"This budget in-sources jobs, creates capabilities here at home -- and strengthens our workforce, all while opening the next great chapter in American exploration," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "And as we reach for new heights in space, we're creating new jobs right here on Earth, helping to support an economy that's built to last."
The NASA budget includes $4 billion for space operations and $4 billion for exploration activities in the Human Exploration Operations mission directorate, including close-out of the Space Shuttle Program, and funding for the International Space Station, $4.9 billion for science, $669 million for space technology and $552 million for aeronautics research.
It was very important to put that "jobs" piece and "built to last" into this budget spin, with little time for dreaming these days. However, not everyone is convinced. The Planetary Society has his own take on this new budget in a press release titled "Proposed FY 2013 Budget Would Devastate Planetary Science in NASA":
NASA’s planetary science program is being singled out for drastic cuts, with its budget dropping by 20 percent, from $1.5 billion this year to $1.2 billion next year. The steep reductions will continue for at least the next five years -- if the Administration’s proposal is not changed. This would strike at the heart of one of NASA’s most productive and successful programs over the past decade.
If Congress enacts the proposed budget, there will be no “flagship” missions of any kind, killing the tradition of great missions of exploration, such as Voyager and Cassini to the outer planets. NASA’s storied Mars program will be cut drastically, falling from $587 million for FY 2012 to $360 in FY 2013, and forcing missions to be cancelled. The search for life on other potentially habitable worlds -- such as Mars, Europa, Enceladus, or Titan -- will be effectively abandoned.
“People know that Mars and Europa are the two most important places to search in our solar system for evidence of other past or present life forms, said Jim Bell, Planetary Society President, “Why, then, are missions to do those searches being cut in this proposed budget? If enacted, this would represent a major backwards step in the exploration of our solar system.”
It is interesting that one source is talking about exploration in the regions of Saturn and Uranus while another implies an end to all such missions. And of course this is not the final budget. It is no fun reading these budget documents, but I may give it a try to make some sense of all of this. The bottom line, of course, is that we have some lean years ahead of us and this White House may be more interested in locating jobs on Earth than life on other planets. This is the new reality (or maybe it has always been thus, but better packaged).
