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NASA's plans to send humans back to the moon and even beyond, already under scrutiny as part of a White House–mandated review, are facing the prospect of diminished funding as well.

The House subcommittee responsible for science agency budgets has pared back in its appropriations bill the funds that President Barack Obama requested for NASA for fiscal year 2010. According to the Orlando Sentinel, "Most of the cuts were aimed at NASA's human spaceflight program." Obama requested nearly $4 billion for the agency's exploration division, but the House panel recommended trimming that to about $3.3 billion, which is $212 million less than the division's allocation this year, the newspaper reports.

Overall, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies cut Obama's recommended budget for NASA from $18.7 billion to $18.2 billion. According to Florida Today, the subcommittee's bill should reach the full House Appropriations Committee for consideration early next week.

A statement from the chair of the subcommittee, West Virginia Democrat Alan B. Mollohan, called the "deferral" of funding "a pause, a time-out, to allow the President to establish his vision for human space exploration and to commit to realistic future funding levels to realize this vision."

That pause, Mollohan noted, acknowledges the newly formed review group headed by former aerospace executive Norman Augustine. The 10-member independent panel, whose membership was announced this week, will take a close look at the direction NASA is taking with its human spaceflight programs. Most of that direction—retiring the space shuttle next year, replacing it with a new deep-space rocket program by 2015, and returning to the moon by 2020—stems from the Bush administration, but Obama has so far largely affirmed his predecessor's goals.

The replacement rocket program, dubbed Constellation, is not looking great headed into the Augustine panel's review. Just yesterday the Sentinel noted that the beleaguered program is struggling to keep to its timeline. "Key milestones for the agency's Ares I rocket and Orion crew capsule are falling further behind schedule because of design flaws and technical challenges," the newspaper reported.

Michael Griffin, who led NASA for most of Bush's second term and has tirelessly championed Constellation, told a group of engineers at a conference Wednesday in Huntsville, Ala., that exploring space on a tight budget is not possible. "If we're going to be a space-faring nation," Griffin said, "we're going to have to spend what it takes," according to the Huntsville Times.

Photo of Norman Augustine (second from right) on a separate panel earlier this year: House Committee on Education and Labor via Flickr

7 Comments

1. 1. dbtinc 03:42 PM 6/5/09

   Right now we are in the middle of a financial catastrophe and government spending is at unfathomable levels (I would not argue this is good or bad, it's a statement of fact). I also do not argue that there is a net benefit to research and development but I am afraid at this juncture in time this is a luxury we can ill afford. Can someone provide a reasonable risk assessment that speaks to the impact of halting further space exploration including the International Space Station?

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2. 2. hotblack 05:20 PM 6/5/09

   So, stop our wars one day early. That more than covers the $.
   
   Priorities.

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3. 3. Guy Montag 06:54 PM 6/5/09

   I think space exploration is a wonderful use of my tax dollars. A much better use than, say, bailing out AIG and GM. How small minded and shortsighted are these Congressmen? We were a great nation once, but now we do things like blow $2 billion on a superconducting super collider in Texas and then walk away from it, leaving Europe and others in the lead on basic physics. How pathetic. I am simply embarrassed by this country.

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4. 4. nfiertel 02:09 PM 6/6/09

   I lived through the eraa when the Russians had left the US Space program in the dust. Sure, they caught up in many areas other than the dependability of getting astronauts home and alive but the US program strayed from exploring to a completely stupid ISS project that produced what? Hardware in space that could have been instead placed on the moon's surface to enable not only real science but also a base from which to further explore the solar system. It was a political move and here again the US is doing it again. Why does the US not involved Russia, China and Europe as well as Canada and Australia in an Earth project to set up a moon base, sharing the costs and experience? NO..it is the same old competitive nonsense. Everyone loses in this gambit. Replication of technologies which have no military advantage whatsoever no matter what the generals might say. This ought to be a way for bringing nations together much more so than the stupid lump in the sky that has yet to do science, has cost more than a moon program and accomplished what? Cutting funds for Constellation which is the first rational program that NASA has begun since the original Apollo Program is plainly ignorant but what else can one expect from a Congress wherein politicians with no technical knowledge nor science backgrounds are given the mandate to make decisions way out of their league. I suspect that the Chinese and the Russians actually get better feedback from their technical/science people and it is listened to. Surely the Europeans have done remarkably in pure science and have left the US in the dirt when it comes to physics and so forth. Very sad indeed to watch the US self destruct with poor science prospects and slavery to Insurance companies which is why there is no money for such a space program. In other words, get a real medicare system and then there will be money for space exploration rather than supporting a bloated legalised theft of the national treasury to private medicine when without a viable space program the US will find itself like England..bereft of a space program at all...

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5. 5. alphachapmtl 04:38 AM 6/7/09

   No man in space please.
   Use that money to build new trains and subways.

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6. 6. danajohnson0 05:34 AM 6/8/09

   The sole opportunity for space travel pioneer missions is this century. We will have an apparent reason for not making the expense of manned flight when the oil supply is in a steady decline, ie., the 23nd century and after. I support manned missions in the pioneer attempts to confirm satellite data, and in finding samples following robotic survey mapping and closeup study, such as MER rovers, Huygens/Cassini, HiRISE/MRO, and MSL rover.
   Some manned presence is invaluable, especially on the Moon-observatories, and core drilling, for example.
   The success of robot rovers, and unmanned landers may turn us toward cheap, more limited flights during the budget trauma, but the long term requires a solution to our ignorance about basic matters of astrophysics, and planetary geology, climate/solar stability, and the possibility of a human alteration of our climatic stability.
   Mars and the Moon are two places that will give manned space travelers the basic geologic history which we lack on Earth. Life preserving liquid water has removed and altered nearly all our history in short term swings and erosion activity, Both the Moon and Mars have a record of the period in near surface materials, not distorted as much by water. Only humans can drill samples deeply, currently.
   Manned spaceflight may save our descendants lives during this century of efforts in environmental knowledge building.
   This is our first century of effort in manned space travel. To travel there slowly in planning may be a good goal, non-the-less.
   I support all unnecessary travel being designed as robotic and standardized in production quota numbers as design variations for cost effectiveness whenever appearing safe and possible.
   If we lived very carefully, in moderation, we would not have any budget crisis today.
   Science is a very basic necessity, especially in the first century of efforts.
   There is a reasoning for several nations planning travel in manned space vehicles to the Moon and to Mars. The U.S. is in line with common sound reasoning world-wide.
   Read more at blogs on the value of the missions, as at:
   http://www.marsroverblog.com

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7. 7. Zephyrmation 07:53 PM 6/9/09

   Space is an interesting challenge for us, considering that nearly all terrestrial exploration has been concerned with how to "get there", rather than how to survive once we're there. IMO, once we figure out how to establish sustainable and human-friendly environments on other worlds, the speed and efficiency of space travel will soon follow. At the moment, there just aren't many reasons for going into space apart from scientific research. Demand drives industry - I'm eagerly awaiting the day we figure out how to make inter-planetary trips appealing to the masses.

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