This paper develops a novel approach for predicting future funding for the total NASA budget and for science activities within that budget. Although the budget process is inherently political, it is adequately characterized by analyzing the last thirty‐two years of NASA budgets, organized by the party of the President. Over the last thirty‐two years, Republicans have increased the buying power of the NASA budget while Democrats have decreased it, with significant differences in the rates. The President’s budget projections for NASA, available since 1990, are used to produce a model that may be applied to future budget projections. Before final conclusions are drawn from these results, the most significant NASA budgetary event of this decade is examined: the one billion dollar share of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The hypothesis is that an unanticipated, significant, one‐year increase to the NASA budget can affect NASA’s funding profile for more than one year. This is tested with the only other similar event in NASA history, the unanticipated budget increase following the loss of Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. An event study of the changes in NASA’s total budget before and after the loss of Challenger indicates that the one‐year spike in funding increased subsequent NASA growth rates for four years. These results are combined to predict future NASA top‐level and science budgets for FY 2011 and FY 2012.
Projections for Future Funding of NASA And NASA Science Activities: Reassessing the Obama FY 2010 Budget Request
SPACE, PROPULSION & ENERGY SCIENCES INTERNATIONAL FORMUM SPESIF‐2010: 14th Conference on Thermophysics Applications in Microgravity 7th Symposium on New Frontiers in Space Propulsion Sciences 2nd Symposium on Astrosociology 1st Symposium on High Frequency Gravitational Waves ; 2010 ; Huntsville (Alabama)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 1208 , 1 ; 454-463
2010-01-28
10 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
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