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bananas

(27,509 posts)
Mon Jun 16, 2014, 02:44 PM Jun 2014

A Closer Look at NASA’s FY 2015 Budget Prospects

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/06/16/nasa-budget-proposals-comparison/

A Closer Look at NASA’s FY 2015 Budget Prospects
Posted by Doug Messier on June 16, 2014

After years of flat and declining budgets, it looks like NASA will get a funding boost this year from an unexpected source — Congress.

<snip>

The table below shows funding under the Obama Administration’s request and amounts set by the Senate and House Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations committees.

<snip>

Despite sharply deteriorating relations with Russia, neither the House nor the Senate was willing provide the full $843.3 million the Administration requested for commercial crew, which is designed to eliminate U.S. dependence on Russian Soyuz vehicles for rides to the International Space Station.

The Senate measure comes closest to the request at $805 million, while the House provides $785 million. Whether either of those amounts would allow NASA to fly astronauts to ISS on a commercial basis by the end of 2017 remains to be seen.

<snip>


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A Closer Look at NASA’s FY 2015 Budget Prospects (Original Post) bananas Jun 2014 OP
The problem is GOP senators with ties to SLS contractors LongTomH Jun 2014 #1
More from Phil Plait......and I agree heartily! LongTomH Jun 2014 #2
Soviet Socialist Republicans! Alex P Notkeaton Jun 2014 #3
Kicked and recommended. Uncle Joe Jun 2014 #4

LongTomH

(8,636 posts)
1. The problem is GOP senators with ties to SLS contractors
Fri Jun 20, 2014, 03:41 PM
Jun 2014

From Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog: NASA Funding: New Senate Funding Bill Will Delay Sending Americans in Space for Years:

What I want to point out—again—is how the Space Launch System is gumming up the works. SLS is supposed to be a heavy-lift rocket designed by NASA to replace the shuttles. I say “supposed to be” because I have been saying for quite some time that it is very likely to get bloated, over budget, and behind schedule. That’s a common circumstance for really big NASA projects (like the Space Station, the shuttle, Hubble, JWST, and others). NASA’s bureaucracy gets in the way, and as the dollar signs increase, Congress-critters start getting their own states and districts involved, muddying the situation further.

That’s apparently what’s happening here. As has been reported by several sources, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) has put his thumb on the scale. He has added language to the Senate bill that will make it a lot harder for commercial space companies—like, say SpaceX—to launch humans into space. He’s basically adding a layer of government to the requirements for commercial companies, making them account for costs and pricing.

Oddly, this sort of accounting is already in place with contractors like Boeing—which, shockingly, is a big player with SLS, and which has a large plant in Alabama, Shelby’s home state—but is not in place in companies like SpaceX and Sierra Nevada. This means that the newer startup companies will be put at a disadvantage against the older government contractors.

Bottom line: Shelby’s addition makes it easier for SLS to get built, and harder for commercial companies to build their own vehicles to send humans into space (and, importantly, can do it far, far cheaper than SLS can). That means we’ll have to rely on the Russians more for the time being. That’s something we really, really need to stop doing. They’re gouging us for rides to space, and their political situation isn’t exactly the most conducive for us right now.

LongTomH

(8,636 posts)
2. More from Phil Plait......and I agree heartily!
Fri Jun 20, 2014, 03:49 PM
Jun 2014
And worst of all, we still don’t have a clear and sustained purpose for SLS. Our government wants to spend billions upon billions of dollars on a rocket for no defined reason. It’s maddening.

This is getting so ridiculous that I’m starting to lean more and more toward an outright cancellation of SLS. It’s just too big and tempting a target for Congress members to avoid. President Obama canceled its predecessor, Constellation, because of cost overruns and scheduling slips. I still think it was the right thing to do; we’d have thrown billions at a rocket that we still wouldn’t have. SLS is seriously starting to feel like it’s slipping into that same groove. I’m not the only person to think so, either.

We’ve been facing this type of nonsense now for far too long. NASA needs to be exploring, but instead we have to rely on another country just to get people into low Earth orbit … and this is four decades after we sent humans to the Moon!

I agree entirely! Send SLS to the shitcan! If you want heavy lift capability, Elon Musk will be ready in a few years.
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