The final FY 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act funds the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at $17.3 billion, less than earlier amounts recommended by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, but meeting the budget proposal of President Bush. While the funding is a 5.2% increase over FY 2007 and respectable given the overall restrictions on the federal budget, the spending focus is heavy on manned space programs and light on science.
Attempts failed to shore up unmanned science programs by moving money from the manned programs in the harried, last-minute negotiations over the bill. The final bill leaves basic and applied research at the space agency at $3.4 billion, 0.2% below last year’s funding level.
The Constellations Systems program to replace the Space Shuttle with the Crew Exploration Vehicle and the Crew Launch Vehicle receives $3 billion, a 6.2% increase over FY 2007. The International Space Station (ISS) receives $2.2 billion, up 26%, as NASA pushes to complete construction of the orbiting facility by 2010. The Space Shuttle program, which is focused almost entirely on supporting the ISS, receives $4 billion.
Congress has grown increasingly concerned about NASA’s curtailment of its Earth Sciences programs and made that concern clear in the budget report. The Explanatory Statement notes that NASA’s current plans call for two new earth science missions every two years. “At that rate,” the statement says, “NASA Earth observation research missions will have decreased from 18 down to four or five in the next two decades.” Earlier in the congressional session, appropriations were designated to boost the Earth Science program by 10%, but that fell to a 4.4% increase of $1.5 billion as the final bill was put together.
About $40 million of the Earth Science money is aimed at implementing the recommendations of the National Research Council’s report, "Earth Science and Applications From Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond."
The breakdown of the final numbers for NASA’s Science Directorate are as follows:
Earth Sciences:
FY 2007 budget: $1.46 billion
Administration FY 2008 request: $1.49 billion
Congressional appropriation: $1.54 billion, up $46.8 million, or 3.1%
Heliophysics:
FY 2007 budget: $1.02 billion
Administration FY 2008 request: $1.05 billion
Congressional appropriation: $1.07 billion, up $13.2 million, or 1.2%
Planetary Science:
FY 2007 budget: $1.41 billion
Administration FY 2008 request: $1.39 billion
Congressional appropriation: $1.40 billion, up $9.7 million, or 0.6%
Astrophysics:
FY 2007 budget: $1.56 billion
Administration FY 2008 request: $1.56 billion
Congressional appropriation: $1.59 billion, up $33.7 million, or 2.1%
Within that overall science spending, the consolidated bill sets budget “floors” for the following science missions and programs:
-- Hubble Space Telescope, $280 million
-- James Webb Space Telescope, $545.4 million
-- Global Precipitation Measurement mission, $90.2 million
-- Mars Exploration Program, $626.4 million
-- Space Interferometry Mission, $60 million
NASA has drawn the ire of Congress in the past year for what some claim is neglect of the agency’s “Aeronautics” mission. The administration requested a 21% cut in aeronautics funding, which would have come on top of cuts to the program in previous budgets. Congress added $62 million to the aeronautics request, but that still left the program facing an 11% cut to $616 million.
After a moratorium on earmarking last year, Congress included $83 million in designated programs, ranging from $1.8 million to establish a degree program in space and telecommunications law at the University of Nebraska to $2.7 million to “expand the reach” of an electronic medical records system at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia.
NASA’s education program is funded at $173 million, a cut of $20 million from FY 2007.
Finally, the bill's Explanatory Statement reflects ongoing congressional concern over NASA’s drawn-out restructuring process that has made it difficult to accurately track programs and funds. Congress must be notified of “any deviations” from established funding processes, the report says. The appropriations committees also directs NASA to “establish an ongoing relationship with the National Academy of Sciences (to provide) an independent project review,” and notes that, “In the future, the Appropriations Committees do not intend to recommend approval of any major program changes unless an independent review by the National Academies concurs with NASA’s proposed course of action.”
And finally, to get a better idea of what is going on within the space agency, the budget report directs the Government Accountability Office to prepare status reports on “selected large-scale NASA programs, projects or activities.”
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Friday, January 4, 2008
US presidential candidates and their views on scientific issues
What are the United States presidential candidates’ positions on scientific topics ranging from evolution to global warming? A special news report, which is being published in the 4 January issue of the journal Science, addresses these questions and profiles the nine leading candidates on where they stand on important scientific issues.
The 10-page special report, “Science and the Next U.S. President” profiles Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson and offers voters a glimpse at each candidate’s views on science.
"Science felt that it was important to find out what the presidential candidates think about issues that may not be part of their standard stump speeches but that are vital to the future of the country--from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to improving science and math education,” said Jeffrey Mervis, deputy news editor, who oversees election coverage for the magazine's news department. “We hope that the coverage may also kick off a broader discussion of the role of science and technology in decisions being made in Washington and around the world.”
Mervis writes in the article’s introduction that “the issues seem likely to remain relevant no matter who becomes the 44th president of the United States.” Here are some of the reports from Science’s news writers:
Hillary Clinton gives “the most detailed examination of science policy that any presidential candidate has offered to date” emphasizing innovation to drive economic growth, writes Eli Kintisch. She has proposed a “$50 billion research and deployment fund for green energy that she’d pay for by increasing federal taxes and royalties on oil companies. She would also establish a national energy council to oversee federal climate and greentech research and deployment programs.” And, “her science adviser would report directly to her.”
John Edwards would end censoring research and slanting policy on climate change, air pollution, stem cell research and would increase science funding, write Jocelyn Kaiser and Eliot Marshall. He would oppose expanding nuclear power and proposes “to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, using a cap-and-trade system to auction off permits as a regulatory incentive.”
Rudy Giuliani’s “campaign successfully discouraged key advisers from speaking to Science about specific issues,” writes Marshall. On abortion, he would with reservations let the woman decide what to do. And, that the “League of Conservation Voters reports that Giuliani has ‘no articulated position’ on most of the environmental issues it tracks.”
John McCain views global warming as “the most urgent issue facing the world” and makes climate change on of the top issues of his campaign, writes Constance Holden. On the human embryonic stem cell issue, “he draws the line at human nuclear transfer, or research cloning, arguing that there is no ethical difference between cloning for research and cloning for reproduction.”
For a more detailed portrait of candidates’ political views on science-related issues, the News Focus article will be available to subscribers at www.sciencemag.org on Thursday, 3 January.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/aaft-upc010208.php
The 10-page special report, “Science and the Next U.S. President” profiles Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson and offers voters a glimpse at each candidate’s views on science.
"Science felt that it was important to find out what the presidential candidates think about issues that may not be part of their standard stump speeches but that are vital to the future of the country--from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to improving science and math education,” said Jeffrey Mervis, deputy news editor, who oversees election coverage for the magazine's news department. “We hope that the coverage may also kick off a broader discussion of the role of science and technology in decisions being made in Washington and around the world.”
Mervis writes in the article’s introduction that “the issues seem likely to remain relevant no matter who becomes the 44th president of the United States.” Here are some of the reports from Science’s news writers:
Hillary Clinton gives “the most detailed examination of science policy that any presidential candidate has offered to date” emphasizing innovation to drive economic growth, writes Eli Kintisch. She has proposed a “$50 billion research and deployment fund for green energy that she’d pay for by increasing federal taxes and royalties on oil companies. She would also establish a national energy council to oversee federal climate and greentech research and deployment programs.” And, “her science adviser would report directly to her.”
John Edwards would end censoring research and slanting policy on climate change, air pollution, stem cell research and would increase science funding, write Jocelyn Kaiser and Eliot Marshall. He would oppose expanding nuclear power and proposes “to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, using a cap-and-trade system to auction off permits as a regulatory incentive.”
Rudy Giuliani’s “campaign successfully discouraged key advisers from speaking to Science about specific issues,” writes Marshall. On abortion, he would with reservations let the woman decide what to do. And, that the “League of Conservation Voters reports that Giuliani has ‘no articulated position’ on most of the environmental issues it tracks.”
John McCain views global warming as “the most urgent issue facing the world” and makes climate change on of the top issues of his campaign, writes Constance Holden. On the human embryonic stem cell issue, “he draws the line at human nuclear transfer, or research cloning, arguing that there is no ethical difference between cloning for research and cloning for reproduction.”
For a more detailed portrait of candidates’ political views on science-related issues, the News Focus article will be available to subscribers at www.sciencemag.org on Thursday, 3 January.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/aaft-upc010208.php
The Year, 2007 in Nanotech;
Nano Power
Nanowires and carbon nanotubes are proving valuable for generating and storing energy. Researchers have shown that nanowires can convert vibrations into electricity. (See "Nanogenerator Fueled by Vibrations" and "A New Nanogenerator.") Other nanowires can generate power from light. (See "Tiny Solar Cells.") Carbon nanotubes could be useful for extracting more power from cheap solar-cell materials. (See "Cheap Nano Solar Cells.")
Nanotechnology could also greatly improve batteries. MIT researchers made fibers out of viruses coated with functional materials. The fibers could lead to textiles that collect energy from the sun, convert it into electricity, and store it until it's needed. (See "Virus-Built Electronics.") At the end of the year, Stanford researchers published research showing that silicon nanowires can significantly increase the storage capacity of battery electrodes.
Read more at http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/19983/
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