikulski-congress-didnt-cut-nasas-exploration-budget/#comment-10614 Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:00:43 +0000 http://www.spacepolitics.com/2007/03/06/mikulski-congress-didnt-cut-nasas-exploration-budget/#comment-10614 It also depends on whether it’s a goose or a gander. I’ll bet Senator Mikulski is one of the first ones to cry “cut!” when the Republicans try to slow down the rate of increase of a social program.

]]> By: anonymous http://www.spacepolitics.com/2007/03/06/mikulski-congress-didnt-cut-nasas-exploration-budget/#comment-10601 Tue, 06 Mar 2007 23:50:32 +0000 http://www.spacepolitics.com/2007/03/06/mikulski-congress-didnt-cut-nasas-exploration-budget/#comment-10601 On top of Mr. Foust’s point about Mikulski’s staff spinning “cuts” to the President’s budget request as “increases” over the prior year’s amount, the second point in the email is also typical budget spin. Just because $86 million in earmarks in the 2006 exploration budget are not continued in 2007, does not mean that exploration actually has another $86 million to spend in 2007 on planned programs like Ares 1/Orion. It just means that exploration won’t have to redirect another $86 million away from planned programs in 2007 to pay for various congressmen’s pet earmarks.

As much as I may disagree with direction of ESMD, most earmarks are disgusting wastes of taxypayer dollars, and the way congressional offices spin these earmarks is very misleading.

Finally, I’ll note that the last point in the email is very telling about what the exploration effort has devolved to — an effort to avoid “major program disruptions” and “layoffs or reduction in forces at any NASA center” versus getting actual human space exploration underway.

FWIW…

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