NASA « Space Politics

Nelson vows to fight for commercial crew funding in Congress

By Jeff Foust on 2012 February 17 at 1:06 pm ET

In a speech Thursday, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, said he would work to get NASA’s commercial crew program funded at the level requested in the administration’s fiscal year 2013 budget proposal this week, while insisting that the president himself is a “fan” of the space agency.

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More NASA budget feedback

By Jeff Foust on 2012 February 15 at 5:37 am ET

In a press release yesterday, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) criticized elements of the administration’s FY13 budget proposal, including the funding provided for the Space Launch System (SLS). However, unlike Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), who worried it and Orion were not getting enough money, he argued the “SLS Titanic” was getting too much. “By NASAâ€™s […]

Reactions to the NASA budget rollout

By Jeff Foust on 2012 February 14 at 6:38 am ET

With so much attention devoted to planned cuts in planetary science funding in general, and Mars exploration in particular, much of the reaction to the budget focused on that. “The priorities reflected in this budget would take us down the wrong path,” Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye said in a statement released by the organization. […]

Few surprises, but plenty of angst, in NASA budget proposal

By Jeff Foust on 2012 February 14 at 5:57 am ET

The NASA budget proposal released on Monday came out pretty much as expected, given the information that leaked out in the days and weeks leading up to its release. The agency overall proposes to receive just over $17.7 billion in fiscal year 2013, less than $100 million below what the agency received for 2012. There’s […]

Report: NASA getting only a small cut in FY13 budget proposal

By Jeff Foust on 2012 February 10 at 1:22 pm ET

The FY13 budget isn’t officially released until Monday morning, but Aviation Week has news about what it will contain for NASA: an overall request of $17.711 billion, or $89 million (0.5%) less than the agency’s final FY12 budget. As expected, the proposal cuts $300 million from planetary sciences, and kills the US role in the […]

More reactions to impending NASA planetary science cuts

By Jeff Foust on 2012 February 10 at 6:48 am ET

“The Mars program is one of the crown jewels of NASA. In what irrational, Homer Simpson world would we single it out for disproportionate cuts?” So asks Ed Weiler, who retired from NASA last year after serving as the agency’s associate administrator for science, in an interview with ScienceInsider. Weiler said he decided to leave […]

Cutting back the solar system

By Jeff Foust on 2012 February 9 at 6:33 am ET

On Monday the Obama Administration will release its fiscal year 2013 budget proposal, and NASA has its traditional budget briefing scheduled for Monday afternoon, which this year will include a “tweetup” with a handful of the agency’s Twitter followers (you can sign up through 5 pm EST today). The details about the budget are embargoed […]

Growing budget deficits may have scuttled an “inspiring” Obama space program

By Jeff Foust on 2012 January 23 at 8:35 pm ET

Tuesday night President Obama will give his State of the Union speech before a joint session of Congress. Some have wondered if he might sneak a brief mention of space into the speech because the administration disclosed today that former astronaut Mark Kelly will be at the speech, sitting in the First Lady’s box. Of […]

Science hoping for the best, preparing for the worst in FY13 budget

By Jeff Foust on 2012 January 20 at 6:36 am ET

Early month the White House will release its fiscal year 2013 budget proposal. While most of the details of that budget proposal have been, or very soon will be, nailed down, some organizations are making a last-minute push to lobby for funding for NASA science programs in particular. Others, though, worried about what the budget […]

Smith: Congress supports the JWST

By Jeff Foust on 2012 January 18 at 6:36 am ET

On the final day of last week’s meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Austin, Texas, attendees to made it to the morning plenary got a bonus speaker: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), a member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. In his brief comments he tried to assure the astronomers in the […]

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