Senate Panel Increases NASA Funding

A U.S. Senate panel has recommended providing $17.45 billion for NASA next year, or about $150 million more than the White House requested.

The bill also includes $4.2 billion for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - about $400 million above the White House request. All of the additional money would go to an oceans stewardship initiative.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), the subcommittee's chairman, said the NASA portion of the bill seeks to strike a balance between the agency's human spaceflight programs - which are fully funded - and its science and aeronautics programs.


SOURCE:
Space.com

I'm glad to see that NASA is getting more funding, and that funding has'nt ceased with
the change in Congress.

I'm especially glad to see that science and Earth science missions are getting funding
instead of being scrapped to fund Manned missions which themselves are just as important.


Comments, Opinions?

This is really good news. I too am glad to see there budget getting an increase. I was afraid that NASA's budget was going to get picked at and slowly decrease somewhat. This should help to keep the Constellation program on track I would think.

Originally posted by jra
This should help to keep the Constellation program on track I would think.

That, and Project Dawn. Official news at dawn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Flagged and Tagged

[edit on 6/27/2007 by damajikninja]

DELETE POST!! Sorry! I posted in the wrong spot!

[edit on 6/28/2007 by damajikninja]

Originally posted by jra
This is really good news. I too am glad to see there budget getting an increase. I was afraid that NASA's budget was going to get picked at and slowly decrease somewhat. This should help to keep the Constellation program on track I would think.

I believe that the Constellation program is already fully-funded all the way through to the next trips to the Moon. I was always more concerned with the unmanned science missions -- such as the un-manned JIMO mission to Jupiter's moons, which was targeted to be launched by 2017, but was later cancelled due to budget constraints and many technological hurdles. It would be great if congress could somehow find the money to get JIMO back on track.

Assuming it ever does get funding, JIMO will be an ion-propulsion craft that will get its electricity from on-board nuclear fission reactors. Having a continuous supply of propulsion power will allow JIMO to move around the Jovian system, going into orbit around a moon for an extended period of time, then moving on to the next moon of Jupiter to spend time in orbit there, and so on. The present technology of chemical propulsion does not allow for this, because the vast amounts of chemical fuel that would need to be carried by the spacecraft would make it too large and heavy. So far, probes such as Galileo could only go into orbit around Jupiter and make fly-by's of its moons. The Voyagers didn't even do that -- they just swung by the whole Jovian system at great speeds and could only briefly study and photograph the planet and some of its moons as the two probes sped past, on to the next planet. JIMO will be an entirely different kind of mission...one that NASA has ever attempted.

The probe Deep Space 1 already proved that ion-propulsion works, and works well. But Deep Space 1 got it's electricity from solar panels only, thus the ion-drive was not as powerful as it needs to be for the JIMO mission.

I know JIMO is expensive and very ambitious, but unless we find a way to "push the envelope" and stop being so worried about the potential failures (and thus the perceived "waste" of taxpayer money), we will continue to only "inch our way" along in space exploration as we have been for to past 30 to 40 years. We need to take more technological chances.

anyway...that's my two cents worth.

Liks:
JIMO - en.wikipedia.org...
Deep Space 1 - nmp.jpl.nasa.gov... and en.wikipedia.org...

Great news.

I really hope that funding gets increased evenmore! Just look at all of NASAs inventions:
Kidney dialysis machines
medical CAT scanner
cardiovascular conditioner
hospital food service system
Athletic shoe design
Freeze-dried
Insulation barriers made of aluminum foil
Water purification technology
surface enhancement coatings
Digital signal-processing techniques
Vacuum metallizing techniques
cordless power tools
Cool suits
hollow retroreflector

And more.... imagine what else NASA can do...

Originally posted by jra
This is really good news. I too am glad to see there budget getting an increase. I was afraid that NASA's budget was going to get picked at and slowly decrease somewhat. This should help to keep the Constellation program on track I would think.

jra, for a professional like you, it is strange to see that you are using "there" where "their" should be used.

NASA is getting a lot of money. The question is - why? What is the real purpose of this organization?

Originally posted by swimmer
NASA is getting a lot of money. The question is - why? What is the real purpose of this organization?

NASA does'nt get anywhere near as much money as they should be getting,
though I suppose the number is large enough that otherwise it would seem like a lot.

The purpose of NASA is to further our collective knowledge of the Cosmos be that in our
own Solar System or a galaxy many Mpc away.

Apart from that there long term goal is Human colonization of the Moon, Mars and beyond.

nasas curerent budget is 1/10th of what it was during the apollo missions. the government would rather spend money waging war in the mid east than scientific research. sucks

Originally posted by JimmyCarterIsSmarter
Great news.

I really hope that funding gets increased evenmore! Just look at all of NASAs inventions:
Kidney dialysis machines
medical CAT scanner
cardiovascular conditioner
hospital food service system
Athletic shoe design
Freeze-dried
Insulation barriers made of aluminum foil
Water purification technology
surface enhancement coatings
Digital signal-processing techniques
Vacuum metallizing techniques
cordless power tools
Cool suits
hollow retroreflector

And more.... imagine what else NASA can do...

Agreed, they should take away all funding from the faith based crap, tax the churches like everyone else and funnel it all to various scientific research.

I am all for funding increases. What is the inflation rate?

If one goes to this MIT Biosuit article and scroll down to the very last line you will see the reference to a NASA group NIAC that funded the subject of the article and many other advanced concepts over the years.

Some projects seen through to fruition by that office may have already been mentioned by others. That office will cease to exist except in an online archived state on August 31 2007 according to this July 2nd Spaceref.com article. Visit NIAC see if your fav project had a history there.

Cheers,

Vic



[edit on 16-7-2007 by V Kaminski]