WEEKLY WHINE

In defense of space science

As you are no doubt aware, NASA has recently been engaged in a struggle for its livelihood. On MON 26 JUL 1999, the VA/HUD Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee of the US House of Representatives voted in a budget proposal for fiscal year 2000, which begins on FRI 01 OCT 1999. This budget, however, could well have been the single largest error ever committed within the confines of the United States Capitol Building.

The subcommittee's US $93,790,000,000 budget would fund the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at a scant $12,300,000,000. This amount was $1,400,000,000 below what NASA received last year. President Bill Clinton requested $13,600,000,000 for NASA. Here is a look at how that cut breaks down:

Of particular note in this table is that 75% of the proposed cuts from last year come from Science, Aeronautics, Technology. The subcommittee proposed to destroy the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, the COmet Nucleus TOUR mission, the Triana mission, and the Light Synthetic Aperture Radar mission.

You may care to note that these destructions total a savings of only $205,000,000. Other cuts include another $250,000,000 from the remainder of NASA's Earth Sciences budget and a ridiculous $515,000,000 from its Space Sciences budget. Where does all this come from? The future.

$75,000,000 was removed from the fund for future Mars missions. This would probably kill off all of JPL's missions of the Mars Exploration program, including Mars Surveyor 2001, which includes an orbiter, lander, and rover. Also done for would be the daring 2003 sample return mission that is still in the works. Between the two missions, many precursor technologies would be tested that would be critical in paving the way for human missions to Mars.

Fortunately, the subcommittee's word was nowhere near final. On FRI 30 JUL 1999, all members of the House Appropriations Committee met to discuss the funding bill. Their thoughts were that cutting SIRTF and Mars exploration were completely stupid, as was the subcommittee's decision to slice $320,000,000 from the Space Science Supporting Research and Technology funding. The committee added $400,000,000 to the budget: $100,000,000 to save SIRTF, $75,000,000 to save the Mars Exploration Program, and $225,000,000 to be added to Supporting Research and Technology.

This is a step in the right direction but falls well short of what NASA really needs. Several missions would still get the axe for no good reason. The committee's decision to deprive NASA of these well-deserved funds seems random, capricious, and heartless. The hard working NASA research teams deserve our support.

The last time NASA's budget actually increased was in the first year of the Clinton Administration. Since then, continual falloffs have struck, forcing the agency to tighten its belt and begin doing things more efficiently. Administrator Dan Goldin's "faster, cheaper, better" credo took hold in NASA centers, leading to the creation of the Discovery program, which would take project proposals and turn them into viable missions to explore the Solar System for a low cost, a rapid turnaround time, and most importantly, a high scientific payoff. The Discovery program soon spawned a sibling, the Explorer program. This program works similarly but targets spacecraft that focus upon the Office of Space Sciences's other three themes: Origins, Sun-Earth Connection, and Structure and Evolution of the Universe.

Both projects have been remarkably successful. The highlight has been a Discovery probe: Mars Pathfinder, which landed on Mars on FRI 04 JUL 1997 and captured the public's imagination. The Mars Pathfinder site, of course, received ridiculous numbers of hits in the first few days after landing. People were introduced to a rover named Sojourner Truth as well as "Yogi", "Barnacle Bill", and a host of other rocks on the Martian surface.

The Discovery and Explorer programs offer this type of excitement with every mission, to say nothing of the remarkable scientific findings that come with each. The Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer, an Explorer mission, offers the possibility of peering into the first moments after the Big Bang by way of deuterium spectra.

These are affordable missions that provide very significant results for small amounts of money. The United States would do well to ensure that these missions can continue into the future.

As the subcommittee made its original choices, it decided that cancelling early programs would be the best way to reduce NASA's funding. Here is a quotation from page 76 of the subcommittee's report prepared on MON 26 JUL 1999:

I completely disagree with these statements. First, the funding reduction for NASA is not merely significant, it is blatantly foolish. NASA is frequently touted by observers and even by Congressmembers themselves as an example of the way the government should be run. For the past several years, it has reinvented itself, eliminating unnecessary overhead and allowing low cost, high efficiency missions to be built and launched on a rapid schedule. Second, see the table above, which is on a program by program basis. The recommendations are more severe than they appear at first! Just count the five cancelled missions, not to mention the other Explorer, Discovery, and Earth Observation missions that won't survive these cuts.

So why did the committee cut these particular programs? The report continues:

Let me briefly point out that CONTOUR is an acronym and should not be called Contour. Regardless, the committee's decision on this mission and on LightSAR is completely incorrect. The Appropriations Committee decided to restore SIRTF, thinking that destroying the fourth Great Observatory less than a week after launching the third would be something of a hypocrisy.

However, for the time being, CONTOUR and LightSAR are still dead in the water. Whilst I agree that they are early in their development, I have a problem with the end of this statement: "Long-term savings are significant." Of course long term savings are significant! If the Apollo program was cut in 1965, the long term savings would be very significant. But that doesn't make it a good idea. This sentence clearly reveals the committee's shortsightedness and inability to plan for the future. If this budget was actually accepted, NASA would have little or no presence in space after four years. Despite the continuation of the Mars Exploration Program and SIRTF, these programs would be practically useless without the complement of smaller missions that this budget would eliminate.

Just two months ago, the Space Technology 4/Champollion mission was cancelled due to cost overruns by the Hubble Space Telescope and other programs in the Office of Space Science. People everywhere cried out at the destruction of this mission, many of whom had no direct connection to comet research. Now, entire programs face the prospect of being fed to a government that fails to see the importance of space exploration.

Continuing on page 76 over to 77:

Of course these budgets have grown significantly over the last two years. The number of missions has grown significantly over the last two years! As hard as it is to believe, NASA is in a golden age of exploration, with many pieces of equipment being sent as far away as Saturn. There are currently plans to make unprecedented visits to three objects. The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging mission will be the first to enter orbit around the planet Mercury, smallest of the inner solar system. It has been visited only once. The Europa Orbiter mission will be the first to search for liquid water on a body other than Earth. The Pluto-Kuiper Express mission will be the first ever to see the remote planet Pluto up close. This will be a remarkable scientific mission that should provide large amounts of information about the outer Solar System and Solar System formation in general.

To make a long story short: Funding for NASA's Space Science and Earth Science initiatives has increased because these initiatives are becoming more active and are producing fantastic amounts of data for researchers. Think of the old way of doing business: If a scientist needed a given type of information about a particular object, be it Earth, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Pluto, Comet Tempel 1, or whatever, the only choice was to sit around and wait until NASA put together a mission to that object. Now, scientists themselves have more of a say in mission architecture: scientists who want a data set need only get together with other scientists who want different data sets about the same thing. After a while, they hammer out a proposal to a NASA Announcement of Opportunity and actually have a good chance of having their mission selected.

And here's the end of that paragraph on page 77:

If these are the most compelling reasons, the committee seems to have worked itself into a corner. It has presented a very weak case in defending these cuts. If the government cannot afford an extra billion dollars in expenditures to maintain its presence in space, its priorities are sadly out of order. As it stands now, NASA is the undisputed leader in exploration of Earth, exploration of the Solar System, and exploration of the Universe. Now is not the time to let all this go to waste.

As a matter of fact, there will never be a time to let all this go to waste. Take at least one moment to think about the future rather than the present.