Friday, January 17, 2014

NASA Budget

This week NASA received $17.65 billion for fiscal year 2014. There is a video on NASA's website outlining the fiscal year 2014 proposal. In fiscal year 2013, NASA only received $16.9 billion. The House Appropriations Committee had approved a NASA budget of $16.6 billion for fiscal year 2014 while the Senate Appropriations Committee called for $18 billion. President Obama had asked for $17.7 billion. Th $17.65 billion should be applauded as a compromise that ended up in favor of NASA and the governments commitment to furthering the United State's interests in space exploration.

This spending bill gives NASA money for a mission to Mars, commercial space activities, and to explore Europa, one of Jupiter's many moons. The USA Today article explains how the budget deal preserves these many missions. According to Eric Berger of the Houston Chronicle this is a big win for the Europa mission, but the funds for the commercial activities fall short of what is actually needed to put a commercial crew in orbit by 2017. Jeff Foust provides reactions and an excellent summarization of the fiscal year 2014 NASA authorization bill at http://www.spacepolitics.com/.