NASA Science Budget Lags Behind Expectations

NASA Budget for Earth Science Lags Behind Rising Expectations
(Space News) December 31, 2009, By Debra Werner
Over the past decade, NASA has convinced the White House, Congress and the public of the importance of investigating the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and land from space. That success has led to increasing pressure to extend NASA’s Earth monitoring program by launching new spacecraft and instruments, but not to the funding needed to carry out the new missions, said Michael Freilich, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division at the agency’s Washington headquarters. “There is relentless pressure to expand the scope of our contributions,” Freilich said Dec. 17, during a meeting here of the American Geophysical Union.