The end result, the
scientists warned, will be further erosion of the nation's leadership in
scientific research.
"NASA is being asked to
accomplish too much with too little,'' said the document, prepared by a panel
of scientists at the request of Congress.
The proposed 2007 budget
for the space agency could weaken programs for space and earth science,
jeopardize national research goals and stunt the development of the nation's
next generation of scientists, according to the report.
"The cuts fell disproportionately
on the small missions and the research and analysis part of the program,'' said
Lennard Fisk, a space science professor at the University of Michigan and
former associate NASA administrator who chaired the committee. "These are the
foundation programs ... If you disproportionately cut there, you
disproportionately cut the pipeline.''
The budget constraints will
cause many science missions to be delayed or dropped,
the report said. Already, 240 grants affecting 500 postdoctoral fellows,
graduate and undergraduate students have been terminated.
"The net result of these
actions will be that ... our nation's leadership in Earth and space research
and exploration will erode relative to the efforts of other nations,'' said the
report, which was to be presented Thursday at a meeting of a NASA advisory
committee in Washington.
NASA spokesman Dwayne Brown said the
space agency is in an ongoing discussion with the science community on the
budget challenges at meetings this week.
"I think folks are
confident that there's going to be a robust and executable science program,''
said Brown, who hadn't had a chance to read the report. "There has been a very
good and open dialogue and discussion.''
President Bush's proposed
2007 budget calls for a 3.2 percent increase in NASA spending over last year.
Just under a third of the space agency's proposed $16.8 billion budget for 2007
would be devoted to science, but science funding is only expected to grow 1.5
percent next year and 1 percent each year through the end of the decade.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said
earlier this year that he had to take money from science and exploration
programs to make up for an almost $4 billion shortfall over the next four years
to pay for finishing the space station and flying the shuttles through 2010.
The report asked the space
agency to reverse funding cuts for small missions, research and analysis
programs at universities and NASA centers and astrobiology
- the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.
These areas need an increase of just over 1 percent of NASA's total budget, the
report said.
It also asked that money be
restored for space station science studying the effects of long duration
spaceflight and countermeasures to radiation, saying knowledge in those areas
will be needed for missions to the moon and Mars. That funding could also be
restored with less than 1 percent of NASA's total budget, the report said.
"These are real programs.
They involve real people and real scientists and planning that had taken place
for decades,'' Fisk said.
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