Congress, NASA

Science, aeronautics, explorations all receive increases in draft House NASA appropriations bill

In advance of Wednesday morning’s markup, the House Appropriations Committee released its draft of a Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bill Tuesday morning. The bill is rather generous to NASA, providing the agency with nearly $17.9 billion for fiscal year 2015, an increase of $435 million over the president’s budget request (PBR) and $250 million above the agency’s fiscal year 2014 budget. The bill itself provides funding amounts primarily at the account level, not breaking it down into the various divisions and programs (data usually in the accompanying report yet to be released):

Account FY15 PBR House CJS Draft House-PBR Diff
SCIENCE $4,972.0 $5,193.0 $221.0
AERONAUTICS $551.1 $666.0 $114.9
SPACE TECHNOLOGY $705.5 $620.0 -$85.5
EXPLORATION SYSTEMS $3,976.0 $4,167.0 $191.0
SPACE OPERATIONS $3,905.4 $3,885.0 -$20.4
EDUCATION $88.9 $106.0 $17.1
CROSS AGENCY SUPPORT $2,778.6 $2,779.0 $0.4
CONSTRUCTION $446.1 $446.0 -$0.1
INSPECTOR GENERAL $37.0 $34.0 -$3.0
TOTAL $17,460.6 $17,896.0 $435.4

(Amounts in table above in millions of dollars.)

The bill does allocate $1.14 billion for Orion and $1.915 billion for SLS, a combined total $270 million higher than the administration’s request, although exploration overall gets $191 million than the administration’s request. The other two programs under exploration, commercial crew and exploration R&D, don’t have their funding levels specified in the draft bill.

In science, the bill sets aside $100 million for Europa mission pre-formulation studies, much higher than the $15 million the administration requested and somewhat higher than the $80 million provided for such work by Congress for FY14. A fact sheet accompanying the bill notes that the bill “includes funding above the President’s request for planetary science to ensure the continuation of critical research and development programs.”

The bill also renames the Cross-Agency Support account the “Safety, Security and Mission Services” account, which appears to reflect the strong interest in NASA security by outgoing CJS subcommittee chairman Rep. Frank Wolf.

37 comments to Science, aeronautics, explorations all receive increases in draft House NASA appropriations bill

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “the bill sets aside $100 million for Europa mission pre-formulation studies, much higher than the $15 million the administration requested and somewhat higher than the $80 million provided for such work by Congress for FY14″

    How many hundreds of millions of dollars will Congress throw at a JPL before a Europa mission moves out of pre-formulation studies and into some actual Phase A design work? The total is approaching a half-billion now. Cripes…

    “The bill does allocate $1.14 billion for Orion and $1.915 billion for SLS, a combined total $270 million higher than the administration’s request”

    Flush, flush, flush…

    “although exploration overall gets $191 million than the administration’s request. The other two programs under exploration, commercial crew and exploration R&D, don’t have their funding levels specified in the draft bill.”

    Then commercial crew and/or exploration R&D get cut by $79 million.

  • Good to see the Space Operations line item going the right way. One hopes eventually congress will tire of watching this pile of money burn.

    BTW. It didn’t take Russia long to threaten our astronauts on ISS.

    http://news.yahoo.com/us-reviving-iron-curtain-policies-russia-094611975.html

    This whole mess was so unavoidable. Oh, well. It’s all fun fun to watch.

    • Nothing wrong with an international space station if:

      1. Its relatively cheap to contribute to for its support ($1 billion or less)

      2. Its not the only space station that the US has

      Unfortunately, the US contribution to the ISS program is costing the tax payers about $3 billion a year. And its the only space station that we have and its not even all ours.

      Putting all of our eggs in the ISS basket was a huge mistake.

      Its time to move on towards the next generation of larger and cheaper private space stations and huge SLS fuel tank derived space stations.

      Marcel

      • Hiram

        What you need if you’re going to Mars is a deep-space hab that can prove out long-duration capabilities. Put it near the Moon and use that hab to control exploration telerobots on the surface (much like you’d do at Mars). Many systems destined for that hab can be developed and proven out on ISS.

        What you do NOT need is a rock to fondle.

        As to larger and cheaper private space stations, fine, but that’s not for federal investment to fund. Let ‘em happen. But if you want a platform that you can develop and prove out what you need for a deep space hab or an eventual Mars craft then you’d better control it.

        There you go again with your premise that it’s a mistake to put all our eggs in one basket with ISS. We can barely afford ISS. You want us to pay for more of them?? That’s completely nuts. I mean, as long as we’re wishing for things we can’t afford, how about a couple of lunar bases. We wouldn’t want to have all our eggs in just one basket there at one base, would we? I mean, we could build one in collaboration with France, and then when they threaten the world, we’ll always have another one available where we’re partnering with someone else.

        ISS is a diplomatic tool precisely because we’re NOT putting our eggs in many baskets. It’s a symbol of both collaboration and mutual dependence and, more significantly, an admission that we can’t do big things in space anymore without that collaboration and mutual dependence. Sorry, but that’s a fact. It’s a diplomatic tool that is used to bond nations and cultures. Not a hammer to threaten with. Frankly, as pissed off as I am about Ukraine, ISS is a totally different thing. When the Russians threaten to invade Destiny, then I’ll get worried about ISS.

        But I have to agree that it isn’t clear we’re getting $3B/yr value out of ISS.

        • amightywind

          Compare the US to a family who overextends and buys a 5000 sq ft McMansion when a trailer home would do. To afford it they might have take in a borders, perhaps one with a penchant for drinking and violence. The McMansion no longer seems so nice. That is the effect of the ISS and our partnership with Russia on the ISS budget.

          • Hiram

            “To afford it they might have take in a borders, perhaps one with a penchant for drinking and violence.”

            Russia is not a “boarder” on “our” ISS. We never “bought” the ISS, but rather bought into it. So sure, I’ll compare it to that family of yours, and the comparison is simply nonsensical. As to violent partners, Russia looked the other way, with regard to ISS, when the United States invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq. Penchant for drinking? Well, Russia has us beat there but, on a per capita basis, our penchant for cocaine and amphetamines blows them away. The effect of our ISS partnership with Russia on our budget is that our budget for ISS is a lot smaller than it would be without them. In fact, we simply wouldn’t be doing it without them.

            Of course, for the work we need to do in LEO, a trailer home equivalent wouldn’t suffice. If you think ISS is all about just maintaining “human presence” in space, then I guess a trailer home in space might do. But if it’s for learning about human factors in space and proving out technologies that can inform future more ambitious voyages, it won’t. The scale of ISS isn’t motivated by vanity.

            Now SLS … that’s another thing. Buying something you can’t afford because it looks so big and powerful is how you “overextend” in the name of vanity. But maybe we need to take on some boarders for SLS with a penchant for drinking and violence? Nah, they wouldn’t be that stupid. They learned their SLS lesson with Energia, and quickly dropped it after developing it.

        • There’s only– one– space station. And we don’t even own all of it. So we have put all of our eggs in just one basket. That’s just the facts!

          Plus there was never any logical reason to place all of our microgravity experiments in just– one– highly centralized space station even if we did own it all. That’s just stupid.

          The ISS is expensive because:

          1. People can’t stay there very long so multiple flights are required every year to transport people there.

          2. Its almost totally dependent on terrestrial resources so multiple flights are required to provide water and food.

          At a lunar outpost on the other hand:

          1. people may be able to stay for a year or a lot longer in regolith shielded habitats. So no need for multiple annual human flights

          2. The moon appears to have plenty of ice resources for the production of water, air, and for growing food. And even the lunar regolith without voliles is about 40% oxygen.

          3. The cheapest way to get to Mars is by using lunar water for fuel and for mass shielding for interplanetary vehicles deployed at the Earth-Moon Lagrange points.

          Finally, Americans would be extremely stupid to just– trust the corporations or eccentric billionaires– to do what’s best for our future:-)

          Marcel

          • Coastal Ron

            Marcel F. Williams said:

            1. People can’t stay there very long so multiple flights are required every year to transport people there.

            The ISS has been continuously occupied for over 15 years – what do you mean “people can’t stay there very long”?

            To date there have been two limitations to how long we have kept crew at the ISS:

            A. The Soyuz that performs the lifeboat function up until recently could only stay in space for 6 months
            B. All of the participating space agencies understood that we don’t yet know how to keep humans healthy in zero-G for longer than 6 months. There is an upcoming 1 year test to see if the mitigation strategies we’ve learned from being in space for 15 years will address the issue, but even if this first test works, others will be needed to validate the results.

            In other words, it’s the nature of doing things in space, not the ISS itself, that has limited our duration in space till now. Not sure how you don’t understand that…

            1. people may be able to stay for a year or a lot longer in regolith shielded habitats. So no need for multiple annual human flights

            We know far less about living in 1/6th gravity than we know about living in Zero-G, so assuming we’ll start off by stranding volunteers on the Moon for more than a year is pretty ludicrous. NASA medical won’t sign off on that, that’s for sure.

            2. The moon appears to have plenty of ice resources for the production of water, air, and for growing food

            We can ship water to the Moon for far less money than it will take to produce it there, and water is not the gating item for doing things on the Moon in the first place – the desire to spend money doing ANYTHING on the Moon has not been demonstrated in over 40 years.

            Finally, Americans would be extremely stupid to just– trust the corporations or eccentric billionaires…

            Not sure what country you live in, but here in America we do trust corporations and billionaires to do many things. I’m not saying that’s good, but it’s the way it has always been, and trying to turn this argument into some class war is pretty silly. I’m mean really, you’re not trying to say that politicians know better, are you? ;-)

          • Hiram

            “There’s only– one– space station. And we don’t even own all of it. So we have put all of our eggs in just one basket. That’s just the facts!”

            We can’t– afford– our own space station on that scale. We certainly can’t afford to have more than one. That’s just the facts!

            “Plus there was never any logical reason to place all of our microgravity experiments in just– one– highly centralized space station even if we did own it all. That’s just stupid.”

            You’re right! We could have duplicated all the ECLSS and comm systems, and made the operation less centralized. Hey, while we’re at it, we should have launch pads all over the country. You know, to make things less centralized! Oh, let’s have ISS mission ops in several places, making things less centralized. What a concept! Gee, maybe we ought to think about communication strategies to get all those folks in different places talking to each other. Better yet, we can post launch and mission ops people in several places, just to make sure we get operational consistency. Logistically, centralization is really a load of crap, no?

            Say, let’s collect taxes at many different places. We’ll get more money that way, no? We’ll need it …

      • Marcel,

        Nothing wrong with an a Super HLV if:

        1. Its relatively cheap to contribute to for its support ($1 billion or less)

        2. Its not the only way of getting humans to space that the US has.

        Unfortunately, the US contribution to the SLS program is costing the tax payers about $2 billion a year. And it can’t be finished in the Block 2 version with any likely budget it is going to get in the future. Even the Block 1 version will launch only once or twice max before its cancelled.

        Putting all of our human deep space eggs in the SLS basket was a huge mistake.

        Its time to move on towards the next generation of larger and cheaper private HLV along with depots and huge low cost space stations derived from Bigelow modules.

        There, fixed that for you.

        • Funding for the SLS is less than $1.5 billion a year. You can’t even launch the largest Bigelow space stations, the Olympus BA-2100 without the SLS.

          Plus everyone wants a HLV, Russia, China, even Elon!

          The Obama administration claimed they wanted an HLV but they wanted to study it for about five years at a cost of about $600 million a year. What a titanic amount of waste that would have been:-)

          Marcel

          • Coastal Ron

            Marcel F. Williams said:

            You can’t even launch the largest Bigelow space stations, the Olympus BA-2100 without the SLS.

            Factually wrong. Bigelow said it could launch on a Falcon Heavy just recently.

            Plus everyone wants a HLV, Russia, China, even Elon!

            Musk has his own plans for his, so that doesn’t matter.

            Considering that you are advocating for U.S. Taxpayer money to be spent, you have to identify a “common good” that it will be spent on. Going to the Moon does not yet rise to that standard. Sorry.

            • Mr. Bigelow probably made an honest mistake. But there is no way the Falcon heavy can accommodate a 65 tonne Olympus BA-2100 habitat that requires a fairing size that is at least 8 meters in diameter. No way!

              And I’ve already listed a ton of reasons on this forum for returning to the Moon starting with the production and export of lunar water to the Lagrange points for mass shielding and fueling human interplanetary missions to Mars.

              Marcel

              • Coastal Ron

                Marcel F. Williams said:

                Mr. Bigelow probably made an honest mistake.

                No, he stated that other than the SLS, that the Falcon Heavy could also lift the BA2100. And considering that he knows more about the BA2100 than you do, I’d trust what he says over you any day.

                But there is no way the Falcon heavy can accommodate a 65 tonne Olympus BA-2100 habitat that requires a fairing size that is at least 8 meters in diameter. No way!

                Considering that the BA2100 is still only a concept, and not a firmly defined payload, I’d say Bob Bigelow has a much better idea what launchers can or cannot launch it.

                And I’ve already listed a ton of reasons…

                Yes, you’ve listed YOUR reasons. However, and I want you to brace yourself about this revelation – few people care about your reasons.

                Now that’s not to say you can’t eventually convince people about your cause, but as of today few people care about going to Mars anytime soon, and even fewer care about going to the Moon to mine one of the most plentiful substances we have here on Earth.

          • Hiram

            “You can’t even launch the largest Bigelow space stations, the Olympus BA-2100 without the SLS.”

            That’s Bob Bigelow’s problem. We’re going to build a megalauncher to save his skin? C’mon.

            Launching large space stations are no problem, as long as you do them piecewise. We are actually pretty expert at doing that.

            “The Obama administration claimed they wanted an HLV but they wanted to study it for about five years at a cost of about $600 million a year.”

            Let’s suppose that’s true. Then they would have decided, nah, it’s a crazy thing to do, and would have saved us a bundle compared to what we’re going to shell out for SLS. :)

          • Vladislaw

            Marcel wrote: “The Obama administration claimed they wanted an HLV”

            Actually the Obama Administration instructed the Administrator to first build a new domestic rocket engine that would be suitable for heavy lift and also to have the design finalized and ready to build no later than 2015.

            That means America would not be having the arguements over the russian engines because replacements would have been very near completion and next year would be starting a heavy lift… In the mean time.. by not wasting 3 billion a year on SLS/Orion, but instead on technology we would have one hell of a lot more tools in our toolbox right now to go forward.

          • “Funding for the SLS is less than $1.5 billion a year.”
            Though the Obama admin originally proposed $1.4 billion for SLS, funding formally assigned to SLS is $1.6 billion for FY 2014. Hardly “less than $1.5 billion”. However, as Jeff pointed out here, http://www.spacepolitics.com/2014/01/14/omnibus-bill-gives-nasa-17-65-billion-and-launch-indemnification-extension-as-well/
            almost all of the “Exploration Ground Systems” budget of $318 million is for “facilities supporting SLS”. Thus the total spent on SLS is very close to $2 billion.

            As for the rest of your objections, I think they are adequately answered by others here.

  • Jim Nobles

    If we lose the ISS we lose our movement into space. It’s that simple. I think the Moonies want to ditch the space station so that the U.S. will have no place to test the long term stuff needed for Mars missions and therefore will have to forget Mars and start doing Apollo moon trips again. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I don’t see any sign that Congress would fund meaningful missions to the moon any more than the will fund meaningful missions to anywhere else. To most of them it’s just pork.

    At least with commercial the costs of maintaining the ISS can come down a little bit due to lesser launch costs. But I wouldn’t expect Congress to fund another space station even if it was significantly cheaper than ISS. Look for the next American space station to be commercial.

    • The US government only needs a space station as a way station for beyond LEO missions.

      Leave the microgravity experiments to private companies like Bigelow!

      Marcel

      • Coastal Ron

        Marcel F. Williams said:

        Leave the microgravity experiments to private companies like Bigelow!

        NASA has already stated that the ISS is the last space station they intend to own.

        And I wouldn’t put it past them to use the same philosophy for Moon outposts either, so you should not get too excited… ;-)

        • Jim Nobles

          If I remember correctly, during the interview he did with Bigelow, Gerst did say that NASA had no intention of operating a moon base. Along with no intention of operating another space station.

          I think NASA would have been happy to operate both and a lot of other stuff if they could get the money to do it but they have accepted the fact that they probably won’t ever see that kind of money again. Not in the foreseeable future anyway.

          • Hiram

            “Gerst did say that NASA had no intention of operating a moon base. Along with no intention of operating another space station.”

            But there are serious studies underway for a cis-lunar habitat. Perhaps at a Lagrange point, and perhaps in an SDRO. Gerst mentioned the latter just today at the Mars Exploration Forum. The trick for NASA will be how to avoid calling it a “space station”. Maybe they can just call it “cis-lunar habitat”. Or maybe save some syllables and call it a “space booth” or a “space closet”? Anything to avoid the frightening fiscal connotation of a “space station”. But NASA is exactly right that those latter words will never be used again. That phrase is *spent*.

        • America doesn’t own the space station, we share ownership.

          And no one in Congress takes the Obama-Holdren mission to nowhere policies seriously.

          Marcel

  • Jim Nobles

    “…$1.14 billion for Orion…”

    Meanwhile Elon just tweeted that the Dragon Mk 2 will be unveiled on May 29. “Actual flight design hardware”, he said.

    How is that going to make Orion look, I wonder?

    • Reality Bits

      No trampolines required. Hah! https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/461279062837968897

      Dymitry! So where is Perspektivnaya Pilotiruemaya Transportnaya Sistema (PPTS)? You are still relying on that old buggy that Sergey Pavlovich built?

      And your grand plan to colonize the Moon? I think that by the time you finally get there you can buy some fuel, food and a bunk at Bob Bigelow’s Budget Suites of the Moon. =)

  • James

    How the heck does JPL plan to spend $100M in pre formulation activities? Egad! Can’t get into flight parts procurement that early, and I can’t see technology development funding really needing $100M. Thats $8.3M per month. Pretty large workforce per month just to put together power point charts.

    • Hiram

      Very true. I have no idea how they plan to spend that kind of money at this very early stage, but it’s not hard to see where it came from. Culberson is in line to chair the subcommittee when Wolf leaves, and Culberson is not only a passionate space science advocate (he’s an amateur astronomer), but has a strong relationship and works closely on the subcommittee with Adam Schiff, who represents the JPL area. They put in a lot of political effort on behalf of SIM, which spent a lot of money before having the plug pulled on it by NASA. It’s never been entirely clear to me where Culberson, who represents a western Houston district and parties deeply in tea, gets off politically on space science. Rice used to be in his district, but is no longer, after 2012 redistricting. I have to say I’ve been impressed by his ability to work hard for science he believes in, even when it doesn’t affect his district.

      • Egad

        It’s never been entirely clear to me where Culberson, who represents a western Houston district and parties deeply in tea, gets off politically on space science. Rice used to be in his district, but is no longer, after 2012 redistricting. I have to say I’ve been impressed by his ability to work hard for science he believes in, even when it doesn’t affect his district.

        Yeah. I have a slightly indirect insight into his space interests, and have been impressed by the extent he goes out of his way to dig into such matters. How or if that squares with TPism, I know not.

  • Gregori

    Marcel, your ideas are insane! If you have a station that’s costing you $3 Billion a year, you don’t compound that error by having multiple stations. Attaching the word “private” to them isn’t some sort of pixie dust that makes their operating costs vanish. There are no private space stations so its premature to say they will be cheaper. We don’t utilize the station we have already enough, so its crazy propose having multiple stations unless budget are going to massively increase (they aren’t). SLS sized stations? Why? What purpose would they possibly serve that can’t be fulfilled with current 16 ton modules?

    Your lunar ideas are pure lunacy. Think of the costs of the ISS, and multiply that by 10. That’s probably how much a rocket fuel producing, food growing lunar base would cost. Whereas the ISS can be resupplied with 8 ton vehicles, a large lunar base would like need constant launches of 70 ton + capable rockets because it couldn’t be self sufficient from day one. The moon is barren and depleted in loads of volatiles needed for plants so growing food on it isn’t really a great idea. There is no way they’re going to dump astronauts on the Moon for years without testing shorter periods first. Constellation was aiming for only 7 days surface exploration. The next people on the Moon are going to be there for short periods.

    Before they consider anything as crazy as lunar base, they need to bring the costs way down because the budget is not going massively up. SLS is already an expensive rocket, but payloads are often far more expensive than the launch vehicle.

    • Vladislaw

      When the ISS is retired in 2024-2028, there should be an operating commercial station in LEO. There will be commercial cargo and crew services also. Bigelow should be close to being able to land a BA330 on Luna by 2028. NASA should have the budget for leasing space on a lunar facility IF the ISS is retired and NASA is not doing the transportation with something like SLS and can get commercial transportation instead.

    • Neil

      Marcel’s been pushing this barrow for a long time. It’s embedded in his psych’ and it appears all logical thinking has been displaced. Sad but that’s it in a nutshell.

  • Eric

    If SLS gets a flight in once a year or even once every two years then it sounds legit as long as it can make big strides each time, such as going to asteroid or and Lagrange point. The important part is that the private sector can take over space operations in low earth orbit. I wouldn’t expect any commercial company is willing to start a moon base if government doesn’t want to pay

    • Reality Bits

      NASA as an Anchor tenant. I would expect a lot of other countries would pony up some money for a fractional share. Bob Bigelow’s Lunar Timeshares!

  • josh

    good thing that clown wolf is retiring and won’t be putting his senility on public display anymore.

    • Hiram

      Wolf’s attitude toward China is positively nuts and highly unconstructive. His fixation on a return to the Moon is based on a stale rationale. But he made some comments the other day about his exasperation with the ARM human spaceflight mission that hit some solid notes. See here his “Concerns about Exploration Program”.

      http://wolf.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/wolf-remarks-at-space-policy-institute#.U2GJzC-LH8o

      For one, “The current asteroid mission was born not out of a strategic vision for American leadership in space, but out of a reactionary need to justify the cancellation of the program to return to the Moon.” Bingo. That’s exactly right. We needed a destination (read “rock”) that we haven’t been to before. That’s not strategic vision. That’s “Get me a new rock, any new rock, quick!” In fact, ARM is going to send people to what is pretty much a random, and likely totally boring, rock.

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