Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Centennial Challenges and the Senate Appropriations Report

The Senate Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2011 is accompanied by a report (PDF) that gives more detail on what the Appropriators intend. The NASA section of the report starts on page 115. Here are the amounts for NASA's Space Technology account. Figures are in millions of dollars:

Space Technology:
Early Stage Innovation
........................... 193,000
----Space Technology Research Grants
.............. 20,000
----NIAC Phase I and Phase II
...................... 2,000
----Center Innovations Fund ....................... 10,400
----SBIR/STTR .................................... 160,600
Game Changing Technology .......................... 53,000
----Game-Changing Developments .................... 50,000
----Small Satellite Subsystem Technologies ......... 3,000
Crosscutting Capability Demonstrations ............ 64,000
----Technology Demonstration Missions ............. 42,000
----Edison Small Satellite Demonstration Missions .. 5,000
----Flight Opportunities .......................... 17,000
Partnership Development and Strategic Integration . 15,000
Subtotal, Space Technology ....................... 325,000


As with commercial space, exploration technology development and demonstrations, robotic precursor missions, and various other accounts, the Senate dramatically cuts NASA's request in certain areas to support a government heavy lift rocket, a crew vehicle, and an additional Shuttle flight. Although cut significantly, Space Technology does much better than some of the other accounts, perhaps because it is built on an existing NASA program. For comparison, here are the Space Technology figures from NASA's FY2011 budget request (PDF) for FY2011 (most amounts are considerably larger in later years in that budget's outlook):

Space Technology:
Early Stage Innovation ........................... 298,600
----Space Technology Research Grants .............. 70,000
----NIAC Phase I and Phase II ...................... 3,000
----Center Innovations Fund ....................... 50,000
----SBIR/STTR .................................... 165,600
----Centennial Challenges ......................... 10,000
Game Changing Technology ......................... 129,600
----Game-Changing Developments ................... 123,600
----Small Satellite Subsystem Technologies ......... 6,000

Crosscutting Capability Demonstrations ........... 102,000
----Technology Demonstration Missions ............. 75,000
----Edison Small Satellite Demonstration Missions . 10,000
----Flight Opportunities .......................... 17,000

Partnership Development and Strategic Integration . 42,000
Subtotal, Space Technology ....................... 572,200

The line for the Centennial Challenges space/aeronautics prize program continues at $10M per year for the 5 years covered in NASA's budget request. Note that the Senate report doesn't contain a line for Centennial Challenges.