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FY2011 Budget
txflygirl's picture

Questions on NASA's Future

Submitted by txflygirl on Mon, 03/01/2010 - 18:41

Earlier this month I shared with you my thoughts on NASA's new vision and how the new vision could fail. And the weekend before the budget was unveiled I wrote about what I thought NASA should pursue in its future.

There has been no shortage of people sharing their thoughts on the FY2011 budget and the revamping of NASA and that is exactly how it should be.  People should be heard.  To date, the blog post in my opinion that sums things up the best is Changing Horses in Mid Stream.  If you haven't read this one yet, it's worth the time.
txflygirl's picture

Funding Promises?

Submitted by txflygirl on Thu, 02/04/2010 - 20:28
Here is what I see happening assuming Congress does not fight the President's vision.  NASA will start implementing this change as soon as Congress allows the FY2010 funds to be redirected.  In December, Congress slipped into their appropriations bill that Congress had to approve the cancellation of the Constellation program.  Congress will fund FY2011 and maybe even FY2012 as Obama requests.  But after that they will begin to decrease funding just like they have for every NASA program ever conducted and/or canceled. Why do you always hear that a Government program is behind schedule and over budget?  There is a simple answer for that.  Because Congress only approves and releases funds on a yearly basis and they typically cut funds from a program as the years go by.  It happened to Apollo (change in direction), Shuttle, ISS (how many times did Congress try to kill it), X-33/X-34, Orbital Space Plane, shall I go on?

FY2011 NASA Budget

Submitted by Smith5se on Mon, 02/01/2010 - 12:49

Hello my fellow spacetweeps! As we all know today was an important day for NASA, not only for remembrance but also for the teleconference that just took place at 12:30pm (eastern).

Now I find myself full of so many more questions than answers at this point and definitely don't think my thoughts could be contained in 140 character posts. Now I'll admit that most of the space jargon talk goes over my head, particularly when it comes to flight hardware and accounting issues (e.g. budgets!) but I'm left sitting here with questions.

Questions such as: What is the bigger picture? Where will we go? How will we get there? What's going to happen to KSC (why 21st century upgrades?)? Why was something so important not televised and WHY for gods sake did the administrator need to duck out of the teleconference so quickly? Yes he may have to discuss things with our international partners but this teleconference seemed mighty important and it would have been nice to at least have the administrator there to field a few questions.
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