Posted on 02/02/2003 5:13:11 PM PST by Mark Felton
Bush to Propose Budget Increase for NASA
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush will propose a nearly $470 million boost in NASA's budget for fiscal 2004, an administration official said on Sunday, promising investigators would look into whether past cutbacks played any part in the space shuttle Columbia disaster.
The disaster has prompted calls for increased spending to upgrade the aging shuttle fleet and develop a new space plane. Columbia broke up over Texas on Saturday, killing all seven astronauts aboard, just 16 minutes before it was due to land in Florida.
While NASA's budget has been reduced over the past decade, a senior administration official said Bush would boost funding for the space agency by almost $470 million to $15.47 billion in his fiscal 2004 budget.
The budget, which will be released on Monday, does not include costs associated with Saturday's disaster.
The administration official would not give a breakdown of NASA's budget, so it was unclear if it would include additional money for the shuttle program or safety upgrades.
NASA's total budget for 2003 was $15 billion, a slight increase from the previous year.
The space shuttle program was budgeted at $3.208 billion for 2003, $75 million less than in 2002.
Asked if additional money for NASA would be needed, the official said: "A large increase has been planned. A large increase will be proposed and we will continue to work with Congress to determine what the right amounts should be."
The official said it was too soon to say whether the disaster was in any way connected to past cutbacks in the shuttle program.
"It is not clear to anybody what impact, if any impact, there was as a result of funding. This very well may have nothing to do with any funding concerns," the official said. "All of these, though, must be reviewed as part of the overall investigation."
Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, told CNN the administration had been delaying safety upgrades on the space shuttle.
"That is inexcusable," said Nelson, who once flew on the shuttle.
"Although that delay and those upgrades, I don't think, has any connection with yesterday's tragedy. Ironically, out of this tragedy we will now probably see the safety upgrades sped up," Nelson added.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This has nothing to do with the crash.
That and an extensive moon base, with eventual plans for Mars.
We need more advancing of the frontier, and less putting the first whoever in space, which seems to be one the primary missions of the shuttle program.
This conservative says that we should support NASA (AND private space flight) to the hilt!
If only there was a political party in this country which represented me.
That was actually a good deal cheaper than the original estimates, because it was made primarily of replacement parts for other shuttles. We don't have the extra parts to do that now and still have enough parts for the rest of the fleet. So a new shuttle built to the same specs as the others would cost more since almost all the parts need to be fabricated.
What needs to be done for NASA, among other things, is:
1. Increase the scientist to bureaucrat ratio back above 1 to 1 to something more reasonable.
2. Free up private contractors to get involved in space industry. Change NASA from a Cerberus at the gates to a space-oriented FAA.
3. Improve science and technology funding by ending silly liberal social experiments and pork-barrel spending. The remaining 98% goes into a tax cut.
4. DO NOT END MANNED SPACE FLIGHT!!! Extend our explorations, and smack with smelly carp all liberals and conservatives who try to demonize NASA in some ill advised attempt at demogouery.
I'm sure we can think of others! ;o)
Look, noob, the current public missile defense shield is not intended to stop a massive nuclear attack like Russia could make. It's intended to stop a few missiles like N. Korea will soon have the ability to launch. Even if only one missile is stopped, a whole lot of lives will be saved.
This is an administration of big ideas, and the wherewithal to make those ideas reality.
Who says? A kinetic ABM device (like a simple iron shaft plowing into a warhead at a few hundred thousand MPH) can be just as effective as a thermal ABM device (like the laser you mentioned). I don't see why the former couldn't complement the latter as a back-up, at least.
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