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warning: this is not a surprise

NASA Takes Huge Hit In Proposed Congressional Budget

by Erin Podolak | 1:31 pm, July 7th, 2011

In what feels like a completely endless debate about how the government should support its science agencies during economic hardship, it seems as though NASA is set to be the sacrificial lamb of budget balancing with almost $2 billion in cuts. Congress has just released its Appropriations bill that gives their views on how much federal money NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) should be given. Massive cuts are called for across the board, but no agency is set to lose as much as NASA.

To determine the federal budget, the President comes up with a budget request that the House of Representatives and the Senate then consider and come up with their own independent counter offers. The House and Senate must agree on budget appropriations before the budget becomes final. In his request, President Obama was relatively kind to NASA but the House apparently doesn’t see the same value in the agency. The House’s budget includes a total cut of $1.64 billion from last year which is almost $2 billion short of the President’s request.

The budget cut suggested by the house is 8.8% of NASA’s total budget. Now, because the Space Shuttle program is ending and the shuttles are being retired, cuts to NASA’s budget could certainly have been expected. According to Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy, the end of the shuttle program could have warranted as much as $1 billion in funding cuts. But the budget calls for $2 billion in cuts. So, what is on the chopping block?

The House bill states that all funding, in its entirety, will be yanked from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The telescope was set to be the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope. The JWST has been an ongoing project for years, and has experienced budget, schedule and management problems. But the project currently has all the pieces built, which are undergoing assembly, and NASA has shown dedication to the project and attempted to fix some of the problems that have plagued it.

JWST is an ambitious project, and it stands to become one of the most spectacular observatories ever built (if it ever actually gets built). The telescope plans call for a six meter mirror in space tuned for infra-red observations, which will allow it to see farther into space and in more detail than any telescope ever built.

This has many people wondering if canceling the project really is cost effective. Would an audit of the project and perhaps re-structuring be a better option? Many have argued that there are other government funded organizations that could be cut instead, but these each have their supporters and opponents as well.Questions also remain about how beneficial cutting NASA and the other science agencies budgets will really be toward fixing the defecit.

In addition to the cuts to NASA, the House bill calls for the NSF budget to hold steady at 2011 funding (which is $900 million less than the Presidential request), for NOAA to be cut by $100 million (2.2%) which is $1billion less than requested, and for the NIST to be cut by $50 million (6.5%) which is $300 million less than the Presidential request.

Before the bill becomes a reality, the Senate needs to come up with their version, and then the House and Senate bills must be reconciled. On the long road to establishing a budget, it will certainly be interesting to see which government agencies take the biggest hit, but it seems as though science is most certainly going to suffer some casualties.

(via Bad Astronomy, photo via NASA Hubble Gallery)

  • Nakedlong

    hopefully they divert more funds to the military. we need more global bases and 3 wars just isn’t enough. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/bill.dietrich2 Bill Dietrich

    Something about the numbers doesn’t make sense.  Half of the 8.8% cut in NASA budget was due to end of Shuttle ?  Does that mean only 4.4% of NASA budget went to the Shuttle ?  That doesn’t sound right.

    Maybe they should cut Shuttle-followon projects instead of the space telescope.

  • Ljosephpeterson

    i think they need to cut war spending, that is the real problem in this country.  If we weren’t such a hostile race we would be so much more technologically advanced and nasa would be able to completely debunk religion by proving the big bang theory as fact. Because most of the wars going on in the world right now are solely caused by religion.  We wouldn’t be in a national debt crisis if it wasn’t for the war we are in right now.  Just look at the debt we were in under clinton when we weren’t at war.  Supporting these wars   doesn’t make you a patriot, supporting the advancement and survival of the country does.  

  • Random Person

    Ljos btw the big Bang is actually majorly flawed in theory there are many observations that prove its wrong its way too complicated to explain 2nd hand. Read “The Big Bang Never Happened” by Eric Learner and you’ll see why

  • Ron Getz

    Are you serious?!  Can you really believe that the human race would survive long enough to investigate the vastness of space if we can’t even treat each other with the basic respect required to live on the SAME planet?  If it weren’t for our soldiers who risk their lives for your freedon to be ignorant of world affairs you wouldn’t even have the technology available to “BLOG”.  Have respect 1st then try to be “advanced and progressive”. As far as Clinton goes he was a liar and a joke, not to mention impeched.  The reason for the economic success during his administration was the 12 years of Reagan’s “Trickle Down Economics” (hence its name).  Clinton only reaped the benefits of being in the right place and in the right time other than that he spent more time  banging the help than he did running the country.  Learn something that doesn’t keep your head in the clouds and then talk about what real men and women who put their lives on their line do to insure the advancement of not only our country but to give the human race a chance to grow as a whole.  I truly believe the space program is essential to our evolution as a species however when people are loosing their homes and raising their children in a socially depraved time we, as a country have to take time off to fix ourselves before we can move forward. 

  • anonymous.

    I hope you know the war right now has nothing to do with religion. And the “Big Bang Theory” isn’t the only theory attempting to explain the conception of the universe, there have been various other physicists who attempted the same thing. The Big Bang Theory itself has different translations to it. I’m not even religious and I found holes in your argument. 

  • Manis

    i realize that the wars are a major topic of hostility, but if we are to retrieve the money from the  mass spending our government has done we should look at the government spending. Where is most of our tax dollars going? i’ll give you a hint, NASA and the military spending combined do not come close to the handouts we give. Social Security and welfare are by far our biggest expenditures, so cutting the 8.8% from NASA, and even (theoretically) cutting a percentage from Military spending we would fail to recover the money we have spent. Its like you saying i have $30,000 in credit card debt and then saying your going to cut spending and save by taking the change from your pocket each night and putting it in a jar.. National Debt is not caused by the military or nasa it is from handouts plain and simple. Hand outs to wall street, welfare recipients, medicare, pork barrel spending, and all the hype about military spending in previous post are uniformed and blatantly ignorant. To recap defense and science make up 22%; handouts(medicare, medicaid, chip,safety net programs, and social security)  not including wall street’s bailout=55%……. of approximately 3542.857143 billion dollars 1948.571429 billion is given away. Final statement, have you Ljosephpeterson and Nakedlong forgotten September 11, 2001? I Sure have not God bless America, and God our military. 


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