At present, Congress is setting its own priorities for NASA's $14.03 billion budget proposal as it prepares for the lengthy review process.
The 2000 NASA budget that includes Earth and life sciences is an increase of 3.2 percent over the $13.6 billion being spent this year.
NASA's plans to defend the budget increase were outlined in front of the National Research Council's Space Studies Board.
The office of Earth Sciences 2000 budget decreased to $1.405 billion from $1.443 billion last year because three out of four of its major observatories to map and study Earth are "more or less complete," said NASA associate administrator for Earth science, Ghassem Asrar.
The office plans to invest more money in research and technology to study forces acting on Earth and climate changes, while phasing out spending on Earth-mapping missions. The president's budget allocates $533 million to the office for research and technology for next year, up from $469 million in 2000.
Yet as it plans its nine remaining Earth-observing missions, both major and minor, the office faces a "challenging and difficult" year ahead, Asrar said. The first of 10 missions through 2003, Landsat 7, was launched last April.
NASA Office of Life & Microgravity Sciences and Applications associate administrator, Arnauld Nicogossian proposed ways to spend $277.4 million in funds for next year, up from $274.7 million for 2000.
Next year's plan includes $45 million in new funds to launch a Bio-astronautics initiative to study health problems that humans experience in space in preparation for habitation in the International Space Station.
Nicogossian said physics, chemistry and biology, as well as information technology fields would be blended in the new initiative. "We are going to continue to move to a field of interdisciplinary research," he said.
Under the president's budget request, Life Sciences would receive incrementally more funding through 2005, when it would get $285 million.
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