Even though President Barack Obama's proposed fiscal year 2013 budget will not be officially released until Monday, Aviation Week has obtained the details of the proposed spending for NASA.
In keeping with the Obama administration's policy of selecting certain government accounts for austerity, NASA spending will suffer a decrease from the FY 2012 level by about $89 million, for a level of $17.11 billion.
Planetary Science
As previously reported by the Washington Post, the planetary science account will take a $300 million cut. This will require NASA to withdraw from two joint missions to Mars hitherto planned with the European Space Agency. This will largely pay for cost overruns being suffered by the James Webb Space Telescope, now scheduled for a 2018 launch. Previously Congress capped the overall cost of the JWST at $8 billion.
Commercial Crew
The Obama administration will request $830 million for the commercial crew program, which is designed to create space craft to be operated by private firms to take astronauts and cargo to and from the International Space Station. The administration requested a similar amount for FY 2012, but Congress cut the funding largely in half according to Space Politics. Currently the spacecraft are due to be operational by 2017.
Space Exploration
The heavy lift Space Launch System will be funded at $1.8 billion. The Orion Multi Purpose Crew Vehicle will get $1 billion. The first flight of the Orion is scheduled to occur in 2014 on top of a Delta IV heavy. The Space Launch System is due to launch a second Orion in 2017. The first crewed Orion flight is to take place sometime between 2019 and 2022.
The International Space Station.
Operations on the International Space Station, including payments to Russia for the use of their Soyuz spacecraft to take astronauts to the orbiting facility, are pegged to be funded at $3 billion.
Space Technology
The space technology development program, designed to create technology to facilitate future space exploration missions, is due to be funded at $699 million. Recently the National Research Council identified 16 technology priorities that NASA ought to be working on.
Aeronautics
Aeronautical research, the "second A" in NASA, will receive $500 million in funding.
Bottom Line
As always with budgets, as the president proposes, the Congress disposes. Some members of Congress have already raised questions about the cuts in planetary science. At the same time, Congress balked at funding the commercial crew program at over $800 million in the current fiscal year. It remains to be seen if it will be willing to do so in the upcoming fiscal year.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker, He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly Standard.
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