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From the Executive Director

NASA 2007 Budget: Science Not Just Cut -- It Was Eviscerated

February 10, 2006

Click to enlarge > Louis Friedman, Executive Director

Every year the U.S. President sends his Administration's proposed budget for the next fiscal year to Congress in the week following the State of the Union address. The proposed budget for NASA is part of the whole, and as we waited during the first week of February, I sensed a great deal of tension in the space science community. Cuts were feared. Rumors and hints had been circulating for many weeks, so much so, that the Society had taken the unusual step of sending a letter to the President asking that science not be unduly cut in the NASA budget.

Space science was not just cut; it was eviscerated. Planetary exploration was savagely pruned. The budget would delay or cancel several long-awaited missions and proposed major decreases in scientific research. Most egregious was the loss of a mission to Europa, the moon of Jupiter given the highest priority for exploration by advisory committees both of the National Academy of Sciences and of NASA itself.

Immediately, The Planetary Society responded, issuing a statement, very critical of the proposed budget and vowing to begin the fight. But it will be a difficult struggle. As one Washington official put it, "Science and exploration have to pay the bill for the shuttle."

I don't understand that. I strongly support the Vision for Space Exploration and the plans to re-focus human space flight beyond Earth orbit, but I don't know why NASA has to keep throwing money at a vehicle it has already decided to retire, while cutting the most exciting ventures in space exploration, the discovery of new worlds, and the search for extraterrestrial life.

There are only two reasons to keep paying the shuttle's bills: domestic and international politics. I have to admit, those can be powerful reasons to do less for more money, as is the case with this NASA budget. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to overcome them.

If the Administration were to bite the bullet and cancel the shuttle now, it would be a blow to the NASA centers and aerospace contractors now busy at work trying to get it flying again. But they know the shuttle program is ending and the transition to new vehicles and new missions will have to begin soon. Dodging inevitable change will not make it go away. And doing it sooner rather than later usually lessens the pain, and, in this specific case, forcing the shift now could speed up plans to take us back to the Moon and on to Mars.

To complete the International Space Station is even a bigger problem. There is no way to do so now, except with the shuttle. But, in the future, there will be a way. The heavy-lift launch vehicle planned to take human explorers to the Moon and Mars is shuttle-derived and will be capable of delivering the European and Japanese modules -- designed to fly on the shuttle -- to the space station.

But that new launcher won't be ready until 2014 at the earliest, and the international partners take a firm position about not waiting that long and demanding that the United States honor its commitment to deliver those modules with the shuttle. We are all for honoring commitments, but given the record of the last few years, does it really make sense for Europe and Japan to put all their eggs in the shuttle basket? A more robust plan, one with a future, could be devised to advance Europe and Japanese human spaceflight goals. The cost would be a few years -- but only a few years -- delay with the modules. In fact, if there are more problems in the shuttle program, it might lead to bigger delays.

The Society is launching a political advocacy campaign for space science and planetary exploration in NASA. We are coupling that with a push for international cooperation in lunar exploration and in developing an international lunar way-station that would help prepare humans to go to Mars. We will push hard for a robotic mission to Europa to explore the ice-world and to see if its sub-surface ocean can -- or does -- support life.

As important and valuable as these things are, I will admit they could wait a year or two. The Moon, Mars, and Europa will still be there. But the really dangerous delay in the NASA budget proposal is to delay the transition from the shuttle. If we don't get on with its retirement now, there will be no redirection of human spaceflight beyond Earth orbit, and the Vision for Space Exploration will darken. Unless of course, NASA is allowed to eviscerate science and robotic exploration, as proposed in this budget.

Given what the Hubble Space Telescope, the Mars Exploration Rovers, Stardust, Deep Impact, Cassini/Huygens and so much more have brought us in the past few years, how silly will that be? Forcing a debate over science vs. human spaceflight may be the worst mistake in this year's budget proposal. That will surely increase opposition to the space program in the scientific community and might well lead to further budget decreases.

We're not yet asking our members to send letters and make phone calls to Congress. That will be necessary in the weeks and months ahead, when the budget proposals move closer to a vote. Check these pages, watch your mail, and, if you are ready to help us, join and help the Society in its fight to keep NASA in the business of exploring other worlds.

-- Louis Friedman
Executive Director