Congress, NASA

Another sign of tight budgets ahead

It’s been clear for some time that the budget environment for the next fiscal year (and beyond) will be constrained, given concerns about massive budget deficits and the nation’s growing debt. This week has given another clue about how tight those budgets might be for next year for NASA and other agencies. The House Appropriations Committee released its draft funding allocations for FY12, broken down by subcommittee. For Commerce, Justice, and Science, which includes NASA, the current “notional” spending allocation is $50.2 billion, compared to $53.3 billion in 2011 and nearly $57.7 billion in the administration’s 2012 budget request. In 2011 NASA’s funding of just under $18.5 billion accounted for nearly 35 percent of the subcommittee’s total; if that fraction holds in 2012 NASA would end up with about $17.5 billion, or more than $1 billion less than the agency’s request of $18.7 billion.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that percentage of the overall account will carry over to 2012: appropriators could choose to give NASA more money at the expense of other agencies, or cut it even more. (And the Senate has yet to weigh in with its own budget allocations.) According to the schedule released by House appropriators this week, the Commerce, Justice, and Science budget will be among the last take up by the committee, with a subcommittee markup planned for July 7 and the full committee on July 13.

9 comments to Another sign of tight budgets ahead

  • NASA can no longer afford ULA, nor afford to ignore SpaceX.

    House appropriations committee might have to be the ones to curtail the space pork.

  • SpaceColonizer

    When dealing with a budget devouring zombie Constellation, always remember Zombieland’s Rule #2: DOUBLE TAP!!!

  • Tom D

    Why the lack of love for ULA? I wouldn’t count them out yet.

  • Dave Huntsman

    I’m with Tom D. on this one: while EELV prices are too high, it results from several combined reasons; and hopefully decent competition from SpacEx (and hopefully others) will force them to change their business models to survive. But I also know more than a couple very innovative and active folks at ULA who continue to fight the fight for the future. So let’s not tar everyone with too broad a brush.

  • Coastal Ron

    Dave Huntsman wrote @ May 13th, 2011 at 8:19 pm

    But I also know more than a couple very innovative and active folks at ULA who continue to fight the fight for the future.

    I hope ULA can figure out some way to stay competitive in the future. The best way to keep an industry innovative and keep prices in check is through competition, and right now ULA and SpaceX are the only two American providers of medium-heavy and heavy launchers, and two is the minimum number needed for competition.

  • josh

    Not exactly on topic, but i had a thought on Falcon Heavy vs. SLS: It could very well happen that the payload capability of SLS drops during development (happened with Ares 1) while the payload of Falcon Heavy goes up further (Musk said 53 tons is the lower end). What if in the end they’re just like 10 tons apart? Falcon at 55 tons and SLS at 65. SLS would still be 25 times more expensive to launch (2.5 billion vs. 100 million). What an embarrassement for nasa and congress…

  • josh

    And another thing: Didn’t congress plan to give nasa 18 or 19 billion for SLS through 2016? Now nasa wants “just” 10 billion. maybe bolden is trying to prevent excessive waste (in a weird, twisted way)?

    hope they find some flaw in the block 0 design that forces another review. and then another. before anything ever gets started. meanwhile commercial can proceed apace.

  • DCSCA

    “It’s been clear for some time that the budget environment for the next fiscal year (and beyond) will be constrained, given concerns about massive budget deficits and the nation’s growing debt.”

    All the more reason to end shuttle and disengage from past planning funding drains like the ISS ASAP and redirect dwindling resources away from LEO, which represents past planning and is a ticket to no place, into disciplined BEO HSF projects that show promise to move the human species out to a destination- and into the future over decades to come.

  • Wine Togo

    Rather than randomly slash budgeting there what be open discussions on just what is wanted, no, needed from space exploration now.

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