AAS Public Policy Blog

AIP’s latest FYI breaks down the NASA budget numbers released last week. An excerpt:

• Science : Down 0.6 percent, or $26 million from $4.503 billion to $4.477 billion.
• Earth Science:Up 1.8 percent, or $25 million from $1.38 billion to $1.405 billion.
• Planetary Science:Up 1.5 percent, or $20 million from $1.326 billion to $1.346 billion.
• Astrophysics:Down 7 percent, or $85 million from $1.206 billion to $1.121 billion.
• Heliophysics:Up 2.3 percent, or $13.4 million from $591.6 million to $605 million
.

Update – In addition, the transcript (PDF link) from the Science conference call is online. Dr. Ed Weiler and several SMD associate administrators answer questions from the media in the transcript.

Update II The SMD budget out-years are summarized in this table:

The Space shuttle Atlantis should launch today at 2:01EDT to make the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. There’s a launch blog, and you can watch coverage via Nasa TV online.

I

Live streaming of two relevant FY 2010 budget presentations are today. First up, at 12:30PM EDT is the OSTP R&D budget presentation, which will summarize R&D spending throughout the federal government. You can listen live via the AAAS site. Officials from NSF, NOAA, and NASA will be present.

NASA has their own 2:30PM EDT press event, followed by several conference calls with the divisions. Audio of the conference call will be here. The press event will be shown on NASA TV

You can also view the NASA media advisory which contains details on the budget rollout. At 1:30PM ET, the budget documents will be available at the NASA budget web site

Update

NASA budget documents are now online:

• Science Overview
• Astrophysics
• Heliophysics
• Planetary Science
• Earth Science

Do you read this blog regularly? Do you think you could do just as good or a better job? Do you have both a Ph.D. in astronomy or a related field and an interest in public policy? If so I strongly encourage you to apply to be the next John Bahcall fellow at the AAS. The full job ad for the John Bahcall Public Policy Fellowship is now up on the Job Register.

I can personally attest that the Bahcall fellowship is a great introduction to the world of science and public policy. In addition to writing this blog, the Bahcall fellow writes action alerts, informational emails, attends congressional briefings, Decadal survey events, and a wide variety of other activities more spelled out in the job ad itself.

The position is opening a bit earlier than last cycle, as I’ll be leaving for the AIP Congressional Science Fellowship in the fall. I think the Bahcall fellowship gave me a myriad of experiences and skills that prepared me for the AIP application and interview, as well as many other potential future public policy career directions.

The position is one-year, with a second-year renewability option. If it sounds interesting to you, I encourage you to apply.

NASA’s Next Leader Arriving at Time of Transition – NYTimes.com. NASA’s somewhat uncertain future is written about in today’s NY Times, noting the lack of a new administrator, and the challenges facing whoever eventually takes the position.

In his speech today to the National Academies of Sciences, President Obama set a goal of spending 3% of our GDP on Research and Development:

I believe it is not in our American character to follow – but to lead. And it is time for us to lead once again. I am here today to set this goal: we will devote more than three percent of our GDP to research and development. We will not just meet, but we will exceed the level achieved at the height of the Space Race, through policies that invest in basic and applied research, create new incentives for private innovation, promote breakthroughs in energy and medicine, and improve education in math and science. This represents the largest commitment to scientific research and innovation in American history.

I’m struggling to find a hyper link for the transcript of the speech, so I’ve put the entire speech is below the fold here (or “after the jump”). (I think I’m using this feature properly.)

Read more »

Via Space Politics, there is a new CBO Report (PDF link) that games out several other options for Constellation / Space Shuttle / etc. This was a congressionally mandated report. The CBO expects NASA to experience cost growth, and thus lays out alternate scenarios from NASA’s official plans:

On the basis of the cost growth that has occurred in the past, CBO’s analysis indicates that the costs of NASA’s development programs could grow by 50 percent, on average. That analysis examined the performance of 72 of the agency’s past programs—65 per- cent of which experienced less than 50 percent cost growth and 35 percent of which experienced more (see Box 1). NASA’s budgetary plans include reserves in the agency’s development programs that would allow cost growth of about 25 percent to be accommodated. Because of the likelihood that NASA will not meets its planned schedules if funded at its current level, CBO considered four alternative scenarios.

The scary one for science would be this:

Scenario 4: Absorb Cost Growth to Achieve Constellation’s Schedule by Reducing Funding for Science and Aeronautics

which means taking money from science (as in, half of it) and using that to contain the cost-overruns.

The other alternative scenarios are:

• Scenario 1: Keep Funding Fixed and Allow Schedules to Slip
• Scenario 2: Execute NASA’s Current Plans and Extend Operation of the Shuttle and Space Station
• Scenario 3: Achieve the Constellation Program’s Schedule and Allow the Science Schedule to Slip

The full report lays all this out in a table, as well as the impacts these scenarios have on the timeline for the shuttle, space station, and number of science missions, etc. It’s worth a read.

I found myself fascinated by a lot of the Station of the Profession position papers up on the Astro2010 web site. The community definitely had thoughts on a wide range of issues from facilities to various aspects of employment, and the profession. There are also numerous science white papers as well.

In other decadal news, the latest chair’s bulletin (PDF link) has been posted to the Astro2010 site today, and was sent in Decadal Update email today.