The Senate Appropriations Committee has posted letters from many of the departments and agencies categorized as discretionary spending spelling out the impacts on their activities if the sequester goes into effect on March 1.  Among them are NASA, and NOAA’s parent Department of Commerce (DoC).

The committee held a hearing this morning on the impact of the sequester, but neither NASA nor NOAA was represented at the witness table.  The letters to committee chairwoman Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) provide a glimpse of what the sequester would mean to them, however.

The DoC letter states that “Significant and costly impacts to NOAA’s weather satellites and other observational programs are … certain.  For example, sequestration will result in a 2-3 year launch delay for the first two next-generation geostationary weather satellites (currently planned to launch in 2015 and 2017)…. This delay would increase the risk of a gap in satellite coverage and diminish the quality of weather forecasts and warnings.”

GAO issued a report today adding the potential gap in weather satellite coverage to its High Risk List of areas that need special attention.  That report does not appear to take into account the effects of sequestration.

The DoC letter does not mention NOAA’s new polar orbiting weather satellite system, the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS).  The new geostationary satellites in the GOES-R series may be of more concern at this moment because NOAA requested a significant increase in its FY2013 budget request to begin procurement of a launch vehicle for the first of those satellites.  In total, the sequester would cut $551 million from DoC for FY2013.  Up to 2,600 NOAA employees would have to be furloughed, 2,700 positions would not be filled, and the number of contractors would be reduced by about 1,400, the DoC letter says.

NASA’s letter says that under sequestration, NASA’s budget would be $16,984.7 million in direct discretionary spending.  That would be a cut of $726.7 million from the President’s FY2013 budget request of $17,771.4 million.   If, in addition, Congress extends the current Continuing Resolution for the rest of FY2013, the cut would be $894.1 million from the annualized levels in the existing CR according to that letter. 

The government is operating under a 6-month CR that generally holds agencies to their FY2012 funding levels.  It expires on March 27 and the betting is that Congress will simply extend it for the rest of the fiscal year (through September 30), so agencies would get a double dose of budget woes — the sequester and a full-year CR.

The NASA letter goes through its budget account by account highlighting the impact of the cuts from the sequester alone.  The most dramatic impacts would be on Space Technology and Exploration.   Space Technology’s budget level would fall by $149.4 million from the FY2013 budget request of $699 million.  The FY2013 budget request for Exploration of $3,932.8 million would lose $332.2 million and “reduce Commercial Space Flight funding by $441.6 million below the FY2013 budget request.”

Congress did not complete action on any of the FY2013 budget requests, although the House did pass the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) appropriations bill that includes NASA.   The bill was reported from the Senate Appropriations Committee, but there was no further action in the 112th Congress.  NASA’s request of $830 million for commercial crew was not approved by the House or the Senate committee in any case.  The House-passed CJS bill approved $500 million and the Senate Appropriations Committee approved $525 million.  Doing the math, if the sequester goes into effect, commercial crew would get $388 million.  NASA says it would not be able to fund planned milestones in the fourth quarter and that would “significantly” delay the program.

NASA’s letter does not discuss any cuts to the Space Launch System or Orion within the Exploration budget account, but the sequester “would adversely impact the infrastructure” needed for those and other NASA activities funded through the Construction and Environmental Compliance and Restoration (CECR) account.

NASA’s science budget would be cut by a comparatively modest $51.1 million from the $4,911.2 million request, reducing funding for new Explorer and Earth Venture class mission selections and reducing research and analysis (R&A) by two percent.   Aeronautics would be cut $7.3 million from its $551.5 million request.

The sequester has been particularly criticized for requiring “across-the-board” cuts meaning that each budget account is cut by the same percentage instead of allowing agencies to prioritize which are the most important activities.  That does not appear to be accurate in NASA’s case, however.   The sequester requires a 5 percent cut for FY2013 for non-defense discretionary budgets like NASA.  The Science budget of $4,911 million would be cut $51 million according to NASA’s letter, closer to 1 percent than 5.  The Exploration budget of $3,933 billion would be cut $332 million, closer to 10 percent and the cut to Space Technology is closer to 20 percent.  Thus it appears that NASA did have some flexibility in allocating the cuts.

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) today thanked Jacob (Jack) Lew for his help on NASA issues when Lew was head of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).   The exchange took place at Lew’s nomination hearing to become the next Secretary of the Treasury.

Lew has been serving as President Obama’s Chief of Staff since he left OMB.   The move from OMB to the Oval Office took place shortly after Lew brokered an agreement with Nelson and then-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) on NASA’s top priorities.  Tensions were high between the Senators and the White House over what the Senators perceived as preferential treatment in NASA’s budget request for the President’s commercial crew initiative over Congress’s Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft.  

Jacob (Jack) Lew, Treasury Secretary nominee

Source:  White House website

Nelson and Hutchison crafted the 2010 NASA Authorization Act as a compromise between the President’s plan that commercial companies take over crew transportation to low Earth orbit (LEO) and their insistence that NASA immediately begin development of a new large rocket (SLS) and crew spacecraft (Orion) to take astronauts beyond LEO.

Nelson and Hutchison complained loudly that OMB was making decisions about NASA’s FY2012 budget request that favored commercial crew over SLS/Orion in contravention of that compromise.   Hutchison publicly accused the Administration of dragging its feet in announcing the design of SLS, delaying the program.   The logjam was broken in September 2011 after the two Senators insisted on a meeting with NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and Lew.

At today’s hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Nelson lauded Lew for his help.  “There was a problem … in that OMB was continuing to try to run this country’s space program,” Nelson said, and Lew made it clear that NASA “got to administratively run the space program without OMB folks saying you do this, you do that” without regard to the authorization act and “I want you to know how much this Senator appreciates it.”   Lew’s reply was a simple “Thank you, sir.”

The outcome of the September 2011 meeting was the decision that NASA’s top three priorities are:  International Space Station/commercial crew; SLS/Orion; and the James Webb Space Telescope.  Whether that set of priorities remains in place as the years pass under constrained budgets is a tale yet to be told.

President Obama’s State of the Union address last night offered no call to arms to invest in the nation’s space program, or even just robotic Mars exploration, but he did argue for increasing spending on research and development (R&D) to a level “not seen since the Space Race.”

Despite the presence of JPL’s Bobak Ferdowsi — “Mohawk Guy” from the Mars Curiosity landing — in the First Lady’s box, the space program didn’t make the cut for inclusion in the hour-long speech.

Obama did stress the importance of investing in “the best ideas,” but his focus was energy not space.

“If we want to make the best products, we also have to invest in the best ideas. Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy. Today, our scientists are mapping the human brain to unlock the answers to Alzheimer’s; developing drugs to regenerate damaged organs; devising new material to make batteries ten times more powerful. Now is not the time to gut these job-creating investments in science and innovation. Now is the time to reach a level of research and development not seen since the height of the Space Race. And today, no area holds more promise than our investments in American energy.”

He talked about climate change as well, but not the role of satellites in studying and monitoring it.  The full text of his speech is on the White House website.

Ferdowsi’s trip wasn’t wasted though.  This morning he, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver and Presidential science adviser John Holdren hosted an event with students on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education.  That was followed by a tweet-up with Ferdowsi, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) staff answering questions.  (Holdren is also the Director of OSTP.)  Ferdowsi tweeted this picture of himself and Bolden.

JPL’s Bobak Ferdowsi (“Mohawk Guy”) and NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden (tweeted by Ferdowsi, Feb. 13, 2012)