ORLANDO, Fla. – NASA Administrator Bill Nelson testified before the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Tuesday about how much money the administration says it needs for fiscal year 2024.
The space agency’s budget requests have continued to increase. NASA received about $25.5 billion last year, up from $24 billion the year before.
Next year’s request totals $27.2 billion, a 7.1 percent increase over last year.
House Republicans have already said they want to eliminate the entire federal budget by up to 22 percent, which Nelson said would “devastating” NASA and Artemis.
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Tuesday’s congressional hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee was contentious and, like so many things these days, political.
NASA’s first Artemis moon mission was so successful that President Joe Biden and Nelson have asked Congress for even more money next time to send astronauts around the moon on Artemis II.
Biden and Nelson want more than $8 billion for the Artemis program alone, which would fund the next three lunar missions.
The International Space Station is another priority for NASA, which is asking for $4.5 billion for station research until it retires in 2030.
And for NASA science, such as new telescopes, rovers and probes, the president and administrator are asking for $8.3 billion.
But whether NASA will succeed this time is in doubt because of partisan agendas over what is supposed to be a nonpartisan agency.
“We cannot deny NASA deals with these greenhouse gases,” Nelson told the committee’s ranking member and Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. “That’s what we have, the instruments up there take measurements.”
Cruz wanted to know how much a NASA mandate requiring specifications on greenhouse gas emissions from contractors is costing the space agency. He also asked Nelson about NASA’s Diversity and Equal Opportunity program.
“Looking at this year’s budget request, I see things like $22 million for the quote, ‘Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity,’ which has little to do with what you’ve called a space race between the free world and China,” Cruz said. “If we are second in the Shackleton Crater, I doubt very much that the Chinese Communist Party will care much about how we have advanced an equity action plan.”
Nelson, a lifelong Democrat, found himself defending the president’s priorities for much of the first half of the Senate appropriations hearing.
“But you and I have also worked very hard to keep NASA out of partisan politics, and I would strongly encourage you to continue that work because we now have a Republican House of Representatives,” Cruz told Nelson. “If NASA is considered partisan, that’s very bad for space and space exploration. So I hope NASA continues its tradition of staying out of those bounds.”
Nelson tried to reassure Cruz.
“I assure you that NASA will be, and if I’m around, not only bipartisan, but nonpartisan,” Nelson said. “You and I on this committee have a different approach to what’s going on with Earth’s climate. It just so happens that NASA is in the middle of it. Why? Because all these assets up there. We design them, we build them, we put them underway and we operate many of them”.
The Senate Appropriations Committee now has the next few weeks to comment. All appropriations, a vote by Congress, and a signature by the President must be completed by October 1st for NASA and the government to continue operating.
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