Congress, NASA, Other

NOAA concerns overshadow NASA in Senate appropriations bill

If you looked at only the first sentence of the NASA section of the fiscal year 2013 appropriations bill summary released by the Senate Appropriations Committee after its markup of the bill Tuesday afternoon, you might have jumped for joy. “The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is funded at $19.4 billion, an increase of $1.6 billion over the fiscal year 2012 enacted level,” it reads. Were senators suddenly feeling generous? Well, not really. The increase is due entirely to the transfer of NOAA’s satellite programs to NASA. Without that transfer, NASA’s budget is $41 million less than the agency’s fiscal year 2012 appropriations and just above the $17.71 billion requested by the administration.

The chairwoman of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), singled out NOAA for criticism in her comments about the budget, explaining the decision to move NOAA’s programs to NASA. “Unfortunately, the Committee has lost confidence in NOAA’s ability to control procurement costs or articulate reliable funding profiles. Therefore, we have taken the unprecedented step of transferring responsibility for building our Nation’s operational weather satellites from NOAA to NASA,” she said in a statement. “While NASA missions have also experienced cost overruns and schedule slippages, NASA has been more responsive and competent in correcting these deficiencies.” The transferred funding would be placed in a separate, new account, called Operational Satellite Acquisition, within the NASA budget.

That move was endorsed by the committee’s ranking member, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). “NOAA and the Department of Commerce have failed to rein in the life-cycle costs which are now exceeding $1 billion above last year’s revised budget projections,” she said in her opening statement. “NOAA is traveling in the wrong direction, and NASA is the right agency to oversee the procurement of satellites.”

Beyond the shift of NOAA funds, the committee largely made tweaks to the administration’s budget request. The subcommittee restored $100 million to NASA’s Mars science programs, although didn’t allocate that funding to any particular Mars program. The administration’s request for commercial crew was cut by just over $300 million, from $830 million to $525 million, but that reduced level is still above both the program’s 2012 funding of $406 million and the authorized level of $500 million for FY13. The Space Launch System and Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle are funded at effectively the levels in the budget proposal: $1.5 and $1.2 billion, respectively.

The full appropriations committee will take up the CJS appropriations bill in a hearing at 10:30 am Thursday morning.

44 comments to NOAA concerns overshadow NASA in Senate appropriations bill

  • GeeSpace

    The transfer of NOAA’s satellite programs to NASA. os complete nonsense.

    If a primary mission of NASA is to do missions beyond Earth orbit (as opposed to LEO missions)m giving NASA the satellite programs of NOAA wpuld be funny if it wasn’t so serious of a move.

    If Senator Mikulski ( is conerned with ” NOAA’s ability to control procurement costs or articulate reliable funding profiles” the most logical response would be to re-organize NOAA and/or get new capability leadership for NOAA.

    Where is Mr. Spock when we need him?.

  • amightywind

    giving NASA the satellite programs of NOAA wpuld be funny if it wasn’t so serious of a move.

    NASA and NOAA programs already overlap. NASA blows $1.3 billion a year on earth and atmospheric sciences. Any effort to reform and consolidate troubled programs is welcome. The resistance to real NASA reform on this forum is disturbing.

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). ‘NOAA and the Department of Commerce have failed to rein in the life-cycle costs which are now exceeding $1 billion…”

    “Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)… “Unfortunately, the Committee has lost confidence in NOAA’s ability to control procurement costs or articulate reliable funding profiles. Therefore, we have taken the unprecedented step of transferring responsibility for building our Nation’s operational weather satellites from NOAA to NASA…”

    Let me get this straight. NOAA has a $1 billion (8 percent) overrun on the $12 billion Joint Polar Satellite System. So to keep this problem from happening in the future, the Senate appropriators propose transferring development responsibility for these satellites to NASA. NASA, the same agency that recently created a $881 million (84 percent) overrun on the Mars Science Laboratory and that’s had a $7.1 billion (444 percent) overrun to date on the James Webb Space Telescope.

    Right… problem solved. And maybe I should give my wife’s credit card to an alcoholic panhandler to get her spending under control.

    I imagine this move by Mikulski is about bringing more work in house to GSFC and her state, not better managing the taxpayer’s dollar.

    Even if NASA ran well-managed development programs, having the requirements held by one agency (NOAA) and the budget held by another (NASA) is a recipe for disaster. It’s like the Senate appropriators learned nothing from NPOESS.

    • Lissa

      Very well said! I was helping to do some basic research with my son on a scientific research essay for a 7th grade language arts class and the deeper we look, the more we learn that this is a very hot topic! We were trying to refine a thesis statement regarding the idea of redirecting funding from discontinued NASA exploration to exploration of the Mariana Trench and of course he has to support his statement in his essay. We know and understand the importance why more exploration of our own deep earth needs to be done vs. exploring Mars, but had no idea about the extent of the budgetary discrepancies. It looks like we are in for some more surprises as we continue our research.

  • Scott Bass

    Appears to be no signs of anyone interested in killing SLS so far…. Many budgets to go but each one makes its survival more inevitable

    • Coastal Ron

      Scott Bass said:

      Appears to be no signs of anyone interested in killing SLS so far…

      Cancellations usually require some sort of recognition that the program is in fiscal or programmatic trouble. That was the main driver for the Constellation cancellation. The SLS program has been a little young for that to happen yet, but if I recall correctly, there is a fiscal review to Congress coming up soon.

      The other part of the equation is actually using the SLS. So far the Administration (nor Congress) has not suggested building anything for the SLS to launch, which means that the SLS is doomed to sit around for years doing nothing. How safe would that be?

      The only known possible mission is the Obama proposed mission to an asteroid, but since the SLS took the money they were going to use to develop technologies for that mission, it’s hard to see how that will happen by 2025, regardless if the SLS is ready or not.

      Even the MPCV is in danger of being cancelled if they can’t solve the massive excess weight issues it has.

      Many budgets to go but each one makes its survival more inevitable

      If your goal is to have a massive rocket added to the Kennedy Space Center tour, then your dream may come true. However there still is no evidence of any paying customers for the SLS, so it continues to be a rocket being built far before it’s needed.

  • E.P. Grondine

    While manned BEO flight are NASA goals, they are not NASA’s only mission.

    Clearly, unlke DoD, NOAA and USGS lack the necessary capapbilities to put space resources in operation. In regards to space data, perhaps their institutional focus should be on utilization of the data from space.

    Other than that, we could have had two manned launch systems and DIRECT, with no disruptions to the US tech base, for the money that was wasted on Ares 1.

    I aksed here months ago how people thought ATK would fare under Romney, only to have my question dismissed as improbable to the point of being impossible.

    In any case, the bottom line is that political ideology can not change the laws of physics, nor the hard data of reality.

  • MrEarl

    This makes three fiscal budgets, (’11,’12,’13) where congress has supported the SLS and MPCV by increasing it’s funding over what was provided by this administration. That’s 8, (FY ’05 to ’13) budgets where congress has supported a Shuttle Derived Vehicle and Orion/MPCV. Despite the most fervent wishes of most on this blog these two programs will continue to completion.
    By the end of this month or the beginning of May we should be hearing details for NASA’s manned exploration beyond Earth orbit that includes exploration gateways near the moon that uses ISS technology and some hardware, EELV’s and Falcon/Dragon along with the SLS and MPCV. Construction of these gateways and habitats will begin this decade with manned exploration missions beginning by 2021.
    The one disturbing part is that commercial crew is being short-changed in the deal. We must convince congress that commercial crew is a vital part of space exploration and that funding of other projects should not come at Commercial Crew’s expense.

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “This makes three fiscal budgets, (’11,’12,’13) where congress has supported the SLS and MPCV by increasing it’s funding over what was provided by this administration.”

    The Senate mark is a small decrease over what was passed last year for SLS/MPCV. If Congress was serious about seeing something fly out of these programs and not just maintaining old Shuttle jobs, then those budgets would be ramping up rapidly, not declining slowly.

    “By the end of this month or the beginning of May we should be hearing details for NASA’s manned exploration beyond Earth orbit that includes exploration gateways near the moon that uses ISS technology and some hardware”

    None of which can be funded for a decade or more as SLS and MPCV suck all the oxygen out of the human space exploration budget.

    “Construction of these gateways and habitats will begin this decade”

    Simply untrue. There’s nothing in the budget runout for this.

    “with manned exploration missions beginning by 2021.”

    Highly unlikely if the SLS/MPCV budget stays flat to slightly declining year-over-year.

  • Robert G. Oler

    It really is an impressive stretch of the imagination to think NASA can fix a malfunctioning program…sigh RGO

  • Robert G. Oler

    this budget is DOA…like winter on Game of Thrones sequestration is coming RGO

  • Robert G. Oler

    http://waynehale.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/how-we-nearly-lost-discovery/

    anyone who thinks NASA HSF can fix anything should read this…perhaps it is some effort at a confessional…but as I have said for a long time…we are lucky the shuttle program only cost 14 lives and lost two orbiters…there were a lot of near misses. Is clear the people in charge were simply out of their league. RGO

  • amightywind

    Appears to be no signs of anyone interested in killing SLS so far

    The cancellation of Project Constellation was a political aberration. It will be a long time before the stars align again and wild eyed socialists seize the House, Senate, and Presidency. Not after the marks they’ve left on America’s back. It is ‘commercial space’ that will be vulnerable in the next few years. The NASA’s the CCDev2 appropriation indicates there is already a down select baked in. This would have been unthinkable a year ago.

    • Coastal Ron

      amightywind said:

      The cancellation of Project Constellation was a political aberration.

      It’s funny how someone that claims to be a fiscal conservative can be so blind to bloated programs like the Constellation. That was the only reason Congress agreed to cancel it, and Republicans voted to cancel it too.

      It is ‘commercial space’ that will be vulnerable in the next few years.

      Hard to see how a program that doesn’t go over budget, and delivers what’s promised, would somehow be in danger.

      Besides, commercial transportation services supports the ISS, which Congress supports.

      The NASA’s the CCDev2 appropriation indicates there is already a down select baked in.

      Nothing has changed with the grand bargain that allowed CCiCap (not CCdev2) to do the 2.5 spacecraft award. Sequestration hit all the programs per the overall formula, and Congress is working on re-boosting Commercial Crew along with the SLS back up.

      Commercial Crew can live with a reduction in funding better than the SLS program can, especially since SpaceX is likely to be ready far in advance of the planned switchover from Soyuz in late 2016.

      Besides, only someone that wants us to continue to be beholden to Russia would root for canceling the Commercial Crew program – is that you?

  • Mark

    I’m not sure how shifting NOAA satellite funding to NASA is supposed to do. If anything, Earth science funding at NASA should go to NOAA.

  • This makes three fiscal budgets, (’11,’12,’13) where congress has supported the SLS and MPCV by increasing it’s funding over what was provided by this administration. That’s 8, (FY ’05 to ’13) budgets where congress has supported a Shuttle Derived Vehicle and Orion/MPCV. Despite the most fervent wishes of most on this blog these two programs will continue to completion.

    Hilarious. The fiscal tsunami has yet to hit. When it does (probably with a new Congress and president), they’ll be swept away in it.

  • Ferris Valyln

    To everyone saying SLS is surviving and so on and so forth, I have a simple question

    What happens with NASA & Sequestration? How do you add up the numbers to take a $1.4 Billion bite out of NASA? Or how do you ensure sequestration doesn’t happen?

    Please note – I make no claims beyond what I’ve asked. I am desperately curious to see how people add up the numbers

  • MrEarl

    There will be no sequestration. Congress will not allow it.
    If on the off-chance that there is, I’m betting that Commercial Crew gets the majority of the hit.

  • MrEarl

    Like the House’s de-funding of the JWST, this move by the Senate is applying the “Shovel of Wisdom” to the back of NOAA’s head.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Sequestration is going to be the great “pivot” point of this upcoming campaign…it is going to be fascinating to watch the two parties try and weave and dodge through the upcoming spending cuts (and the expiration thankfully of the Bush 43 tax cuts) NASA will not be immune RGO

  • I’m betting that Commercial Crew gets the majority of the hit.

    That would be a stupid bet. Not everyone in Congress is as foolish as KBH. More congresspeople are coming to understand that the only realistic near-term way to end our dependence on the Russians is to fund Commercial Crew.

  • Mark

    “Hilarious. The fiscal tsunami has yet to hit. When it does (probably with a new Congress and president), they’ll be swept away in it.”

    Since Mitt Romney’s space advisers are supporters of Orion and SLS, on what basis do you make this statement?

  • Mark

    BTW, if anything is “swept away” under a new president, it would likely be commercial crew, again because of to whom Romney is listening to on things space. They’ll stick an Orion on top of an Atlas V and that will be our public space craft.

  • Ferris Valyln

    Mark – Its also worth noting who else is supporting Romney – Eric Anderson

    MrEarl – for the moment, lets assume CCrew gets 525 (that was the Senate number, and is possible for the House number). That still leaves a $900+ Million dollar hole to fill
    Please fill it.

  • Coastal Ron

    Scott Bass wrote @ April 18th, 2012 at 10:18 am

    Appears to be no signs of anyone interested in killing SLS so far…

    I didn’t think that the SLS would be up for discussion this early in it’s life. 2013 was when I thought it was most likely to be scrutinized, so we still have one more year. There also needs to be a tipping point of some kind – something that changes the political equation so that scrutiny is warranted.

    No matter who is President next year, KBH will be out, and Nelson may be out too. Who knows what changes will happen in the House, and with budgets continuing to tighten, and the likely successes of Orbital and SpaceX (showing commercial can save money), it will be a whole new ballgame.

    Many budgets to go but each one makes its survival more inevitable

    Ask the Constellation program about that kind of thinking, and that program actually had a defined mission. The SLS doesn’t even have a paying customer yet – just unfunded dreams.

    I’ve said it before – Bolden is giving the SLS it’s best possible chance for survival by not letting it get out of control early like Griffin did with Constellation, but the out-year budget numbers don’t look good for the SLS, and there is still no money to build any meaningful missions to use the SLS.

    At some point it will become very apparent to everyone that no one has the money to use the SLS, and that will lead to it’s death if it hasn’t already been cancelled.

  • MrEarl

    Well Rand,if what you say is true, why did Commercial Crew get cut……….again?

    I too believe that CCDev is the best and quickest way to end our dependance on the Russians for LEO transprotation, but I’m also realistic enough to see that it is not a priority to congress. All your hoping and wishing will not make it so.

  • MrEarl

    Ferris, there will be no seqestration.

  • Doug Lassiter

    GeeSpace wrote @ April 18th, 2012 at 8:39 am
    “If a primary mission of NASA is to do missions beyond Earth orbit (as opposed to LEO missions) …”

    Um, who says it is a primary mission of NASA? In fact, as it turns out, very little that NASA is doing right now is BEO. It’s true, no one else does BEO, but that’s probably because no one else is interested in it. That says something about the importance of BEO to the nation. It’s a primary mission of NASA to do Earth science, and that’s kind of hard to do from beyond LEO or GEO (though some space advocates will spin it to you that we should …)

    That being said, it is indeed unfortunate that NASA now seems to have more responsibilities piled on it than it did before.

    Let’s see. Who is rolling in the aisles at the thought that Congress has confidence in NASA’s ability to control procurement costs or articulate reliable funding profiles? This is taken from the quote by Senator Mikulski, whose JWST is a recent example of the lack of such confidence by her colleagues, and even her own lack of confidence in her calling for the constitution of an ICRP.

  • Ferris Valyln

    MrEarl – How do they build the coalition so that sequestration doesn’t happen?

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark wrote @ April 18th, 2012 at 2:01 pm

    BTW, if anything is “swept away” under a new president, it would likely be commercial crew, again because of to whom Romney is listening to on things space>>

    who would that be? The flunkies who signed that stupid letter in Florida? Or is it like the rest of Willards notes “I’ll cut lots of agencies but I wont tell you which ones because its to political painful” or something like that…LOL

    RGO

  • amightywind

    I think budget sequestration and the Obama’s tax increase have a good chance of happening. Dem dead enders will employ a spiteful scorched earth policy on their way out of town, leaving the GOP to patch things up in the first month of the new congress. The crisis will open the door for Romney to broaden the tax base and reform entitlements.

  • Robert G. Oler

    If you love politics (of the space kind or otherwise) sequestration is the gift that will keep on giving. I am still trying to figure out how the GOP got it in their bonehead to agree to it…It might be the one solid thing that this congress has done for The Republic.

    It is not just that the cuts happen (and the Bush43 tax cuts go away) …but that to stop the cuts from happening now both parties almost have to climb out on a suicide ledge…

    if the GOP and Willard start calling for the end of sequestration it will be a sign that the GOP is really not serious (dah) about balancing the budget….and the Dems wont do it because they are somewhat miffed at the social spending cuts…but the whack goes hardest on the Pentagon…and that is a sure fire winner for them at the polls.

    As for NASA…if Dragon makes it to ISS soon…it changes everything. SLS and Orion become a weight around anyones neck who tries to support them…RGO

  • DCSCA

    “The increase is due entirely to the transfer of NOAA’s satellite programs to NASA.” ‘Consolidating space operations’… It has begun.

  • MrEarl

    Ferris they’ll punt like any lame-duck congress will do. They could raise the baseline for 2013 but more likely raise the discretionary cap to FY’13 while lowing the cap for the out-years, giving the illusion of defecit cuts.

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ April 18th, 2012 at 4:35 pm and if the POTUS does not sign that? RGO

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ April 18th, 2012 at 4:35 pm and if the POTUS does not sign that? (to some extent a rhetorical question and of course Obama sometimes is as weak as kittens…) but….RGO

  • Well Rand,if what you say is true, why did Commercial Crew get cut……….again?

    Because for a few more months, the porkers continue to live in a dreamland. I guess you like to live there as well. Pleasant dreams.

  • A M Swallow

    This is an election year for:
    the US President
    1/3 of the Senate
    and the House.

    As happens every 4 years there will almost certainly be a boost in government spending. It may be in the budget or in a second bill. The money for COTS was in a second bill.

    NASA could prepare a list of items for this bill. Projects that can be completed in about 2 years. Include an approximate number of jobs.

    There are several technologies whose prototype has been constructed but that cannot afford a launch vehicle. They could be combined into 2 or 3 satellites and launched.

  • byeman

    “‘Consolidating space operations’… It has begun.”

    DCSCA is wrong again.

    NASA has always procured spacecraft for NOAA. The only difference now, instead of NOAA getting the money from Congress and then passing it on to NASA, NASA gets the money directly. NOAA will still operate the spacecraft as they do now.

    “NASA and NOAA programs already overlap”

    Blowhard is also wrong.

    There is no overlap. NOAA spacecraft have proven and operational sensors. NASA does R&D and new sensors. NASA is not performing NOAA’s. Also, NASA is managing spacecraft procurement, something that is NASA’s role and expertise and not NOAA’s.

    “If a primary mission of NASA is to do missions beyond Earth orbit ”

    It is not “The” primary mission, it is one of. LEO and earth science are just as much part of NASA’s primary mission

  • Doug Lassiter

    byeman wrote @ April 19th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
    “There is no overlap. NOAA spacecraft have proven and operational sensors. NASA does R&D and new sensors. NASA is not performing NOAA’s. Also, NASA is managing spacecraft procurement, something that is NASA’s role and expertise and not NOAA’s.”

    But the troublesome issue is, as several observers have pointed out, NOAA is still going to be responsible for the spacecraft requirements, while NASA is going to have to negotiate contracts for those spacecraft. That’s a troublesome arrangement, and one that never proves economical. To the extent that NOAA simply doesn’t know how to negotiate such contracts responsibly, it would seem that maybe the space product responsibility of NOAA should be wholly folded into NASA. But the idea that only one non-defense institution should be trusted with space has echoes in current issues about commercial spaceflight. Perhaps the right answer is for NOAA to get the smarts it needs to do space procurement right.

  • byeman

    “NOAA is still going to be responsible for the spacecraft requirements, while NASA is going to have to negotiate contracts for those spacecraft.”

    That is how it is down now. That doesn’t change. It is just which org that congress funds will change.

    “Perhaps the right answer is for NOAA to get the smarts it needs to do space procurement right.”
    NOAA has never done spacecraft procurement. The right answer is to have one civil gov’t org do all spacecraft procurement for govt needs to prevent duplication of effort.

  • wittiboone

    No one has mentioned about the possibility of military applications of satellite data. Letting NASA operate the satellites would make it easier to make dual use of the data. Was this the hidden motive of the change?

  • hawken

    wittiboone wrote @ June 27th, 2012 at 7:34 am
    “No one has mentioned about the possibility of military applications of satellite data. Letting NASA operate the satellites would make it easier to make dual use of the data. Was this the hidden motive of the change?”

    Do you think the military does not have access to this data already? Besides that, for this to be a motive, NASA would have to operating the satellites. They are not. NASA’s role is procurement (acquisitions), not operations. Check the article.

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