NASA FY95 Budget Request: An Overview

In an overall NASA budget request that decreases for the first time since the end of the Apollo program, space science programs gain a little ground while human space flight activities lose some. President Clinton’s fiscal year 1995 request for NASA is $14.3 billion, a decrease of $251.4 million (1.7%) from last year. “We cut back on human space flight, we increased the science budget and we increased the technology budget,” NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin declared. He added, however, that “this is it. We can’t get any closer to the bone. . . . If there are more cuts, they will upset the balance and the quality in the program we worked so hard to develop.” In commenting on the request, George Brown (D-California), chairman of the House science committee, said, “This is not the usual good news/bad news budget for NASA. It’s a case of bad news/worse news.”

Human Space Flight Activities, a new category this year combining space station and shuttle funding, would be reduced 5.8% to $5,719.9 million. Decreasing would be the shuttle program (down 6.4% to $3,324.0 million) and funding for joint activities with the Russians (down 12.1% to $150.1 million.) The space station program would receive a total of $2,100.0 million, with some of that funding appearing under the science budget.

Space Science as a whole would grow $44.1 million (2.6%) to $1,766.0 million, improving its share of the total NASA budget from 22.4% in FY94 to 24.3%. Within Space Science, Planetary Exploration, which includes the Cassini mission to Saturn, the Discovery program, and a less-ambitious replacement for the lost Mars Observer called the Mars Surveyor, would increase $53 million (8.1%) to $707.3 million. Physics and Astronomy within Space Science would be reduced by 0.8%, however, to $1,058.7 million. Physics and Astronomy programs include AXAF, the Explorer program, and Gravity Probe B, now renamed the Relativity mission.

Life and Microgravity Sciences both would receive a reduction in the FY95 budget; Life Sciences would drop 22.6% to $145.6 million, and microgravity would decrease 27.0% to $128.9 million.

Mission to Planet Earth, which includes the Earth Observing System, Earth Probes, and the Landsat program, would receive the largest dollar increase, growing $213.6 million (20.9%) to $1,238.1 million.

In accordance with the Administration’s emphasis on technology, Advanced Concepts and Technology would receive a healthy boost of $113.1 million (22.8%) to $608.4 million. Space Communications and Processing, Spacecraft and Remote Sensing, Advanced Space Transportation, Technology Transfer, and Small Business Innovation Research all fall under this category. Aeronautics Research and Technology, on the other hand, is slated to decline by $203.7 million (18.5%) to $898.5 million.

Further FYIs will provide more detail on the requests for NASA’s Space Science programs and Mission to Planet Earth.