FY 2014 NASA Budget Request
The Obama Administration has requested $17,715.4 million for NASA in FY 2014, a decline of $54.6 million or 0.3 percent from the FY 2012 level. Science funding would decline 1.1 percent under the proposed budget.
In his remarks on the FY 2014 request, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden emphasized the agency’s science programs:
“We are developing a first-ever mission to identify, capture and relocate an asteroid. This mission represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities and help protect our home planet. This asteroid initiative brings together the best of NASA’s science, technology and human exploration efforts to achieve the president’s goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025. We will use existing capabilities such as the Orion crew capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and develop new technologies like solar electric propulsion and laser communications -- all critical components of deep space exploration.
“NASA’s ground-breaking science missions are reaching farther into our solar system, revealing unknown aspects of our universe and providing critical data about our home planet and threats to it. Spacecraft are speeding to Jupiter, Pluto and Ceres while satellites peer into other galaxies, spot planets around other stars, and uncover the origins of the universe. The budget funds our amazing fleet of scientific spacecraft, including strong support for study of the Earth and its response to natural or human-induced changes. And on the heels of the most daring mission to Mars in history last year, provides funding to launch another mission to the Red Planet. We also will continue our steady progress to develop and conduct critical tests on the James Webb Space Telescope, leading to its planned launch in 2018.”
Total NASA:
Down $54.6 million or 0.3 percent from the FY 2012 budget of $17,770.0 million to the FY 2014 request of $17,715.4 million.
Total Science:
Down $55.9 million or 1.1 percent from $5,073.7 million to $5,017.8 million.
Within the Science budget are the following programs:
- Earth Science: Up $85.6 million or 4.9 percent from $1,760.5 million to $1,846.1 million
- Planetary Science: Down $283.9 million or 18.9 percent from $1,501.4 million to $1,217.5 million
- Astrophysics: Down $6.1 million or 0.9 percent from $648.4 million to $642.3 million
- James Webb Space Telescope: Up $139.6 million or 26.9 percent from $518.6 million to $658.2 million
- Heliophysics: Up $8.9 million or 1.4 percent from $644.8 million to $653.7 million
Aeronautics Research:
Down $3.7 million or 0.6 percent from $569.4 million to $565.7 million
Space Technology:
Up $168.9 million or 29.4 percent from $573.7 million to $742.6 million
Exploration:
Up $208.2 million or 5.3 percent from $3,707.3 million to $3,915.5 million
Space Operations:
Down $301.1 million or 7.2 percent from $4,184.0 million to $3,882.9 million
Education:
Down $41.9 million or 30.8 percent from $136.1 million to $94.2 million
