WEEK OF JULY 22, 2024

What’s Ahead

Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee Hearing — Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) speaks with NASA Administrator Bill Nelson at a hearing in May.

Bill Ingalls / NASA

Senate to Release First Science Budgets, Challenge FY25 Caps

Senate appropriators are preparing to push back against current spending caps as they begin advancing their budget proposals for fiscal year 2025 this week, starting with the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill on Thursday. The committee has reached a bipartisan agreement to use emergency funding to circumvent the caps set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which permits only a 1% increase to both defense and nondefense spending.

In a recent speech, Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) said that sticking to these caps would cause the U.S. to fall “way behind on innovation when we should be leading the way,” adding that the Chinese government reportedly plans to increase its R&D spending by 10% this year. She also said that without additional funding agencies such as NASA would be forced to delay missions and the National Institutes of Health would face a large shortfall as a special funding stream created by the 21st Century Cures Act comes to an end.

The Republican-led House is unlikely to support this use of emergency funds, as it successfully opposed a similar bid by the Senate in the previous budget cycle. This year, House appropriators have proposed budget increases for a few science agencies without resorting to emergency funds, such as a 1.8% increase for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, but others would see flat or decreased budgets. The full House plans to vote on its DOE spending bill this week after the Rules Committee meets to determine which of the proposed amendments will receive votes.

The full House bills, with proposed amendments, are posted here:

IBM Executive Takes Helm of NSF Board

The National Science Foundation’s governing board will meet on Wednesday and Thursday, its first meeting since electing IBM Research Director Darío Gil as board chair in May. He is the first working industry executive to hold the position in more than 30 years. Gil will moderate a panel discussion on changes in the science and engineering landscape over the past decade with Tarun Chhabra, senior director for technology and national security at the National Security Council; L. Rafael Reif, president emeritus of MIT; and David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation.

The meeting will also cover NSF’s strategy for the U.S. Antarctic Program and the agency’s efforts to prevent sexual assault and harassment among workers on the continent. NSF has worked to make it easier for staff to report sexual misconduct and coordinate responses to reports after a 2022 study found that, among USAP focus group participants, 59% of women had personally been subject to or witnessed sexual assault or harassment. Separately, NSF is grappling with infrastructure modernization backlogs in Antarctica that have led it to delay additional facility construction proposals, such as the Cosmic Microwave Background Stage Four telescope.

The meeting agenda does not indicate whether NSF will give an update on the external review panel for the Extremely Large Telescope projects under consideration for NSF funding. The NSF director formed the panel after the board signaled earlier this year that it is unlikely to support both of the two candidate projects. The panel is expected to report back before the end of the fiscal year in September.

Correction: A previous version of this piece incorrectly stated that the external review panel was formed by NSF’s board. It was actually formed by the NSF director. The story has been updated.

VIPER Rover a Victim of Cost Constraints

NASA abruptly canceled its VIPER lunar rover last week, citing concerns that the costs and schedule delays required to complete the mission would threaten cancellation or disruption to other projects in the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Construction of the rover is already complete, but the total cost of the mission has increased by more than 30% above the baseline of about $434 million. NASA officials said at a press conference that the cancellation will save $84 million and possibly more if the launch was further delayed, and that the decision was made in the face of a “very constrained budget environment.”

VIPER would have mapped ice and searched for other resources at the lunar South Pole. The Griffin lander, now without VIPER on board, is working toward launch no earlier than fall 2025. NASA said it will now pursue VIPER’s goals through other instruments, including a separate CLPS mission called PRIME-1 and the crewed Lunar Terrain Vehicle to be developed through the Artemis program. NASA’s first two CLPS landers launched in January and February of this year, with the first failing to land on the moon after a fuel leak and the second tipping over upon landing.

Also On Our Radar

A panel considering ways NASA could reduce the operating costs of the Chandra and Hubble space telescopes, will report out its recommendations at a meeting of the agency’s Astrophysics Advisory Committee on Tuesday. This “Operations Paradigm Change Review” comes as NASA has proposed quickly ramping down funding for Chandra due to budget constraints.
The House Administration Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday to examine how the Supreme Court’s overturning of the Chevron doctrine will affect Congress.
A National Academies report on the state of the ocean acoustics workforce will be released on Tuesday.
An assessment of the Department of Energy’s small business R&D programs is kicking off on Tuesday and Wednesday.
DOE has released a roadmap for its Frontiers in AI for Science, Security, and Technology (FASST) initiative.