NASA, Other

In astrophysics, uncertainty lingers after FY14 budget passed

At first glance, NASA’s astrophysics division got a pleasant surprise in the final fiscal year 2014 appropriations bill signed into law last month. The bill gives astrophysics $668 million, $26 million more than the $642 million originally requested by the administration. (The James Webb Space Telescope, funded as a separate line item in the budget, received its original request of $658 million.)

But, as Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s astrophysics division, told members of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee at a meeting Monday, there’s a catch. The final bill includes language from the earlier Senate report allocating $56 million of astrophysics funding for early development work on the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), a proposed mission that was the top-ranked large mission in the latest astrophysics decadal survey, but which NASA has not formally requested a new start for. That was significantly more than NASA had requested for the program, which will have impacts on other NASA astrophysics programs despite the increase in the overall budget.

“The rest of astrophysics, not including WFIRST and JWST, got $30 million less than we had requested and were planning for,” Hertz said. The agency is now working out how to accommodate that change in its FY14 operating plan, although he said he did not expect any major impacts to other astrophysics programs. “I think that we will be able to adjust to this appropriation without any noticeable negative effects on astrophysics” by rephasing programs.

At least, though, Hertz knows what his overall 2014 budget is. James Ulvestad, director of the NSF’s Division of Astronomical Sciences, told the same committee later Monday that since his division is not a line item in the appropriations bill, he doesn’t know yet how much money he’ll have available. NSF knows its funding in Research and Related Activities (R&RA), which funds the organizations broad range of research activities and constitutes more than 80 percent of NSF’s total budget, but not for the various directorates and divisions funded by R&RA.

Instead, Ulvestad said, the division has to wait for the NSF to develop its FY14 operating plan, due at the end of March. The R&RA account suffered about a 6.5% cut from its original request, but was up more than 4.5% from fiscal year 2013. How those changes percolate down to his division, which received $233 million in 2013 and requested $244 million for 2014, remain unknown. “So, somewhere between $230 and $244 million is likely where we will land,” he told the committee.

10 comments to In astrophysics, uncertainty lingers after FY14 budget passed

  • It seems like an unnecessary duplication of bureaucracy to have two federal agencies responsible for funding astronomy.

    • Hiram

      Or two bodies doing legislating (House, Senate)
      Or four services protecting the country (Army, Air Force, Navy Marines)
      Or twenty federal entities doing STEM education

      Yeah, but THEY’RE DIFFERENT, you might say. So it is for astronomy with NSF and NASA (and don’t forget DoE)

      Interestingly, when the GAO did a study on duplicative programs in the U.S. last year, identifying 51 areas where programs might be able to achieve greater efficiencies by reducing governmental overlap, astronomy was never mentioned. #22 was coordination of space systems organization and #23 was space launch contract costs, both of which pointed at NASA and DOD. So if NASA wants to get its house in order, there are other places where it should start.

    • amightywind

      I agree completely, not to mention earth and atmospheric sciences.

    • Dark Blue Nine

      The Bush II Administration asked the National Research Council to weigh in on transferring the NSF astronomy program to NASA. Here’s the summary of the resulting report:

      “In its fiscal year 2002 budget summary document the Bush administration expressed concern-based in part on the findings and conclusions of two National Research Council studies-about recent trends in the federal funding of astronomy and astrophysics research. The President’s budget blueprint suggested that now is the time to address these concerns and directed the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to establish a blue ribbon panel to (1) assess the organizational effectiveness of the federal research enterprise in astronomy and astrophysics, (2) consider the pros and cons of transferring NSF’s astronomy responsibilities to NASA, and (3) suggest alternative options for addressing issues in the management and organization of astronomical and astrophysical research. NASA and NSF asked the National Research Council to carry out the rapid assessment requested by the President. This report, focusing on the roles of NSF and NASA, provides the results of that assessment.”

      In short, the NRC thought it was a bad idea to transfer NSF astronomy to NASA for several reasons centering around broad and sustained support of the astronomy community, which you can read in the report here:

      U.S. Astronomy and Astrophysics: Managing an Integrated Program
      http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10190

      The Bush II Administration obviously did not pursue the transfer after the NRC’s report.

  • Michael Kaplan

    The programs are complementary and different. The Decadal Survey sets the scientific priorities for both funding agencies and insures the science is integrated. NASA focuses on space-based projects, while NSF focuses on ground-based astronomy. There are a few exceptions, e.g., NASA’s IRTF and Keck investments and SOFIA, an airborne observatory. Both NASA and NSF meet regularly to insure scientific synergy. But each Agency’s efforts are very, very different, and would require each agency to have a different skill mix to manage. So that’s why it makes no sense to combine them.

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “The final bill includes language from the earlier Senate report allocating $56 million of astrophysics funding for early development work on the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), a proposed mission that was the top-ranked large mission in the latest astrophysics decadal survey, but which NASA has not formally requested a new start for. That was significantly more than NASA had requested for the program, which will have impacts on other NASA astrophysics programs despite the increase in the overall budget.”

    Great, in addition to the $80M per year earmark that JPL gets for thumb-twiddling on a Europa mission that’s a decade-plus away, now we’re going to waste $50-60M a year for the next 4+ years so Goddard can thumb-twiddle on WFIRST while we wait for Goddard to get its act together on JWST.

    God forbid we up the rate of competed, cost-capped Explorer missions while the pigs feed at the trough, er, the system works through the current flagship. No, those competed, cost-capped programs don’t put a limit on the amount of pork and provide no guarantee that it will be steered to the right districts. We can’t have that! No, better write another blank check to the same NASA field center that’s failing at the current flagship, er… I mean assign them a new flagship. Yeah, that’s it! And since they’re still failing on the current flagship, we can stretch out the new flagship so that the pork flows through more election cycles. It’s a win-win!

    How venal and dumb…

    • James

      The WFIRST science folk are well connected to the congressional budget process. That is what the $50-60M is for. They’ll figure out a way to spend it for sure, but its all about being connected to the right people.
      There are still many folks in the Astrophysics community that do not think WFIRST is worth being a Decadal winner and the science will get done by Euclid and ground based instrumentation before WFIRST launches. Which is why an Exo-planet Chronograph is plopped on WFIRST now…to broaden the rationale for its existence.
      You must know how to play the game, and the WFIRST folk know how to play the game…just like the Europa crowd.

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “There are still many folks in the Astrophysics community that do not think WFIRST is worth being a Decadal winner and the science will get done by Euclid and ground based instrumentation before WFIRST launches.”

    To be clear, I’m not against WFIRST. I’m just against blowing a few hundred million taxpayer dollars on uncompeted earmarks for incompetent NASA field centers under the guise of flagships years before those flagships can begin design and development in earnest. Especially when the flight rate for the competed missions has plummeted and when that much money could have much greater impact on those competed missions.

    “They’ll figure out a way to spend it for sure…”

    Based on the repeated failure of JPL to come in with a viable and affordable Europa mission and GSFC’s incompetence on JWST, I doubt it will be spent well.

    • James

      DB9
      I completely agree with your assessment. I’ve led projects in pre-formulation many times (not flagships though), and I wouldn’t know what to do with $80M in one fiscal year, or even $50 to $60M. The teams are generally small, and can only spend so much $. And You can’t speed up technology development just by pumping more money into it. Now perhaps multi instrumented flagships, with all of the instruments being migrated along the TRL path, would be able to spend say $40M among them in one FY – I can’t speak to that.

      In general though ear marks do waste money.

  • Hiram

    WFIRST is starting to be called the SST – Senate Space Telescope. This is where Congress is dictating that NASA do a new-ish start (as in, the firehose of bucks gets turned on) on a project that NASA isn’t really quite ready to start. To the Astrophysics Division, WFIRST is a wonderful opportunity that deserves further study, but firehoses ought to remain holstered until JWST is off the ground. It would be interesting to understand who put the SST in the appropriations bill. Most likely Barbara Mikulski, since the mission would be run out of Goddard. If so, I’d find it remarkable that Mikulski, who sold her legislative soul to keep JWST alive, would start earmarking other space telescopes.

    But it occurs to me that, in her mind, a funding line for WFIRST could be viewed as insurance for future overruns on JWST. That is, when JWST needs the cash, we all know where we’re going to go to get it. Don’t even need to move it out of the Center, and it is, after all, money to meet a Decadal priority.

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