From: aasmail [aasmail@aas.org]
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 10:29 AM
To: 'aasmembers@aas.org'
Subject: AAS Informational Email 2005-24 

AAS Informational Email 2005-24 

Fiscal Year 2006 Budget Approved by Senate and House 
Conference Committee 

Kevin B. Marvel, Deputy Executive Officer 

Summary 

This Informational Email provides detailed information on 
the Science, State, Justice and Commerce Appropriations act 
for Fiscal Year 2006. This appropriations bill funds both 
NASA and NSF as well as the Departments of State, Justice 
and Commerce. 

Details 

NASA 

On 7 November, the House voted to accept the conference 
committee report on the appropriations bill for Science, 
State, Justice and Commerce. The full text of the bill can 
be found most easily by going to this link [ http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app06.html ],  
which provides a tabular summary of all appropriations bills 
and their current status and then clicking on the link to 
H. Rept. 109-272. The Senate has yet to approve the 
compromise, but they are expected to do so soon and it is 
also likely that the President will sign this bill into 
law. It is important to note that the details outlined in 
the conference report are not 'law', but are generally 
adhered to by the agency as it implements the spending plan 
approved by Congress. Some of these detailed instructions 
include significant spending on earmarks. 

NASA's budget for Fiscal Year 2006 will be $16.457B, which 
is between the levels proposed by the House and Senate 
independently and slightly below the President's requested 
level. This level is also only 1.3% over FY 2005, which 
can be considered a flat or slightly declining budget given 
estimates for the rate of inflation. A cut across all 
domestic discretionary programs as high as 2% is expected 
to be agreed to by the House and Senate once all the 
spending bills have been passed. Numbers presented in this 
email do not include this anticipated reduction. 

Within the NASA budget, Science, Aeronautics and 
Exploration funding will increase to $9.7B or 7.6% from 
FY2005 levels, but much of this increase is in the 
Exploration portion of the budget to support the new 
Constellation Systems program. This program's goal is to 
develop replacements for the shuttle and new equipment to 
get humans to the Moon and Mars.

Congress has allocated $271 million for the Hubble Space 
Telescope in anticipation of a servicing mission to repair 
the telescope. This amount is $50M more than the 
President's requested level. 

Planetary exploration attracted a good deal of attention 
in the spending bill. Mars exploration funding remains at 
the FY2005 level of $680M. One interesting item in the bill 
includes direct mention of the National Academy of Sciences 
Decadal Survey for Planetary Sciences, in which a mission 
to Jupiter's moon, Europa, is listed as a top priority. 
Congress reads our decadal surveys and uses them for 
guidance. They represent an important community activity 
and one of the things that sets astronomy, defined broadly, 
apart from other scientific disciplines. 

Although not providing any direct funding for this mission, 
which was originally to have taken place under the defunct 
(zeroed out in this budget) Project Prometheus program (to 
develop nuclear powered propulsion and electricity 
generation), Congress asked NASA to investigate a 
conventional propulsion mission to Europa "as soon as 
possible". Discovery missions will in the future be cost- 
capped at $425M. In addition, Congress will now require NASA 
to provide detailed information on the costing of selected 
Discovery missions including the cost of spacecraft, 
scientific instruments, launch vehicles, civil service, 
flight readiness, launch integration and operations, 
agency reviews and deep space network costs. The 
cancellation of the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter 
received Congressional interest, with the conference report 
requesting NASA to explain how they would provide the 
capability of MTO without an MTO. The Deep Space Network 
also received mention, with NASA being directed to come up 
with a ten-year funding plan including upgrades and 
maintenance. The DSN is a vital component of our Nation's 
solar system exploration activities.

NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes will receive $103.6M in 
FY 2006 and Congress urged rapid development of the Magnetic 
Multi-scale mission, planned to study the interaction of the 
Earth's magnetic field with the solar wind. The Living with 
a Star program will receive $239M, which is $5M above the 
President's requested level. Specific language outlining 
missions to be managed by the APL program office are 
included in the report text.

The Space Interferometry Mission received $10M more than 
the President's request ending up with $119M and indicating 
strong congressional support for this project.

The James Webb Space Telescope will receive $371.6M in 
FY2006, exactly the amount asked for by the President.

Finally, Congress outdid themselves this year with an 
earmark total of $321M, compared to $217M in last year's SAE 
portion of the NASA appropriations bill. A full list of the 
earmarks, many of which will come from Education programs, 
is available on the AAS web page through this link: [ http://www.aas.org/policy/FY2006NASAEarmarks.html ]. An 
interesting analysis of the NASA budget for FY 2006 is 
available at the following link: [ http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/nasa06c.pdf ]. 

NSF

In a surprise move, NSF received an increased budget over 
both the Senate and House funding levels. The Conference 
committee provided $5.653B to NSF, of which $4.387B goes to 
Research and Related Activities, the portion of the NSF 
budget that funds the various research directorates. This 
represents at 3% increase over FY2005. Although this 
increase is above inflation, it is well below the amount 
authorized by the President two years ago in the so-called 
NSF doubling bill. If the authorized levels had been 
followed, NSF's budget would now be over $8.5B. It is 
striking to compare this authorized level to the current 
appropriation. 

The contentious polar ice-breaker issue is resolved in this 
bill (in last year's budget NSF was to receive the polar 
ice breakers lock, stock and barrel...along with their 
maintenance issues), with NSF receiving funding to pay the 
Coast Guard for their use and calling for a report on the 
best way to provide ice breaking needs over the long term. 

In the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction 
Account, ALMA will receive $49.24M, IceCube $50.45M and 
other projects a total of just over $100M. The Rare 
Symmetry Violating Processes experiment, a partnership with 
DoE is canceled in this budget, reducing the MREFC overall 
total by $19M.

Education and Human Resources would receive $807M, above the 
President's and the Senate's requested level. $64M of this 
would go to support the Math and Science Partnerships, a 
program the AAS has worked to defend in the past few years. 
This funding level is less than half of the FY2004 level of 
$139M. The decline of this budget represents an ongoing 
administration effort to shift the MSP program to the 
Department of Education, instead of remaining as a 
partnership between NSF and DOEd.

An interesting analysis of the NSF budget is available from 
the AAAS at the following link [ http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/nsf06c.pdf
]. 
___________________________________________________________ 

Mailed to US members from aas.org 14 November 2005 

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