A House appropriations subcommittee advanced a spending bill July 12 that
would provide NASA with a small increase over what the administration
proposed for fiscal year 2022, but does not address some key areas of
concern.
The commerce, justice and science (CJS) subcommittee favorably reported a
spending bill that provides $25.04 billion for NASA in fiscal year 2022.
That would be 7.6% higher than what NASA received in 2021, but just 1% above
the administration’s request of $24.8 billion released in May.
The biggest change in the budget is in NASA’s exploration account, which
would get $7.28 billion in the bill, nearly $400 million above the request.
While funding for the Orion spacecraft is kept constant, the bill increases
funding for the Space Launch System, Exploration Ground Systems and
Exploration Research and Development.
In the brief subcommittee markup session, Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.),
ranking member of the subcommittee, mentioned the SLS increase in
particular. “NASA seldom, if ever, provides Congress with a budget request
for the Space Launch System that reflects program estimates,” he complained,
calling for “multiyear acquisition plans” for long-term SLS production.
That included, he said, development of a cargo version of the SLS, which
replaces the Orion spacecraft with a large payload fairing. “Congress must
ensure the future of the SLS includes a cargo variant, which, in fact, has
long been part of the NASA plan,” he said. “This capability will be integral
to future lunar cargo and science missions.”
However, at a meeting of the steering committee of the planetary sciences
decadal survey July 7, a NASA official said that the limited production rate
of the SLS — currently one a year, and not slated to increase to two per
year until as late as the early 2030s — meant that the cargo version of SLS
would not be available until at least the late 2020s in order to support
Artemis missions.
NASA’s science program would see an overall increase of $38 million compared
to the request, with increases to planetary science and astrophysics offset
partially by cuts to heliophysics and biological and physical sciences.
Aeronautics would increase by $20 million, but space operations would be cut
by $56 million.
The biggest proposed cut would be to NASA’s space technology account, which
would be cut by $145 million compared to the request of $1.425 billion but
would still be above the $1.1 billion it received in 2021. The bill also
requires NASA to spent $227 million on the On-orbit Servicing, Assembly and
Manufacturing (OSAM) 1 mission and $110 million for nuclear thermal
propulsion technologies. NASA requested $227 million for OSAM-1 in its
budget proposal but did not include funding for nuclear propulsion.
Aderholt mentioned the nuclear thermal propulsion funding in his comments at
the markup, but expressed disappointment that the bill does not require the
funding to support a flight demonstration by 2024, a goal supported in past
years’ bills. NASA’s work on nuclear thermal propulsion is led by the
Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.
“We need this technology to out-compete China as both countries continue
deep space exploration,” he said. “Therefore, I am deeply disappointed that
the long-standing bipartisan language requiring NASA to use $80 million of
the funding for the design of a flight demonstration was not included. The
omission imperils the progress of, and our previous investments in, nuclear
thermal propulsion capabilities.”
The bill does not go into details about most programs, specifics contained
in the report accompanying the bill that will be released when the full
House Appropriations Committee marks up the bill July 15. For example, the
bill is silent on the Human Landing System program, which is part of the
Exploration R&D budget line that would get $150 million more than the
nearly $2.4 billion requested.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has lobbied House and Senate appropriators to
add funding to NASA’s budget to allow it to support a second HLS provider.
The large amount of funding needed — more than $5 billion over several years
— led Nelson to recommend that the funding be included in any jobs and
infrastructure bill that Congress takes up outside of the normal
appropriations process.
Aderholt criticized the bill for lack of direction on HLS. “This bill fails
to adequately address recent unwise NASA decisions that have jeopardized the
Human Landing System,” he said, a reference to NASA’s selection of a single
company, SpaceX, for an HLS award because of limited budgets. “I believe
this committee must provide appropriate direction to NASA to restore
foundational aspects of this program.”
Other members of the committee mentioned NASA’s part of the overall $81.3
billion CJS bill only in passing. “This subcommittee’s commitment to
American leadership in space science, space exploration and aeronautics
research continues in this year’s bill,” said Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.),
chairman of the subcommittee.