NASA Funding Update: The Funding Gap for Space Exploration

The actions of the new Congress concerning funding NASA's program to send human explorers to the Moon and Mars can seem puzzling. This is especially so for anyone who is unfamiliar with the capacity of politicians to practice double think. On the one hand, the vast majority of the Congress slashed a half billion dollars from spending on the exploration program in the 2007 Omnibus Spending Bill. On the other hand, some of the same people are complaining that the White House's 2008 request spends too little on the exploration program. In a recent hearing held by the House Committee on Science and Technology, Chairman Bart Gordon stated, "First, the FY 2008 budget request continues a pattern of Administration requests that fail to ask for the level of funding that the White House had said NASA would need to carry out the exploration initiative and its other core activities. Specifically, in the three years since the President announced his exploration initiative, the White House has cut NASA's five-year budget plan by a total of $2.26 billion. And based on this year's budget submittal, that shortfall will worsen by another $420 million in FY 2009." The concerns were echoed by the House Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Subcommittee the and Senate Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Subcommittee during hearings last March.

The complaints would resonate better if Gordon and other members of both the House and Senate had not voted to slice a half billion dollars from the White House proposal that they have already called--with some justification--inadequate. Nevertheless, promises to rectify the situation have proliferated. Republican Congressman John Culbertson and Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski, among others, have vowed to add at least a billion dollars to the White House's 2008 request. Whether these promises will become reality remain to be seen.