NASA Budget Request Would Boost Science Funding

NASA Budget Request Would Boost Science Funding

(Space News) February 3, 2010, By Brian Berger

Earth observation appears to be the big winner in U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2011 budget request for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, which also manages the agency’s robotic planetary probes and space-based astronomy telescopes. Obama is asking Congress for $5 billion for NASA science programs in 2011, an 11 percent increase over this year’s budget of $4.49 billion. The biggest chunk of the $512 million increase would be used to boost the Earth Science Division’s budget to $1.8 billion, a 27 percent increase over 2010. The Planetary Science Division would get the second biggest increase, 11 percent, to $1.485 billion. NASA’s heliophysics budget would grow by around 2 percent to $641.9 million, while the agency’s astrophysics budget — which funds the Hubble Space Telescope and other space-based observatories — would see its $1.1 billion budget shrink by about $28 million.