Money for NASA priorities at risk in next Congress

WASHINGTON — Key elements of NASA's space program faced tough scrutiny from Republicans even before the Nov. 4 elections gave the GOP control of the Senate and expanded its majority in the House.

When the next Congress convenes in January, the Obama administration can expect more questions — and criticisms — targeting some of the agency's top priorities, including:

• A controversial mission to corral an asteroid into orbit around the moon and use it as a steppingstone for a mission to Mars. The mission also would give NASA scientists insight on how to deflect asteroids headed to Earth.

• Funding for the Commercial Crew Program that aims to replace the space shuttle with rockets developed by private aerospace companies.

• The agency's research into Earth's changing climate.

The biggest threat to NASA's ambitions is a lack of money, said Scott Pace, who directs the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to adhere to the across-the-board sequestration spending cuts included in the 2011 Budget Control Act, Pace said.

And conservative Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, in line to chair the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee that oversees the space program, is an outspoken supporter of smaller government and a top critic of the Obama administration.

The subcommittee's current chairman, Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, will lose that post when Republicans take control of the Senate. An ally of NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. and a strong supporter of a robust space program, Nelson still will be in a position to influence space policy as the full committee's senior Democrat.

"The most important consideration is really what happens to the Budget Control Act and if there's a new deal that replaces sequestration," Pace said. "Because if there isn't, then a lot of other issues are kind of moot."

Lack of funding could imperil NASA's signature goal: a crewed flight to Mars within 20 years.

Even if Congress figures out a way to avoid sequestration spending cuts, Republicans likely will scrutinize some NASA priorities.

Some GOP House leaders, for example, don't like NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission and would rather return to the moon as part of an eventual trip to Mars.

House Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Republican Rep. Steve Palazzo of Mississippi, chairman of the panel's subcommittee on space, have dismissed the asteroid mission as "a costly distraction."

One consideration favoring an asteroid mission is cost.

It's much cheaper to lasso and visit an asteroid than it would be to return to the moon, which would require construction of a lunar lander. The lander's cost was a key reason President Obama scrapped the Constellation return-to-the-moon program in 2010, much to Republicans' dismay.

"Those who say we've got to go back to the moon instead of an asteroid, well, show me the money," Nelson said. "It may well be that in the next decade we go back to the moon as preparation for going to Mars. But right now, with the money that is being allocated, you've got to do what you can do within the resources that you have."

Pace, who favors a return to the moon, said costs could be manageable if the mission involved international and commercial partners.

NASA's earth science programs also will come under scrutiny. The agency spends about 10% of its nearly $18 billion budget to monitor atmospheric conditions, ocean characteristics, and precipitation levels. It manages more than a dozen satellites measuring various aspects of the planet's ecosystem.

Critics on and off Capitol Hill say the agency doesn't need to devote so much of its limited resources to study the Earth when other federal agencies conduct similar analyses. They want NASA to spend some of that money researching other planets.

Republicans, including Cruz, also don't have much interest in programs focusing on human-induced climate change.

"The data are not supporting what the (climate change) advocates are arguing," Cruz told CNN earlier this year. "The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming, contrary to all the theories they're expounding."

Funding for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, the multibillion-dollar initiative that pays private aerospace firms to develop rockets to carry crew and cargo to the International Space Station, also could be at risk when Congress is entirely in Republican hands.

Lawmakers have never fully funded the administration's request for the program. NASA officials, who recently narrowed the competition to two companies — Boeing and SpaceX — say any further funding shortfalls would push the first flights to the space station into 2018 (from 2017) and force taxpayers to pay Russia tens of millions more to ferry astronauts to the orbiting lab.

GOP lawmakers say Commercial Crew is taking resources away from their top priority, the Space Launch System, a deep-space rocket and accompanying Orion vehicle designed to take astronauts to Mars by the mid-2030s.

NASA officials downplay those concerns, saying they have enough money on hand to keep SLS and Orion on track. A test flight of the capsule is scheduled for Dec. 4 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Republicans also want more accountability.

GOP Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, who's skeptical of the Commercial Crew Program, wants private firms to submit "certified cost and pricing data" similar to what's required in traditional contracts NASA uses for other services. The White House and commercial space interests say that would add costs and delays to the program.

The Shelby provision is part of a funding bill still being debated in Congress. Chances it will win final approval — once unlikely — have increased with Shelby's expected ascension in January to chair the Senate Appropriations subcommittee in charge of NASA's budget.

Shelby has said his provision simply seeks to bring "transparency" to the process.