Hubble telescope replacement, James Webb, getting axed?

[Fire Fly]

Among several other US science budgets if this bill gets approved

Appropriations Committee Releases the Fiscal Year 2012 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations


Washington, Jul 6 -

The House Appropriations Committee today released the fiscal year 2012 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill, which will be considered in subcommittee tomorrow. The bill funds the Department of Commerce, the Department of Justice, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and other related agencies.

In total, the legislation contains $50.2 billion in funding. This is a reduction of $3.1 billion or 6% below last year’s level, and $7.4 billion or 13% below the President’s request for these programs. This total is also 3% below the pre-stimulus, pre-bailout level of 2008.

“This legislation includes funding for some of the most critical aspects of government – the protection of our people here at home, the competiveness of our businesses and industries, and the scientific research that will help America continue to lead the world in innovation. However, given this time of fiscal crisis, it is also important that Congress make tough decisions to cut programs where necessary to give priority to programs with broad national reach that have the most benefit to the American people,” House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers said.

“I believe the subcommittee mark achieves significant spending reduction goals while at the same time preserving core priorities. Within a tight allocation, we have focused resources on the most critical areas – fighting crime and terrorism; and boosting U.S. competitiveness through investments in science. Despite the difficult choices that were made, this legislation includes a number of positive initiatives to create jobs by promoting economic growth and innovation here at home,” Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf said.

For the subcommittee draft text of the legislation, please visit: http://appropriations.house.gov/Uploade ... BC_xml.pdf

For a summary table comparing the bill with last year’s level and the President’s request, please visit: http://appropriations.house.gov/Uploade ... _Table.pdf

Bill Highlights:

Department of Commerce – The bill contains $7.1 billion for the Commerce Department – a reduction of $464 million or 6% below last year’s level, and $1.7 billion or 19% below the President’s request. This includes funding for the following agencies:

* International Trade Administration (ITA) – The ITA administers and enforces U.S. trade laws, and protects U.S. interests and competitiveness abroad. The ITA is funded at $460 million in the legislation -- $10 million above last year’s level. The additional funds will support high priority National Export Initiatives to boost U.S. exports and help grow the economy.

* Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) – The bill provides $2.7 billion for the PTO – the full requested level. This funding is equal to the estimated amount of fees to be collected by the PTO during fiscal year 2012, and is an increase of $588 million or 28% above last year’s level. The bill also includes language that allows PTO to keep and use any fees in excess of the estimated collected amount, subject to standard Congressional approval, and includes language requiring PTO to report on efforts to reduce the patent application backlog

* National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) – NIST is funded at $701 million in the bill, which is $49 million below last year’s level and $300 million below the President’s request. Within this total, important core research activities to help advance U.S. competitiveness, innovation, and economic growth are increased by $10 million above last year’s level. In addition, funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program – which provides training and technical assistance to U.S. manufacturers – is maintained at last year’s level of $128 million.

* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – The legislation contains $4.5 billion for NOAA, which is a cut of $103 million below last year’s level and $1 billion below the President’s request. Within this total, National Weather Service operations and systems are fully funded at the requested level, and an increase of $430 million is included for the Joint Polar Satellite System weather satellite program to ensure the continuation of important weather data collection.

* Census Bureau – The Census Bureau is funded at $855 million in the bill, which is a cut of $294 million – or 25% – below last year’s level.

* Economic Development Administration (EDA) – The bill includes $258 million in funding for the EDA – $26 million below last year’s level and $67 million below the President’s request. This includes $5 million in grant funding to attract U.S. jobs that have gone to other countries back into the U.S., and $5 million in loan guarantees to help advance innovative manufacturing technologies.

Department of Justice (DOJ) – The bill funds DOJ at $26 billion, a decrease of $1 billion below last year’s level and $2.4 billion below the President’s request. This funding level will provide for the continuation of critical legal and security activities at DOJ, while trimming spending in lower priority and non-essential areas. For example, administrative activities at DOJ are funded at $72 million – a cut of $46 million below last year and $62 million below the President’s request.

* Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – The bill includes $8.1 billion for the FBI – an increase of $149 million above last year’s level and $13 million below the request. This includes increases for national security programs, investigations of computer attacks, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) programs, analyst training, and violent crime and gang reduction programs.

* Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) – The DEA is funded at $2.3 billion in the legislation, an increase of $30 million over last year’s level and $56 million below the President’s request. This includes an increase of $31 million for regulatory and enforcement efforts to combat prescription drug abuse, $15 million (by transfer) to assist states and communities with hazardous material clean-up at meth lab sites, and $10 million for temporary facilities for 100 additional staff at the Southern Border related to counternarcotics efforts.

* Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) – The legislation contains $1.1 billion for the ATF, the same funding level as last year and $35 million below the request. The bill also includes long standing funding prohibitions related to firearms privacy and records.

* U.S. Marshals Service – The Marshals Service is funded at $1.1 billion in the bill – the same funding level as last year. Within this funding, the legislation gives priority to sex offender apprehension and judicial protection in the Southwest Border region.

* Federal Prison System – The Bureau of Prisons is funded at $6.4 billion, which is an increase of $30 million over last year’s level and $412 million below the request. This funding will help activate completed prisons to ensure safe and adequate facilities to house the nation’s criminal population. The bill also prohibits funding for construction or acquisition of a prison within the U.S. to house Guantanamo detainees.

* Grant Programs – The bill includes a total of $1.7 billion for various grant programs, which is $1.1 billion below last year’s level and $1.3 billion below the request. In this time of fiscal crisis, the Committee made the tough choice to fund only the highest priority programs with national reach and broad purposes. Within the total, Violence Against Women programs and Missing and Exploited Children programs are funded at last year’s levels. Byrne Justice Assistance Grants are funded at $357 million – a decrease of $73 million below last year.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) – NASA is funded at $16.8 billion in the bill, which is $1.6 billion below last year’s level and $1.9 billion below the President’s request. This funding includes:

* $3.65 billion for Space Exploration which is $152 million below last year. This includes funding above the request for NASA to meet Congressionally mandated program deadlines for the newly authorized crew vehicle and launch system.
* $4.1 billion for Space Operations which is $1.4 billion below last year’s level. The legislation will continue the closeout of the Space Shuttle program for a savings of $1 billion.
* $4.5 billion for NASA Science programs, which is $431 million below last year’s level. The bill also terminates funding for the James Webb Space Telescope, which is billions of dollars over budget and plagued by poor management.

National Science Foundation (NSF) – The legislation funds NSF at $6.9 billion, the same as last year’s level and $907 million below the President’s request. Within this funding, NSF’s core research is increased by $43 million to enhance basic research that is critical to innovation and U.S. economic competitiveness.

Other Provisions – The bill includes several general provisions, including:

* A prohibition on the transfer or release of Guantanamo detainees into the U.S.
* Rescissions of over $1 billion in unobligated balances left over from previous years
* A prohibition on NASA or the Office of Science and Technology Policy from engaging in bilateral activities with China unless authorized by Congress.

[Sea Skimmer]

Looking at the program history for the last 100 seconds; I’m not going to cry over canceling a telescope that is estimated to run 400% over budget and ten years late; even military killtech is hard pressed to survive that kind of cock-up. Literally a pile of other projects could be funded while still cutting most of the budget for it as actual savings.

[K. A. Pital]

Except what's going to replace the Hubble then? People were bringing space telescopes up as an example of "awesome space progress" in the other N&P thread. That's a sad day.

[Simon_Jester]

How close are they to hardware launch?

It's retarded to cancel these things right before they're ready to go and burn the sunk costs...

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

How close are they to hardware launch?

It's retarded to cancel these things right before they're ready to go and burn the sunk costs...

According to NASA, 2018. According to outside analysts, possibly somewhere past 2020. What do they have (mostly) done? The segments making up the mirror, and the box all the spacecraft hardware will be bolted to.

But the appropriations bill must first make it out of committee, and then be voted on by the House. After which, it must survive the Senate. JWST may make it back from the dead, but in the current political climate, the prospects seem somewhat dim.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, I hope they at least archive/store stuff properly, or come up with a less ambitious scaled-back version, or something.

[Luke Skywalker]

After all, that money could go into something more useful, like torture and building churches.

[cosmicalstorm]

Is there any possibility of performing similar observations with ground-based equipment eventually?

[Rahvin]

Is there any possibility of performing similar observations with ground-based equipment eventually?

Not unless you have a way of making the atmosphere get out of the way. We've been getting better with ground-based telescopes, but the simple reality is that light has a lot of medium to travel through to get to the ground that is bypassed by a space telescope.

[starslayer]

That is not a problem for visible light, as well as some other scattered bands (especially in the radio region); air is very transparent to those wavelengths, and AO is good enough now to take care of the seeing issues. JWST, however, is an IR telescope exclusively, and as such needs to be above the atmosphere to function, since the atmosphere is a very good absorber all but the nearest IR light. While it is constantly called "a replacement for Hubble" in the press, it isn't really, due to the different wavelengths being observed; the stuff Hubble did we can now do from the ground, with much larger telescopes allowing us to see fainter objects with better resolution. Rather, it's better to think of it as a much bigger and better Spitzer, minus the far-IR capabilities Spitzer had when launched.

[Uraniun235]

How the fuck did the Webb telescope balloon out to a fourfold price increase? Is it pork-related or incompetence or both or...?

How close are they to hardware launch?

It's retarded to cancel these things right before they're ready to go and burn the sunk costs...

Yeah, like the Triana/DSCOVR satellite launch that got canceled by the Bush administration and still hasn't been sent up.

[StarSword]

How the fuck did the Webb telescope balloon out to a fourfold price increase? Is it pork-related or incompetence or both or...?

Because NASA stinks at accurately predicting how much things will cost. That's why they started to move towards the "faster, better, cheaper" philosophy in the 2000's. Of course, they blew that New Year's Resolution pretty quickly.

[Simon_Jester]

It doesn't help that these days half of NASA's projects have to go through multiple redesign and rethinking phases to make up for shit getting cancelled on them (oh fuck we won't be able to count on the shuttle to service this thing now what do we do).

Hell, for all I know inflation's coming into play- if I design something and say it's going to cost a billion dollars, and then ten years later it costs 1.5 billion, that may not mean anything's changed in terms of the plans.