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Projects: S.O.S: Save Our Science!

Save Our Science Progress in Congress

July 18, 2007

Both the House and Senate Appropriations committees have approved increases in NASA’s 2008 budget, a victory for The Planetary Society’s Save Our Science campaign.  However, we still need to fight for more Mars funding. The House increased NASA’s spending by nearly $300 million more than the agency requested, a $1.3 billion over 2006. The Senate increased NASA by about $150 million, a $1.15 billion above the 2006 budget.

The House and Senate have different priorities for allocating the additional funds. While both give the largest increase to science, the Senate increase is almost completely focused on Earth Science. The House science increase of nearly $180 million includes increased funding for space telescopes and planetary probes in addition to Earth Science satellites.  The House also added funds to start a major Outer Planets mission (likely a Europa orbiter).   Both bills support continued investment in NASA's key programs of Orion, the new crew exploration vehicle for the Constellation Program, and the cargo launch vehicle, Ares.

The only significant cuts in the House bill are for Space Operations -- specifically the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS).  The Senate Bill, however, cut Mars exploration whereas the House provided full funding for Mars programs.  The Senate also cut the Navigator program to search for extra-solar planets. 

The next step in both houses is to take the legislation to the Floor for a vote.  Hill staff do not expect that to occur until September.  However, there is a possibility there could be floor action before the August recess.  After floor passage, the Chair and Ranking members of the committees will meet in conference to work out the differences with the bills.  The final bill will then be voted on in each chamber by October 1.  Then the bill goes to the President for approval or veto.

Senators Mikulski, Shelby, Hutchison and Landrieu are co-sponsoring an emergency-spending supplement in the Senate.   They propose to add an amendment to increase NASA funding by $1 billion to make up for expenses incurred and funds diverted due to the loss of the Columbia Space Shuttle.  NASA had to spend nearly $2 billion in recovery from that accident.  In order to pay for the Space Shuttle’s return to flight, NASA cut science, aeronautics and exploration programs.  The bill's sponsors would like to see NASA begin repaying those accounts.  This same amendment was offered last year and was approved by the Committee. However, when the final spending bills became extensions of the 2006 budget, no additional money was retained from the supplemental request.

The Planetary Society is pleased that Congress will likely increase NASA funding by several hundred million dollars or more. But the battle is not yet won, and continued efforts by members of the Planetary Society can help influence future budge decisions.