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?
politics |
|
|
|||
|
There were so many rumors and stories last week in the news about what
was to occur on Feb 1st when the Office of Management & Budget
(OMB) released the President's Recommended budget for NASA for the 2011
Fiscal Year. I wrote my thoughts on course correcting our dreams to try and sum up where we were the weekend before the announcement and where I thought we needed to head.
For those of you who have been living under a rock this past week, Obama is recommending a major revectoring of NASA and the way manned spaceflight is conducted in our country. Here are some documents to peruse if you haven't seen them: |
|||
|
Several people have asked me recently what I think of the cancellation of the Constellation programme. I’ll leave the debate around the public versus private sector involvement in manned spaceflight, and the technical and scientific details, up to those whose job it is to argue those cases. I’m not going to give any analysis on how to deliver what has been asked of the space community, nor how to fund it. My take is somewhat different.
|
|||
|
I am a thirty something Mom who has been passionate about space since visiting the Johnson Space Center as a kid. I love science and everything about it, but ultimately went for my second and third loves to start off my careers. I got my undergraduate degree in Elementary Education, and my Graduate degree in Public Administration and now work at NASA in the Office of Legislative Affairs, constantly focusing on making sure Congress understands the importance of funding a robust space program. |
|||
