NASA faces big spending cuts

Unfortunately, due to the way Congress splits up its budget bills, NASA is competing with veterans' health care.

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

why is this going on? Is there more problem now, or what is the next idea.. ? I like NASA I hope it can move on and get things right
this could be serious, is that why they are thinking of maybe dumping TRMM ?

I wouldn't read too much into it yet. The budget for FY2005 is still in the quid-pro-quo stage, where one congressman threatens second congressman's sacred cow until they support the first congressman's own sacred cow. I'm not 100% sure, but Bush's proposed budget had an increase of a billion over FY2004, so the "cut" they are talking about is rather... virtual.

__________________
Do try not to take me too seriously.

I wouldn't read nafarious motives to NASA from this. This sounds more like Capitol Hill. This appears to be Bush's decrease taxes and increase spending coming home to roost. We have to improve veteran's benefits to "support our troops". NASA's in that same spending pile, and Congress seems to be saying, "you can't have that new space initiative project and everything else. If you could cut expenses to shuffle money to new projects, then you can cut expenses and keep what you've got, and we'll shift the money elsewhere."

At least that's how I read it.

Yes, this is in the early stages of budget negotiations, but I would take this as a bad sign. With the deficit increasing rapidly, there is going to be a lot of pressure to cut budgets across the board.

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

I read more on it

It is disturbing, especially at a time when we should have a celebration on the great achievements by Apollo 11's Anniversary
It is so sad to hear news like this, how can they let things like this be happening :x I hope the problems can be fixed and it will all move on again, NASA has been wonderful before let'ss hope it can go on ahead again and do great things.


there was headlines on yahoo news

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ss_budget_dc_2


so what will happen now ?

I wonder why
http://www.detnews.com/pix/2004/01/2...1_deficit2.jpg
http://factcheck.org/imagefiles/image002.png

Minor point: Clinton did jack for the defecit. He had some very good accountants work the numbers so that if the Dot-Com boom hadn't busted, and if everyone paid their full taxes, and if everything else went well, the budget would gain a surplus sometime in 2012 or so.

It was pure politics and book-cooking.

That said, even Clinton wasn't as big a spender as Bush had been. yeesh.

Shot across the bow:

Don't let this thread degenerate.

Thank you.

5% increase in military spending approved by Congress. Total sum: $420 bil.

__________________
"Its full of stars!"

There's a difference between the deficit and the debt. According to the usual government accounting approach (which is debatable because it includes social security revenues), the Clinton administration actually did take in more revenue than it spent for several years (probably mostly because the Democratic administration and Republican Congress were at loggerheads). If this had kept up for another 15 years or so, it might have eliminated the national debt. But I doubt anyone considered that that was a realistic possibility.

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

These numbers really need to be adjusted for inflation. #1 sign of a political agenda in budget presentations is not doing so.

Also, budget numbers as a percentage of GNP is a better thing to look at.

Back on the OP, this is old news. The Senate has already passed an addition to NASA's budget. The mechanism they used to do it-- basically an emergency appropriations bill-- is a bit ugly, however.

__________________
Do try not to take me too seriously.

Demigrog thanks for the idea on percentages, because it shows the federal budget deficits are even MORE MASSIVE !
It is hitting a record each week in terms of the sheer number of dollars involved, it has now passed the 4% and amounting to 4.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), right now it is the highest level since that horrible record in 1986. Some Economists say the rate things are going, the cost of iraq, falling job market and rising price of oil we could soon be going past 5% and onto 6% . It does not matter if the leaders are Republican or Democrat, if they are doing a bad job on the employment sector and messing with the economy and slowing industry then something must be done. Hitting 5% would be terrible. Let's hope the clowns running the economy don't try and bankrupt the US. ABCnews, CNN/Money and even the rightwinger Fox was running news on it last week.

I hope NASA can come back, getting finance and economic right is important for the US and the space industry but NASA must also look at new designs and concentrate on having manned missions back in space soon.