Congress is not expected to agree on a budget in the near future, and Obama's proposals may only serve as a starting point for a prolonged discussion
NASA's budget for the 2013 budget year will not only not increase to renew the manned flights, but will even decrease by a third of a percent - or 59 million dollars and will amount to 17.7 billion dollars. This is evident from the budget proposal submitted by the Obama administration. The budget includes the efficiency of the agency and according to NASA will also allocate funds to maintain US leadership in space, although space experts doubt this.
Although Obama's budget, released Monday, is almost identical to the budget approved by Congress last year, NASA supporters in Congress are unlikely to be satisfied. The cut represents a decrease of 5% relative to the forecast of the Congress for the increase of the budget in 2013 to a height of 18.7 billion.
The budget will encourage the use of low-cost robotic missions to Mars as a prelude to a future manned mission. It also includes investment in futuristic space technologies such as laser communication and zero-gravity propulsion.
The NASA budget will leverage the sinking of 830 million dollars from the private sector to enable the launch of humans into space and reduce dependence on the Russians. The budget also allocates funding for a heavy launch vehicle and a crewed spacecraft, and will provide $1.8 billion to launch spacecraft to explore the Earth, understand the climate, and improve natural disaster forecasting.
The budget also has an allocation for the space telescope James Webb to replace the Hubble, as well as for the beginning of planning a project to collect soil samples from an asteroid, but on the other hand this will be at the expense of postponing expensive missions.
Another budget will be allocated to upgrade the launch pads at the Kennedy Space Center. The budget also includes a demand for organizational efficiency in NASA, which means a saving of 200 million dollars.
Criticism of the president's plans largely reflects a general disillusionment by those who want to see a more aggressive space program than a particular concern over this relatively modest cut.
Congress is not expected to agree on a budget in the near future, and Obama's proposals may only serve as a starting point for a lengthy discussion. NASA has often found itself squeezed between inspiring programs and the budget crisis here on Earth. When Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich proposed returning to the moon, his opponents for the Republican presidential nomination ridiculed him and said the plan was unrealistic.
One response
It's a shame, at first they announced that they were giving up the manned flights in favor of unmanned spacecraft projects, now NASA is essentially left with the neutrino in hand - no manned flights and no significant projects in space, all this when countries like China only invest more and more in space exploration, the cut in NASA is unnecessary and will hurt the USA very much.