AAS Public Policy Blog

The Senate appropriations bill covering NSF and NASA is out. You can see the press release which summarizes the bill as well as Sen. Milkuski’s statement.

The Senate’s NSF number is $6.916 billion, a 6.6% increase over FY 2009, but lower than the administration’s 8.5% increase request and the House bill’s 6.9% increase. However, the NASA number matched the administration’s request of $18.686 billion, with none of the cuts to manned spaceflight present in the House bill.

The latest FYI discusses the bill, as well as pointing to the administration’s response to the House bill. For example OMB says in the statement, “The Administration is concerned with the reduction of $670 million from the President’s FY 2010 request for Exploration Systems. This large reduction would likely cause major negative impacts to any options that may emerge from the ongoing blue ribbon [Augustine committee] review of U.S. human space flight plans.”

The conference report for the Senate bill is also available. Either on the Thomas Web Site or the full PDF from the GPO site.

Here is the section of the report on the NSF, or the text of the NASA Science section.

It’s interesting to note where the Senate CJS appropriation deviates from the President’s request. Overall, NASA Science receives $4.517 billion, where as the request was $4.477 Billion. By division the Senate versus Request are as follows:

Division - Request - Senate
Earth Science - $1.405B - $1.405B
Planetary - $1.346B - $1.355
Astro - $1.121B - $1.169B
Helio - $605M - $646M

In Astrophysics, $50 million is added to Cosmic Origins in a new line for servicing opportunities for science missions. (The House had added a similar amount in their appropriation bill ) The R&A request of $61.1 million is reduced to $60 million.

Within Planetary Science, notable changes from the request include an increase to Lunar Quest, in the form of $21 million for the International Lunar Network, and a reduction to Mars Exploration – specifically the “Other Missions and Data Analysis” line is reduced from a $162.1 million request to $150 million.

Within Heliophysics, the largest change is a $50 million appropriation to Solar Probe Plus, from a request of $3.4 million. Heliophysics R&A’s requested budget of $35.4 million is reduced to $31 million in the Senate bill, equal to FY 2009.

Below is the explanatory text directly from the Senate committee report that touches on a lot of these changes:

Read more »

A variety of PDFs are reports are available covering the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science subcommittee bill. There is the full appropriations committee summary, the statement from Rep. Mollohan on the markup of the bill, a summary table of the appropriations.

Much of the detail, however, is in the committee report. The entire report can be viewed as a PDF from the Government Printing Office, complete with numerous tables. It’s also available on the Library of Congress site as a web page – here is the section on NASA science for example.

FYI does their usual, excellent job in discussing the NSF report language. The NSF mark is below the President’s request, a 6.9% increase over FY ’09 instead of a 8.5% increase.

The biggest notable event is that NASA space exploration receives a significant cut over the request – to quote Chairman Mollohan:

The recommendation, however, acknowledges that the Administration has established a blue ribbon panel, led by Dr. Norm Augustine, to review the current vision for human space flight. Funds are provided in the bill to continue investments in human space flight at the same level as provided in fiscal year 2009. Reductions from the budget request should not be viewed as a diminution of my support or that of the Subcommittee in NASA’s human space flight activities. Rather, the deferral is taken without prejudice; it is a pause, a time-out, to allow the President to establish his vision for human space exploration and to commit to realistic future funding levels to realize this vision.

The deferral amounts to a change of 212.3 million less than the request in Exploration. Also, a new budget line was created for the “Construction of Facilities” and some internal budget shifting occurs out of Cross-Agency support.

None of those budgetary changes effect NASA Science or the comparison of NASA science numbers to the request. Science sees a slight increase over the president’s request – $18.9 million more than requested. The details are from the above-linked Science section of the committee report, which you can see below. Read more »

Here is a pdf link to the Mathematical and Physical Sciences FY 2010 budget request. The complete NSF FY 2010 budget table of contents is online. Astronomical Sciences FY 2010 request is $250.8 million, a 9.7% increase over the FY 2009 plan. That increase over FY 2009 does not include the $85.8 million that NSF estimates AST will receive from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus bill).

Astronomy is also featured in the facilities chapter of the request and the MREFC chapter. The latter notes that the ATST (Advanced Technology Solar Telescope) initial construction is being funded with $146 million from the stimulus bill.

Additional details below for specific NSF AST activities:

Individual investigator program (+7.50 million, to a total of $57.0 million). This is primarily for activities in the Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Grants and the Education and Special Programs, to address priorities expressed in the Interagency plan for the Physics of the Universe program.
CAREER program (+$1.0 million, to a total of $4.10 million). This is to increase the division’s support for beginning faculty.

Instrumentation Activities (+$8.25 million, to a total of $31.53 million). This funds increased activity in partnership with the academic community, taking advantage of opportunities for scientific discovery that requires instrumentation and experimentation at the mid-scale range of $5.0 million to $20 million.

Science and Technology Center for Adaptive Optics Funding ends in FY 2010 as ten year support for this center sunsets as planned.

Astronomy Facilities (+$7.51 million, to a total of $136.19 million). Changes are:

• Gemini Observatory (+$390,000, to a total of $19.10 million). This will enable continued operating and visitor support per the international partnership agreement.
• NAIC (-$1.20 million, to a total of $8.40 million). AST support is reduced following the recommendation of the AST Senior Review. This will result in reduced levels of programming, user support, and observing time.
• Combined NOAO/NSO (+$2.02 million, to a total of $41.60 million). Within this total, funding for NOAO primary operations and maintenance funding increases by $1.92 million to $27.50 million and the Telescope System Instrumentation Program (TSIP), administered through NOAO, increases by $1.0 million to $5.0 million in FY 2010. NSO funding decreases by $900,000 to $9.10 million, with the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) being funded from the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) account. For more information on ATST, see the MREFC chapter
• NRAO (-$270.000, to a total of $49.52 million) and ALMA operations ($+$6.57 million, to a total of $17.57 million).

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:

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