[X] My Assistant

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

NASA to Cut Back Scientific Missions Because of Budget
By DENNIS OVERBYE
The New York Times
March 1, 2006

[PhilHorzempa]

[size=2] To continue on the subject of NASA's budget and how more of it can
be directed to unmanned spaceflight, especially planetary probes. I invite those on
this forum to examine NASA's budget closely and suggest programs whose budgets
could be re-directed.
I'll start with NASA's Education program for primary and secondary schools. This
has an annual budget of $47 million according to the proposed FY07 submission. That
is a huge amount of money going to waste. WHY is NASA involved AT ALL in primary
and secondary education? I have given talks in primary school and I have used the various
web sites for NASA missions, projected on a screen, as my lecture resources. That cost
NASA exactly nothing, except for what they may spend on maintaining web sites.
If totaled over a decade, this one item in NASA's budget will add up to almost
$500 million, a half-billion dollar pile that could fund one Discovery planetary mission,
with about $50 million in change.
I welcome more suggestions. Let's see how much we can add up from just one year's
budget. That might make some impact on those who ask where the extra funds for Space
Science could be found. This is not even mentioning possible cuts in the VSE budget.

[djellison]

I'll start with NASA's Education program for primary and secondary schools. This
has an annual budget of $47 million according to the proposed FY07 submission. That
is a huge amount of money going to waste. WHY is NASA involved AT ALL in primary
and secondary education? I

Sorry - educationa and outreach is the #1 thing I would NOT cut.

Doug