WASHINGTON — House and Senate appropriators have drafted bills that will give NASA barely less money in 2024 than it received in 2023, moderately than the numerous increase the administration requested.
The Senate Appropriations Committee advanced a commerce, justice and science (CJS) spending bill for fiscal 12 months 2024 on a 28–1 vote during a July 13 markup. That bill funds NASA in addition to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Science Foundation, amongst other agencies.
The committee had not released the text of the bill or accompanying report as of early July 14, but a bill summary by the committee stated it provided $25.0 billion for NASA. That’s below the $25.384 billion the agency received in fiscal 12 months 2023 and significantly lower than the $27.185 billion the agency requested for 2024.
That summary didn’t include a full breakout of funding for the agency within the bill, but it surely noted that NASA’s exploration programs would get $7.74 billion, lower than the $7.97 billion requested for 2024 but greater than the $7.47 billion those programs received in 2023. That quantity, the summary stated, fully funded Orion, the Space Launch System and ground systems while providing “sufficient funding to proceed progress on the Artemis Campaign Development,” including the Human Landing System awards to SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Briefly comments on the markup, senators said that exploration was their highest priority. The bill funds “the tools for NASA to return astronauts to the moon, including the primary woman and person of color, and to keep up U.S. leadership in space,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), chair of the CJS appropriations subcommittee.
“We were capable of protect a very powerful national priority inside NASA’s budget, at the least in my opinion, which is to return humans to the moon and maintain our strategic advantage in space,” said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), rating member of the CJS subcommittee.
The bill summary also noted that NASA’s Earth science, astrophysics and heliophysics divisions could be funded at or barely above 2023 levels. That included restoring a $54 million cut proposed for heliophysics within the 2024 budget request.
The summary was silent on planetary science, but a draft of report language circulating online suggested strong concern by Senate appropriators concerning the status of Mars Sample Return (MSR). That draft allocated only $300 million for MSR, lower than a 3rd of the $949.3 million requested, citing delays and financial impacts on other NASA science programs. That comes amid NASA reviews that featured scenarios where the fee of MSR could be roughly double previous agency estimates.
Furthermore, that report draft directed NASA to offer the committee with a price estimate of MSR that will slot in a cap of $5.3 billion, a level beneficial by the planetary science decadal survey published last 12 months. If NASA cannot, the draft stated, MSR could be canceled and its funds reallocated to other science mission in addition to Artemis.
House appropriators, meanwhile, published their CJS spending bill for fiscal 12 months 2024 ahead of a July 14 subcommittee markup. That bill provides $25.367 billion for NASA in 2024, slightly below the 2023 spending level but again well below the request for 2024.
The bill would offer full funding for all exploration programs, at $7.97 billion. Science would get $7.38 billion, $880 million below the request and $415 million lower than what they received in 2023. The bill didn’t break out science spending by division.
The funding in each the House and Senate bills are below the request largely due to debt ceiling deal reached at the tip of May, where Congress and the White House agreed to boost the debt ceiling in exchange for capping non-defense discretionary funding, which incorporates NASA, at 2023 levels for 2024.
Moran said on the markup that the budget caps affected NASA amongst other agencies. “They may have significant challenges in continuing all of their programs. I’m disenchanted by that,” he said of NASA. “These deep and painful cuts were inevitable under the deal the Speaker [of the House] and the President cut.”
“NASA could have quite a lot of work to do to determine the way to proceed on the programs they’re currently planning,” he added.
NASA officials had acknowledged because the passage of the debt ceiling deal that the agency’s funding for 2024 would fall in need of its request. “It’s really difficult without delay after we have a look at where we ended up” after the deal, said NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana during a July 12 talk on the Future Space 2023 conference.
“The president beneficial $27.2 billion. We’re going to find yourself with lower than that as we move forward,” he said. “It’s going to require some hard decisions on our part. It might move things out a bit bit longer. It might mean some things should be stopped.”