NASA

A ho-hum budget?

The reaction to the proposed FY 2009 NASA budget has been decided muted: few people seem terribly excited about the budget, but then, few people are terribly outraged about the budget as well. After taking into account the accounting shift that moves management and operations expenses into the Cross-Agency Support account, there are few radical shifts in the budgets, just continued trends with some smaller tweaks. (Interesting trivia: the FY09 budget is the first where Constellation, at $3.05 billion, exceeds the Space Shuttle, at $2.98 billion.) NASA is squeezing more science out of a static budget, and there’s continued support for COTS.

Congressional reaction to the budget isn’t exactly positive, but not overly harsh, either. “At first blush, it unfortunately appears to be a ‘business-as-usual’ budget that does little to address the significant challenges NASA is facing,” Bart Gordon, chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, told Florida Today. He expressed concern about the level of aeronautics funding in particular, as well as a lack of funding needed to accelerate Constellation. Bill Nelson, chair of the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, is also disappointed, citing the lack of funding to close the Shuttle-Constellation gap.

Other reactions:

  • The proposal reduces NASA Langley’s budget from $700 million to $608 million, but center director Lesa Roe is not panicking, noting that the proposal doesn’t include funding for specific science and exploration work planned for the center.
  • NASA Glenn is also concerned about budget cuts that would reduce the center’s funding by 4.3% in FY09. Like at Langley, though, they expect funding from additional projects to make up some of the difference.
  • NASA Ames is pleased by the inclusion of a small lunar spacecraft program, which includes $80 million in 2009 for work on a lunar orbiter, to be followed by small landers. “We are now basically the lead agency for lunar science,” center director Pete Worden told the San Jose Mercury News.
  • The Planetary Society concludes that the budget is “strong on Earth, weak on Mars”, given its emphasis on new Earth sciences missions and reshuffling of Mars missions. The NASA budget documents do mention planning (but as yet no funding) for a Mars sample return mission tentatively planned for the 2018-2020 timeframe.

27 comments to A ho-hum budget?

  • Tom

    If I get the chance, I’ll put together a chart of “date” vs. “time until Mars sample return mission”

    I guess the hard part will be plotting the time they stopped talking about it.

  • Well, Centennial Challenges got screwed this year as well.

  • Al Fansome

    Shana’s speech, as well as the budget language on page Exp-44 SAYS the FY09 budget makes COTS whole again at $500M.

    But when I look at the COTS budget number (pages Exp-5, Exp-37, Exp-43)

    … I get $425.9 million.

    Where I was taught math, $425.9 million does not equal $500 million.

    I am guessing some part of the $500M is not reflected in the budget.

    Probably something I don’t understand about reading budgets.

    Thoughts? Where is the missing $74.1 million?

    – Al

  • Am I – as a German space science buff – the only one genuinely (if cautiously) excited about this budget proposal? For the first time since Cassini we have a new start of a really big deep space mission (though there are still three destinations to choose from :-), for the first time ever a Mars Sample Return is part of concrete long-term planning, and we’ll have an exotic space probe flying straight into the solar atmosphere. All of that probably with strong European and/or Asian participation, I may add. Whatever Congress and the next White House will do to the Manned Space Program Formerly Known As VSE, if only one or two of these grand deep space projects survive, space science will be a big winner.

  • “Am I – as a German space science buff – the only one genuinely (if cautiously) excited about this budget proposal? For the first time since Cassini we have a new start of a really big deep space mission (though there are still three destinations to choose from :-), for the first time ever a Mars Sample Return is part of concrete long-term planning, and we’ll have an exotic space probe flying straight into the solar atmosphere.”

    At a macro level, space science is neither a winner nor a loser in this budget proposal.

    The restoration (finally) of an outer moons mission and the pursuit of Mars sample return are definitely good things in planetary science. However, they come at the expense of major cutbacks elsewhere in the Mars program. The competed 2011 mission has been delayed to 2013, the 2013 orbiter has been terminated, and the mission planning between that and sample return circa 2020 is up in the air. This portends a potential return to the one big mission a decade philosophy that was a dead-end for planetary science, both from research and public/political sustainment point-of-view, back in the early 1990s.

    Similar trades have been (are being) made in astrophysics. Beyond Einstein is finally moving out with JDEM, but the Astronomical Search for Origins (extrasolar planet research) has largely been reduced to a technology program with no formal mission plans.

    Solar Probe has a long and troubled history. It’s still unclear whether the technology obstacles that must be surmounted to make this mission affordable can be overcome, and its scientific return is questionable, given the limited number of passes (not “straight into the solar atmosphere) and data such a mission can obtain before terminating. Griffin and Stern are risking creating a major budget buster with Solar Probe for uncertain gain.

    Again, some good, but some bad, too. It will be many more years before space science can recover the program content it lost under Griffin.

    FWIW…

  • Anonymous: It will be many more years before space science can recover the program content it lost under Griffin.

    Dr. Griffin probably should not have selected ESAS, but his boss should get at least half the credit for this, whatever the ultimate costs or benefits. Mr. Bush set the priorities and then declined to adequately fund them.

    — Donald

  • Jim Mesko

    “the 2013 orbiter has been terminated, and the mission planning between that and sample return circa 2020 is up in the air.”

    There is a serious problem with this Mars mission architecture as newly defined: without a 2013 orbiter, you cannot support any rovers on the surface, because you need the orbiter as a relay. So if there is no 2013 orbiter, then you have to fly an orbiter later before you can fly the next rover (because nobody expects MRO to last that long). That rover is what you would use to pick up samples for Mars Sample Return.

    I haven’t looked at this closely, but it seems like they’ve outlined a Mars exploration program that cannot work to do what they want to do, Mars Sample Return.

  • “Dr. Griffin probably should not have selected ESAS, but his boss should get at least half the credit for this, whatever the ultimate costs or benefits. Mr. Bush set the priorities and then declined to adequately fund them.”

    Agreed, although both the Republican- and Democrat-controlled Congresses also deserve blame during the Griffin years for not appropriating the budgets they authorized.

    Again, it’s good that Griffin and Stern have restored an outer moons mission, Mars sample return, and some lunar precursors, all of which were part of the VSE strategy. But other integral elements — extrasolar planet telescopes, sustained Mars missions, and key power, propulsion, and other technologies — will still be missing after Griffin and Stern are gone.

    Assuming these lame duck FY 2009 budget initiatives and figures survive the new White House, Griffin’s space science record will go from positively bad to mixed. It’s late in coming, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

    FWIW…

  • Jim Mesko

    “Mr. Bush set the priorities and then declined to adequately fund them.”

    It might be worthwhile to go back to the budget that was rolled out right after the VSE was announced and look at what Bush promised the NASA budget would be in 2009 and then compare that to what he is proposing now.

  • “It might be worthwhile to go back to the budget that was rolled out right after the VSE was announced and look at what Bush promised the NASA budget would be in 2009 and then compare that to what he is proposing now.”

    Bush’s FY 2009 budget for NASA is about $500 million lower than what was projected for FY 2009 in the VSE budget. See the fifth paragraph in this article:

    http://www.space.com/news/080205-nasa-budget-2008.html

    FWIW…

  • Folks,

    this FY2009 budget is NOT a Lame Duck budget. While the new President MAY propose some changes at the margin in early calendar 2009 in an “operating plan”, the real Lame Duck budget submission is the FY2010 budget, which the new OMB Director will suggest changes in to the new Congress.

    – Jim

  • GuessWho

    “There is a serious problem with this Mars mission architecture as newly defined: without a 2013 orbiter, you cannot support any rovers on the surface, because you need the orbiter as a relay. So if there is no 2013 orbiter, then you have to fly an orbiter later before you can fly the next rover ”

    The competed 2011 mission that now is delayed to 2013 will serve as that orbiter. By decree, any orbiter mission that has a planned life in excess of 1 Mars year has to carry telecomm relay capability. Given the timing, I would also suspect that added dollars will be added to whichever mission architecture is selected to extend mission life and increase relay capability.

  • gm

    .

    I think that the Ares-1 will be the first “dead-weight launcher” as explained in my article:

    http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/023deadweight.html

    and that “dead-weight” launched will cost over $250 million for each Orion/Ares-1 launch

    and this is the main reason why the NASA budget will never be “enough”

    .

  • In real terms the FY2009 budget request represents a decrease of $58m compared with FY2008 due to inflation (based on 2.1% used by DoD).

  • While undoubtedly of scientific interest, albeit at great financial cost for an extremely limited scientific return, a Mars sample return is of little interest to those of us who want to expand space commerce. It will create or encourage no market (beyond its specific launch vehicles) to, in turn, encourage investment in better space transportation; it will locate no resources that will be of use in the foreseeable future — in other words, it does not contribute in almost any way to a usefully near-term spacefaring future. At this point in time, it is not worth the money it would cost.

    Beyond basic reconnaissance, tackling Mars, either scientifically or industrially, is too far and too hard — it’s a job for the next generation. Our job, both scientifically and in exploration, should be focused on Earth’s moon and near-Earth asteroids. Sample returns and human scientists on site are financially and technically achievable goals at these locations and they are the goals our generation should be persuing.

    — Donald

  • anonymous.space

    “this FY2009 budget is NOT a Lame Duck budget. While the new President MAY propose some changes at the margin in early calendar 2009 in an ‘operating plan'”

    This assumes that Congress passes an appropriations bill for NASA’s budget before January 2009. Given the appropriations schedule over the past few years, given that the majority party in Congress and President are of two different parties, and given that the majority party in Congress expects to hold onto power and gain the White House, passage of NASA’s FY 2009 budget (or other appropriations) before Bush is out of office is unlikely, at best. This will provide the new President and OMB Director the opportunity to make changes to NASA’s (and other) budget while the relevant bills are still on the Hill, not just in operating plans.

    “the real Lame Duck budget submission is the FY2010 budget, which the new OMB Director will suggest changes in to the new Congress.”

    Absolutely true, but again, FY 2009 is likely headed down the same path.

    FWIW…

  • anonymous.space

    “While undoubtedly of scientific interest, albeit at great financial cost for an extremely limited scientific return, a Mars sample return”

    This is a very false statement. Putting Mars samples into dozens of labs with hundreds of instruments and thousands of scientists should reap huge scientific returns, in the same way that as the oft-cited Apollo lunar samples have. And at an estimated cost of a couple billion dollars or so for the mission (to a much more challenging target), it’s a bargain compared to the Apollo equivalent.

    FWIW…

  • Anon

    I agree that a Mars sample return offers compelling and exciting science.

    I would be more interested if the sample return mission implemented ISRU — by converting Mars C02 to Methane, and a LOX-Methane engine to return the sample to Earth.

    This would be a great way to prove out the Zubrin-ISRU capability for Mars.

    But I doubt this will happen.

    – Anon

  • Anonymous: Putting Mars samples into dozens of labs with hundreds of instruments and thousands of scientists should reap huge scientific returns, in the same way that as the oft-cited Apollo lunar samples have.

    This is just as false a statement. First of all, I don’t believe $2 billion for a second — the original $5 billion is probably far closer to the mark. That aside, any $2 billion MSR will obtain its samples from very shallow depth and from a small and probably very close-together set of locations (far more so than even an initial human mission). Thus, it will almost certainly be irrelevent in the search for life, the primary reason given for this mission. Even on Earth, fossils are far too scattered to successfully be collected by such a mission and extant life is unlikely to be near the surface. If locating life is your goal, you’d be far better off following up the circumstantial evidence for methane and other out-of-equilibrium gasses — the kind of search that could be automated at reasonable cost and efficiency. If obtaining geochemical samples is your goal, you’d be better off continuing to look for them on the antarctic ice (or on Earht’s moon), which is likely to find more samples from a greater variety of locations and (more importantly) depths on Mars. Since an MSR is unlikely to have any non-scientific benefits, I stand by my statement. At least lunar sample returns are relatively cheap and directly applicable to near-term exploration.

    Anon’s suggestion for a mission to test local resource utilization makes much more sense to me, especially since it could help an MSR if you really insist on doing one.

    The automated budget should be saved for use on things that human scientists cannot do in the next several decades no matter how much we spend — e.g., exploring Europa.

    — Donald

  • Ray

    I have to say that the situation with respect to lunar robotics has improved a lot in the last few months, with the addition of NASA’s GRAIL Discovery mission, the small orbiter and 2 small landers mentioned above, and whatever comes out of the Lunar X PRIZE. Good for Dr. Griffin and Dr. Stern for getting the NASA parts of that going. I think these will go a long way towards improving the chances for the lunar part of the VSE, in terms of general public interest, satellite and launcher industry interest, developing a lunar science community in favor of the VSE, and focusing the human part of the program based on results of the robotic part.

    Ames/MSFC politics seem to be a dangerous area – hopefully MSFC is happy with their piece or have gotten something else they want even more. Otherwise, I wouldn’t totally discount the budget in this respect. Even if Congress wants to ignore the 2009 budget, I’d expect the Ames Senators and Congressperson to want to protect this part, especially if Ames is getting to work on some of it soon.

  • Ray

    I agree with anonymous.space that the Mars Sample Return has huge science potential. This has been “The Goal” for Mars robotic science for a very long time. If they get a big, capable rover exploring wide expanses of terrain, and can collect samples from all over the place, with detailed photographs and measurements and documentation about where each sample came from, and the collected samples then get picked up and sent to Earth with all of the analytic capabilities we have here, and will develop here in future years, I’m confident there would be a big science return. The analysis of the Mars samples we’ve found on Earth is hampered by our not knowing the context of those samples. Samples returned from Mars could even multiply the value of the samples we’ve found here.

    However, I nevertheless agree with Donald (which I usually don’t since I’m clearly biased towards the robotic side) about his worries about the Mars Sample Return mission. I’m also skeptical that MSR will keep in its budget, since it’s had a lot of trouble in past iterations. Apparently it’s a really hard engineering problem. There’s a danger that MSR will take away the funds for a lot of other Mars robotic missions. It also strikes me as a mission where an awful lot can go wrong. I wouldn’t want to see a repeat of Mars Observer on a bigger scale. Part of me is also worried about public support, since I think the public likes lots of pictures, rovers, and the like, and isn’t as thrilled as the scientists by bringing back samples. I’m not sure how MSR will compare to other Mars missions in how it improves general engineering capabilities, but that’s at least a concern, too.

    I hope NASA can alleviate these concerns by coming up with a reliable but cost effective MSR architecture, sharing major parts of the cost, etc.

    Personally, I’d be inclined to take a conservative approach with the grand Mars plan unless some really good engineering is first done to show that MSR isn’t “a bridge too far”. Start with a much easier sample return, like the old Discovery proposal to do something like Deep Impact with one of the Martian moons and return a sample of that, or perhaps of Martian atmosphere. Meanwhile, keep up the steady progress with rovers (there’s a LOT of diverse geology we haven’t seen up close yet), landers, and perhaps balloons, airplanes, and impactors. Do low-level MSR technology work. After a decade or more of that, we may have a lot better idea which samples we want to pick up, we might have better commercial support (e.g: CATS) to make MSR less of a budget hit, and we might even have a human Mars mission on the books which the MSR can feed technology into (or the human mission could just do the MSR!).

  • Ray, if we are going to do robotic exploration of Mars at this time, I like your “start small” approach. I have one suggestion for an MSR that I could support. How about doing “Mars Direct” in miniature”? If you could collect the return fuel from the atmosphere, you could both reduce the outbound mass requirement (and thus the cost), and by doing the rendezvous on the ground, instead of in orbit, you might be able to take some of the total risk out of the project. Meanwhile, such a demonstration would provide a far more important return than the initial science, by demonstrating a key skill that would vastly reduce the cost of human missions that could return far more comprehensive science later on.

    — Donald

  • canttellya

    That’s an excellent idea, Donald. Zubrin’s been proposing that for years, and it’s a shame it hasn’t been taken seriously.

  • Ray

    Donald: I agree that adding something like an ISRU “working demo” into the MSR would add a lot to its value and the operational cost. If the development cost and risk don’t outweigh those important advantages (and I don’t have the engineering background to judge that), it sounds like a good way to go. The Zubrin-style ISRU could be part of the incremental development/flight program that leads to this kind of MSR mission. For example, the cancelled Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander had MIP (Mars in-situ Propellant Production Precursor) which included an ISRU experiment, as well as a couple other experiments with human mission applicability. There might be intermediate steps between the MIP level and actual MSR ISRU use – e.g. robotic ISRU use where the propellant is actually used on the mission, but the mission is simpler than MSR.

    If we do go for MSR, I hope there’s a robost set of precursor landers to identify and collect good samples to take back, and I hope the MSR isn’t just a single mission itself, but rather that it’s used several times to get the most for the development effort.

  • Ray: I’m not sure you quite said it, but I think you’ve implied a fantastic idea. Why not use local fuel to power a small rocket that could hop a lander from one site to another? That might be a precursor to a low cost MSR that got the Earth-return fuel from the atmosphere, while also providing useful data for later human activities.

    — Donald

  • I really like the idea of using an “inexpensive” MSR as a low-grade “Apollo 10-like” dress rehearsal of later human landing technologies (especially when preceded by a Phobos or Diemos sample return–that way we get an asteroid mission COMBINED with a Mars mission!) and avoid the extra challenge of dealing with Mars’s gravity well.

    However, using rockets to hop a lander about seriously increases the risk of something going wrong; rolling about on wheels is less stressful to the hardware and certainly less dynamic (all it takes is to have one landing pad hit a rock when the other 2 or 3 don’t…let’s not forget that Viking 2’s tilt may be due to its having set down on a boulder. As we’ve seen, a stuck wheel doesn’t necessarily cripple a rover; a stuck landing thruster could very well flip the vehicle over.

    Now, if the “hoppers” can be made sufficiently cheap that you won’t mind losing a few (say, 3 out of 10) for the sake of the experiment, it might be worth it. But it will STILL be a pretty sizable investment.

  • I agree with most of that. I also think the first human mission beyond the moon should be to Phobos and / or Deimos. The technological requirements are _far_ lower than trying to land on Mars, yet demonstrate much of the skill set needed to get to Mars _and_ the skill set to explore and possibly exploit asteroids. A crew on PhD (if you are old enough to remember that acronym!) gives you science from two asteroids and a Mars observatory without communication time lags to the surface — all for the price of one mission. Importantly, if we can generate oxygen from the regolith, we can use a local source for the heaviest element needed both to survive in the Martian system and to return to Earth.

    — Donald

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