WASHINGTON
-- President George W. Bush is proposing a largely stay-the-course budget for
NASA, holding the U.S. space agency to an increase for 2009 that would be less
than the rate of inflation.
Under the
annual spending proposal Bush sent to Congress on Monday, NASA would get
$17.614 billion for 2009, a 1.7 percent increase over the agency's recently
enacted 2008 budget. The White House pegs the rate of inflation for
research-intensive agencies such as NASA at around 2.3 percent.
NASA Deputy
Administrator Shana Dale said the agency's budget would grow at slightly above
inflation, or 2.4 percent, between 2010 and 2013.
"This
increase demonstrates the president's commitment to funding the balanced
priorities he set forth for the agency in space exploration, Earth and space
science, and aeronautics research," Dale said during a press conference here
announcing the budget. "We are making steady progress in achieving these
goals."
Still,
Bush's final budget request would leave NASA funded in 2009 at about a half-billion
dollars below where the agency was told it would be by 2009 when Bush first
proposed four years ago building a space
shuttle successor and going to the Moon.
While
NASA's overall budget has not grown as quickly as many space supporters would
like, the amount of funding devoted to the Exploration Systems Mission
Directorate -- the part of the agency responsible for building the new
spacecraft and rockets needed to service the international space station and
send astronauts to the Moon -- continues to increase at a steady clip.
Bush's
request includes $3.5 billion for Exploration Systems for 2009, an 11 percent
increase over the 2008 budget. Exploration's rate of growth would slow somewhat
in 2010 under Bush's plan but then shoot past $7 billion in 2011, the first
year NASA expects to be freed from the $3.5 billion to $4 billion it spends
annually on keeping the shuttle flying.
NASA
officials said the proposed budget keeps the Orion
Crew Exploration Vehicle and Ares 1 rocket on a schedule to make their
debut flight to the International Space Station by March 2015. NASA's
request also would restore the money Congress cut from the $500 million
Commercial Orbital Transportation Services demonstration program late last
year.
NASA been
criticized by some scientists and lawmakers the past couple years for proposing
Science Mission Directorate budgets that will be outpaced by inflation. While
NASA's 2009 request continues that trend, the White House, as previously
announced, included additional funds for Earth observation missions geared
toward studying climate change.
About $1.37
billion of NASA's $4.4 billion Science budget would go to Earth Science in
2009, a 6.8 percent increase over 2008. NASA intends to use the additional
money to get started in 2009 on at least two of five new Earth science missions
it expects to launch by 2015.
NASA's
Planetary Science budget also would go up by just under 7 percent in 2009, but
that is significantly less than the 20 percent hike forecasted for the division
this time last year. Part of the difference is explained by NASA's decision
late last year to postpone
its next Mars Scout mission two years to 2013, saving some near-term
development costs.
NASA's
Astrophysics budget, meanwhile, would drop 13 percent in 2009 as programs
including the James Webb Space Telescope exit their peek years of development
activity. Last year's budget, however, had forecast a nearly 17 percent decline
in astrophysics spending.
Heliophysics,
the NASA division dedicated to studying the sun, also faces a budget cut in
2009 under the White House plan, although not as severe as it first appears.
NASA's request includes $577.3 million for Heliophysics for 2009, down from
$840.9 million this year. Most of that drop -- about $256 million of it -- is
due to NASA transferring financial responsibility for its Deep Space Network
system of ground antennas to the Space Operations Mission Directorate. Still,
the proposed budget would leave Heliophysics with a real cut of $7.5 million.
Alan Stern,
NASA associate administrator for science, said the Earth science increase was
paid for by the reductions to astrophysics, heliophysics, and planetary science
programs.
NASA's
Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate would be funded at $446 million in
2009, about $65 million less than Congress provided for 2008.
Some of the
other highlights of NASA's 2009 budget request include:
- A
commitment to spend $2 billion in the years ahead on a flagship-class
mission to a still-to-be determined Outer Planets destination.
- Preliminary
work on a long-desired Mars sample return mission that would launch by
2020.
- Money to
begin work on an ambitious Solar Probe mission. Launch date still to be
determined.
In response
to congressional direction, NASA's budget now is divided into seven accounts
instead of the traditional three. The biggest effect of this change is that
NASA's Cross Agency Support account, which was just over $550 million in 2008,
swells to nearly $3.3 billion in 2009 as it picks up more overhead and other
indirect expenses that previously had been accounted for within NASA's mission
directorate budgets. As a result of this change, comparing NASA's 2009 request
to the agency's 2008 request would make it appear that mission directorate
budgets are being cut by an average of 17 percent.
NASA's 2009
request, however, includes 2008 budget figures adjusted to reflect the new
account structure. The adjusted 2008 numbers were used in this story.
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