Planetary Scientists Protest 'Disastrous' NASA Budget Cuts Proposed for 2014

Supporters of planetary science are rallying against NASA's proposed 2014 budget, which they say unfairly guts funding for solar system research and exploration.

The Obama administration unveiled the budget plan April 10, requesting $17.7 billion for NASA — $50 million less than the agency got in 2012. The budget must be approved by Congress before it becomes official. Under the budget proposal, planetary science would receive $1.217 billion in 2014. Discounting the $50 million earmarked for producing plutonium-238, which fuels deep space vehicles (this used to be paid for by the Department of Energy), and $20 million for asteroid detection in service of a future manned asteroid mission, this represents a $268 million cut from planetary science funding levels approved by Congress for 2013, advocates said.

"The Planetary Society has deep concerns about the continued effort to defund planetary science in NASA's 2014 budget proposal," wrote officials from the society, which was founded by astronomer Carl Sagan to promote solar-system exploration, in testimony submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology April 24. "Without immediate investment in technology and mission development — not possible under the FY14 proposal — the United States will go 'radio dark' in almost all regions of the solar system by the end of the decade." [NASA's 2014 Space Goals Explained in Pictures]

The proposed budget would include $105 million in funds to support an asteroid-capture mission and other asteroid studies, but eliminate a planned robotic mission to Jupiter's intriguing moon Europa, which harbors an ocean buried beneath its icy surface that may support microbial life. And current missions, such as NASA's Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn and the Messenger orbiter around Mercury, may come to premature ends.

Bill Nye, chief executive officer of the Planetary Society, called the budget "shortsighted and disastrous" in a letter urging supporters to write their Congressional representatives in support of planetary science. The organization aims to send 25,000 messages to Capitol Hill by April 28.

A group of lawmakers also joined in the campaign, penning a letter to NASA administrator Charles Bolden on April 19 asking that he and the Obama administration rethink their 2013 NASA budget, which is still unfinalized.

"We write to express opposition to any Fiscal Year 2013 NASA Operating Plan that disproportionately applies sequester and across-the-board cuts to the science budget," wrote Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in a letter signed by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Representative John Culberson (R-TX). "While we fully understand that the funding levels enumerated in the bill and report are subject to change to reflect the across the board and sequester cuts, we expect that the balance among programs will remain consistent with the structure directed by Congress."

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Despite budget stress, US space ties strong: NASA (AFP)

PARIS (AFP) – Relations between the United States and its partners in space remain strong, despite tighter budgets and concerns about costs and delays in building the space station, NASA chief Charles Bolden said on Friday.

"We're talking about having vision and looking to the future, but planning that future in a very constrained fiscal environment," Bolden said in an interview on a tour to meet with European counterparts.

"I wouldn't say we're scaling back the dreams, what we're doing is that we are descoping, or at least discussing ways to descope, some of the missions that we've been planning for a number of years to fit within tighter budgetary constraints."

Bolden explained that "descoping" entailed scrutinising joint projects to pare back some costs but without affecting their key goals.

He gave the example of talks last month in which a joint US-European mission to Mars involving two landers examined options of having only one lander and reducing the instrument payload.

The NASA administrator met in Paris with the heads of the European Space Agency (ESA) and France's National Centre of Space Research (CNES). He heads to Italy next week for talks with Italian space agency chiefs.

The trip takes place when the US space shuttle is about to be phased out after helping to complete the International Space Station (ISS), a giant erector-set project troubled by cost blowouts and delays.

The United States has borne the lion's share, but indirect costs have also hit the Europeans and reduced the scope of scientific research aboard the orbital outpost.

That has sparked some grumbling about the point of the ISS and doubts whether Europe should join the US in future "prestige" projects such as a return to the Moon and, perhaps by 2030, explore Mars.

Bolden argued that the US partnership with ESA, Canada, Japan and Russia not only remained strong, it also had been fortified.

"The International Space Station has made everybody more willing to team up with America and the other partner nations," he said.

"Over the past 10 years we've seen what we can do in spite of the naysayers, in spite of all kinds of challenges. We have an operating space station that has been permanently occupied for a little bit more than 10 years now, has a full-time crew of six, always has an international crew onboard rather than any one nation, and is being serviced by more than four nations right now."

In recent weeks, the ISS has been visited by ESA's robot freighter, Japan's HTV spacecraft, Russia's Soyuz and Progress and the shuttle Endeavour.

Endeavour's sister, Atlantis, is set to launch to the ISS on July 8, the final mission in the 30-year shuttle programme. Bolden himself flew four times, twice as commander.

The reusable orbiter programme was driven by hopes of ushering in an era of simple, low-cost space travel.

But it turned out to be complex and massively expensive, requiring careful maintenance to address safety issues that led to the loss of two out of the five-shuttle fleet.

Phaseout means the United States will be without its own manned space capability for the first time in half a century.

Until a likely rocket-and-capsule alternative, provided this time by the private sector, becomes available, US astronauts will depend on getting into space aboard Russia's veteran Soyuz.

Bolden played down the significance of this, saying the United States had had experience of a similar gap after the loss of the shuttle Columbia in 2003.

"Almost all the companies tell us that they can have the capability available within three years after being awarded a contract. So we're talking about 2014, 2015 timeframe, which is about three years, a little bit more than three years from now," he said.

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