• PROJECTS
• THE PLANETARY REPORT
• PLANETARY RADIO
• WEBLOG
  • Archive
  • Future Space Events of Note
  • Special Coverage
  • Video Archives
• SOCIETY UPDATES

browse projects: Apophis Mission Design Competition Asteroid Impact Mapping System Catalog of Exoplanets Drive a Mars Rover Extrasolar Planets Transit Search International Lunar Decade LIFE Experiment: Phobos Mars Climate Sounder Team Website Messages from Earth Observing Earth Pioneer Anomaly Planetary Microphones S.O.S: Save Our Science! SETI Optical Telescope SETI Radio Searches SETI@home Shoemaker NEO Grants Solar Sailing Space Advocacy Space Information Stardust@home Target Earth Visions of Mars

browse space topics: 2001 Mars Odyssey Asteroids and Comets Cassini-Huygens Chandra X-Ray Observatory Chandrayaan-1 Chang'e 1 Compare the Planets Dawn Deep Impact Earth Extrasolar Planets Genesis Hayabusa (MUSES-C) Hubble Space Telescope Jupiter Kaguya (SELENE) Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Mars Mars Exploration Rovers Mars Express Mars Global Surveyor Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mercury MESSENGER Moon Near Earth Objects Neptune New Horizons New Horizons Digital Time Capsule Past Missions Phoenix Planetary Analogs Planetary Exploration Timelines Planetfest 2008 Pluto and Charon Pluto Top Ten Postcards from Venus Private Missions Rosetta Saturn Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence SMART-1 SOHO Space Imaging Spitzer Space Telescope Stardust Trans-Neptunian Objects Ulysses Uranus Venus Venus Express Voyager Weekly Planetary Radio Trivia Contest

The Planetary Society Weblog

By Emily Lakdawalla

Some science saved

Weblog Archive

Edit since I first posted this: some further details on the markups are at the bottom of this posting.

Some good news came out of Washington today! The Planetary Society just issued a statement: "House Subcommittee Helps Save Our Science." The gist: some (not all) of the funding cuts have been restored, including $50 million directed specifically at restoring some of the cuts to research and analysis programs. And $15 million was directed specifically for a mission to explore Europa. Read the statement for more details.

If I remember correctly from the discussions that took place at the recent Outer Planets Assessment Group meeting, $15 million is in the ballpark of the right amount of money that is thought to be necessary to perform a "Phase A" study of a future flagship Europa mission. In other words, this is exactly the step that the Outer Planets community asked for. So that's good. Thanks to all of you who have contributed your voices to the Save Our Science campaign -- Lou Friedman told me that the campaign was noticed and made a difference.

Of course, the fight is not over -- Lou noted that "80% of the cuts still remain." And while there was restoration of some funds, there were some cuts in other places to compensate. Here is some information that Lou forwarded to me unattributed -- so take it with a grain of salt.

House Appropriations Subcommittee Mark of FY 2007 NASA Request
Preliminary Summary 6/14/06

NASA total: $16.709B, reduction of $83.227M from request.
Total adds: $175M
Total cuts: $258M

Adds:
Science, +$75M (50M, R&A; +$10M, TPF; +$15M Europa) Europa mission is a new start
Aeronautics, +$100M

Cuts:
Constellation Systems, -$16M
ESRT, -$135M
Advanced Business Systems/Innovative Partnerships, -$23.7M
ISS, -$33.4M
Corporate G&A, -$50M

Full Funding:
Mars
CEV, CLV
Shuttle
ISS Cargo Crew
Other programs are apparently fully funded as well; these are the programs mentioned specifically by Subcommittee staff

Other:
- no earmarks
- account structure as proposed by President
- includes funding amounts by theme in bill language
- includes transfer authority between accounts (not to exceed 5% from any account, but no account can be increased by more than 10%)