Senate Report 106-410

Making Appropriations to VA-HUD and sundry other Independent Agencies

The Senate Appropriations Committee has just (9-13-00) released its report (the backbone of any subsequent appropriations bill) on appropriations for the Veteran's Administration, Department of Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies, which includes appropriations for the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

This page presents areas of the report, which deal with astronomical funding.

National Science Foundation - NSF

Astronomy in the NSF is mainly funded through Research and Related Activities portion of the appropriation bill. Astronomy also gets significant infrastructure support through the Major Research Equipment budget line. These sections of the VA-HUD-IA Senate Report are included below. Note that at this point in the budget process, specific funding for the AST division is not available, although the senate specifically recommends an increased level of funding for the Nation's radio astronomy infrastructure.

[Text exerpted from the Research and Related Activites Section of the Report]

The Committee recognizes the significant infrastructure needs of our nation's research institutions, especially for smaller research institutions that have not traditionally benefitted from Federal programs. The Committee is especially concerned about the larger schools receiving a disproportionate share of scarce Federal resources from indirect cost reimbursements to fund infrastructure needs. As a result, the Committee recommends $75,000,000 to the Foundation's Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) account to address the infrastructure needs of research institutions. NSF is encouraged to target these funds in assisting smaller research institutions.

The Committee is very concerned that NSF has not proposed to maintain adequately its existing astronomy facilities. In last year's Senate report, the Committee expressed its support for enhanced operations and maintenance and development of new instrumentation at the Very Large Array and the Very Long Baseline Array in New Mexico and continued construction of the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. Now that the Green Bank Telescope is completed, these astronomy facilities need to be supported in their operations, and new instrumentation and upgrades must be provided to keep them as world class facilities. Accordingly, the Committee provides an additional $13,000,000 above the fiscal year 2001 request levels for the astronomical sciences subactivity for these facilities.

[Text from the Major Research Equipment section of the Report]

Appropriations, 2000 => $93,500,000 Budget estimate, 2001 => 138,540,000 House allowance => 76,600,000 Committee recommendation => 109,100,000

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The major research equipment activity will support the acquisition, construction and procurement of unique national research platforms, research resources and major research equipment. Projects supported by this appropriation will push the boundaries of technological design and will offer significant expansion of opportunities, often in new directions, for the science and engineering community.

COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION

The Committee recommends an appropriation of $109,100,000 for major research equipment. This amount is $15,600,000 more than the fiscal year 2000 enacted level and $29,440,000 below the budget request.

The Committee has provided $45,000,000 for a second Terascale Computing System, $16,400,000 for the Large Hadron Collider, and $6,000,000 for the Millimeter Array. The Committee has also provided $28,200,000 to continue the construction of the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation, and $13,500,000 for the south pole station modernization efforts. No funding is provided for the new EarthScope or the National Ecological Observatory Network projects as requested by the administration due to budgetary constraints.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration - NASA

[Space Science is funded through the Science, Aeronautics and Technology portion of the VA-HUD-IA bill, pertinent text below]

Space Science

NASA's Space Science program seeks to answer fundamental questions concerning the galaxy and the universe; the connection between the Sun, Earth, and heliosphere; the origin and evolution of planetary systems; and the origin and distribution of life in the universe. The Space Science program is comprised of a base program of research and development activities, including research and flight mission activities and major flight missions which provide major space-based facilities.

The Committee supports the Space Science program and recognizes the many contributions this mission has made to our understanding of the universe and the solar system. Nevertheless, the loss of two consecutive Mars missions in the Mars Surveyor program raises serious concerns with regard to NASA's philosophy of `faster, better, cheaper.' The Committee believes that these losses should have been easily avoided. In particular, the $125,000,000 Mars Climate Orbiter was lost on September 23, 1999 because of a failure by Lockheed Martin/JPL to convert English units into metric units. Subsequently, the $165,000,000 Mars Polar Lander likely was lost because of a coding failure that never should have occurred. Both programs had histories of cost overruns and schedule delays. These failures follow last year's losses of the Lewis and Clark and the Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WIRE) missions. Since 1992, NASA has launched 16 robotic space exploration missions under the `faster, better, cheaper' policy and seven of these missions have either failed or had serious problems post launch.

The Mars Program Independent Assessment Team Report, released on March 14, 2000, acknowledged the value of the Mars program as well as the viability of the `faster, better, cheaper' philosophy. The Committee also supports this philosophy but directs NASA to take all necessary steps to ensure that the right lessons are learned and applied. In particular, the report emphasized the need to establish protocols that minimize risk, including the need to provide experienced leadership, standards for risk assessment and the development of realistic budgets and reserves for each mission which also tie decisionmaking to appropriate headquarter oversight.

The Committee recognizes that the recommendations of the Mars Program Independent Assessment Team may be applied throughout the Space Science enterprise in order to minimize the possibility of future mission failures. This likely will increase the costs of space science missions in future years. The Committee, therefore, directs NASA to provide a 5-year profile of the additional costs that would be associated with implementing the Mars Program recommendations as part of the fiscal year 2002 budget submission.

The Committee understands that NASA missions and activities have inherent risk, and supports NASA's efforts to push the envelope of human knowledge which requires some risk and must allow for failure. The Committee also believes that any failure must be smart failure, not stupid failure.

NASA's fiscal year 2001 request for the Office of Space Science also provides an important first step toward achieving a robust and consolidated Sun-Earth Connection (SEC) program. This new initiative called `Living With A Star' and the intent to accelerate the launch rate of Solar Terrestrial Probe (STP) missions will strengthen OSS's overall program. Accordingly, the Committee has provided the full budget request, $20,000,000, for this initiative in 2001 and directs NASA to submit a detailed, long-term plan to create a resilient SEC program by February 15, 2001. The plan should include a launch schedule, flight profile and creation of an Advanced Technology Development (ATD) program.

Based on the Committee's direction to select competitively 75 percent of space science advanced technology funding, NASA recently released an open research announcement in the Cross Enterprise Technology Development Program (CETDP) that resulted in an impressive response of over 1,200 proposals worth $1,500,000,000. However, NASA has raised concerns that diverting these funds to open solicitations is contributing to a possible loss of needed `core competencies' at the NASA field centers. Therefore, the Committee requests that the National Academy of Sciences report to the Committee by June 2001 whether NASA's concern over core competencies is adequately understood and the desired funding is justified, and whether the CETDP out-year budget for open solicitations should be reduced in favor of funding key core competency activities. In the meantime, NASA should take no action that undermines the 75 percent goal or the planned open research solicitations. If NASA feels that additional funding is needed in fiscal year 2001 to address transitional core competency issues, then the agency may propose for the Committee's consideration a reprogramming of funds from within the Intelligent Synthesis Environment program.

The Committee fully supports NASA's goal to develop new long-term partnerships, particularly with university laboratories throughout the country. As a means of cost reduction and improving long-term vision, NASA must leverage existing infrastructures and capabilities at university laboratories. This approach has the added benefits of complementing NASA's core capabilities at NASA centers and improving technology transfer to the private sector. NASA is encouraged to invest in future partnerships of this type to enhance the fundamental value of its earth and space science programs.

The Committee includes an additional $3,000,000 for the development of the STEP-AIRSEDS program, an electrodynamic and momentum transfer space tether transportation program.

The Committee continues to note the significant scientific knowledge and discovery which Hubble Space Telescope generates now nearly a decade past its initial launch. The Committee believes that HST should continue to have the capabilities to generate significant scientific advancement throughout its currently planned life on orbit. For this reason, the Committee believes that additional funds are necessary to cover costs to the program for servicing-related expenses caused by delays in launch due to the space shuttle's manifest schedule that have forced the program to deplete critical program reserves. The Committee believes these costs should be allocated to the Human Space Flight account absent a reasonable justification from NASA. As the NASA budget picture becomes clearer, the Committee anticipates providing additional funds to cover these HST costs. At the same time, the Committee believes that costs for the upcoming deployment of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WF3) should be constrained in accordance with the program's fiscal year 1998 baseline. For this reason, WF3 costs, exclusive of costs borne by the Office of Space Flight for shuttle integration and payload processing and related shuttle launch costs, is capped at $75,500,000.

The Committee includes an increase of $2,500,000 for the Hubble telescope project to initiate a Composites Technology Institute in Bridgeport, WV. The Hubble telescope project has been one of the exemplary programs at NASA that has educated and heightened public knowledge and appreciation of the wonders of the universe. To maximize public investment in this program, NASA is directed to fund fully all upgrades.

[About $60 million of earmarks are listed in the Academic Activities portion of the report and NASA is requested to "make appropriate adjustments within each of the six identified enterprises within this account to accomodate the stated funding priorities...and submit these adjustments as part of its fiscal year 2000 operating plan". It is not certain how these earmarks will impact the overall OSS budget at this point.]