Two days ago, President Bush released his $17.6 NASA budget for FY09. There are a few notable points here: the Langley Research Center took a $92 million hit; Mars exploration has been pushed to the periphery with no new landings scheduled after the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory; and over $173 million has been earmarked for Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, restoring some money Congress cut from the $500 million program late last year.
Interestingly, this is the first year that NASA’s Constellation program has received more funding than the Space Shuttle, which will retire in September 2010. Though Constellation will receive an extra $6.5 billion by that time (directly from shuttle program coffers) the program won’t be operational until at least 2015, forcing NASA to rely on the Russians for access to the International Space Station in the interim.
Florida Senator Mel Martinez, for one, is aghast: “Relying on the Russians to put a person in space for us? C’mon, this is the United States of America!” Get ‘em Mel!
Just over a quarter of NASA’s $4.4 billion science budget will go toward earth sciences, while the rest is slated for two proposed earth science missions beginning in 2009. The budget request calls for $910 million of funding for a total of five new Earth science missions over the next five years.
On a related note, how much do you suppose Iran invested to enter the space race?
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