Bush seeks modest NASA budget boost

President Bush's budget blueprint for NASA calls for a 2.4 percent increase in 2006, but still falls short of promises made after the president unveiled his vision for space exploration early last year.

The president instructed NASA to return humans to the moon by 2020 and mount a subsequent human expedition to Mars. He promised to pay for these with budget increases averaging 5 percent per year for three years.

NASA's proposed $16.5 billion budget for 2006 is $500 million short of the projections it used in planning the initial steps in fulfilling the vision. But the space agency says anticipated reductions will not affect its ability to explore the moon and Mars and develop nuclear propulsion for long-duration and deep space missions.

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, who is leaving the agency Feb. 18 to become chancellor of Louisiana State University, told reporters that the proposed budget illustrates how NASA is retooling itself to meet broad strategic objectives. "It is a different way of looking at things, but it is necessary," he said. "When will this transformation be concluded? My fondest hope is never."

NASA still expects to meet key milestones for returning the space shuttle to flight in May or June, testing an exploration vehicle prototype in 2008, finishing construction of the International Space Station around the end of the decade and demonstrating a nuclear spacecraft within a decade.

Budget documents also reaffirm NASA's plan to retire the space shuttle in 2010, conduct the first crewed flight of the exploration vehicle in 2014 and send humans back to the moon by 2020.

The budget indicates, however, that NASA has canceled plans for a robotic repair of the Hubble Space Telescope and deferred plans for a probe to Jupiter's icy moons that was being designed for the nuclear spacecraft demonstration.

"Every agency is seeing reductions being made and NASA is no exception," agency Comptroller Steven Isakowitz said. "We think we came out in a very good position in this budget, and it's because of the vision and the priority the president has placed on what we're trying to achieve."

For the past year, while struggling to return the space shuttle to flight, NASA has been positioning itself to deliver on Bush's exploration strategy. The space agency has realigned programs, discarding those that don't support the vision, and restructured management, streamlining its Washington headquarters operation.

The retooling will continue this year and next. NASA is analyzing the skill mix at its field centers with plans to redistribute employees as needed. Agency officials also are seeking to close underutilized facilities and are aggressively exploring nongovernmental management plans for the agency's field centers.

The spending plan places greater emphasis on competition as a spark for technological innovation, projecting $10 billion worth of new contracting opportunities in the next five years.

Budget highlights include:

• Space science funding totals $5.5 billion. Substantial increases are planned for lunar and Mars robotic exploration (17 percent to $858 million), the James Webb Space Telescope (19 percent to $372 million), the Explorer spacecraft program (17 percent to $218 million) and the Beyond Einstein program of physics and astronomy research ($33 million to $56 million). Increases also are in store for solar system and Earth system science.
• The budget includes $18 million to study ways to extend the Hubble telescope's scientific life as long as possible and $75 million to build a robot that can remove the telescope from orbit safely when it can no longer operate.
• NASA seeks $1.1 billion to further plans for robotic and human exploration on the moon and Mars. The budget includes $753 million-less than promised-for Project Constellation, the expeditionary spacecraft and associated launch system. There is $320 million, also less than promised, for Project Prometheus, the nuclear development program.
• The big loser in the budget is aeronautics, with funding dropping from $852 million in 2006 to a projected $718 million in 2010. The budget includes $193 million, a 4 percent increase, for aviation safety and security and $200 million, a 32 percent increase, for air traffic control systems development.
• The $4.5 billion space operations budget covers $366 million in return-to-flight projects and five planned shuttle flights in 2006. The International Space Station would receive $1.9 billion.