Call to Action WHAT YOU CAN DO FAX the Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees (contact information below) and ask that NASA be directed to revise its Initial FY2006 Operating Plan to restore funds to its science programs. Ask that funds for these programs be restored in the FY2007 NASA budget and that NASA be barred from transferring science funds to pay for human space flight or the Moon-Mars Initiative. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce Justice and Science Chairman: Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-AL) The Capitol S-146A FAX: 202-224-2698 Ranking Member: Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD) Hart Senate Office Building 123 FAX: 202-224-8858 House Appriopriations Subcommittee on Science State Justice and Commerce and Related Agencies Chairman: Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-VA) The Capitol H-309 FAX: 202-225-0437 Ranking Member: Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV) Longworth House Office Building 1016 FAX: 202-225-9476 The SETI Institute also invites you to make use of its automatic FAX generator, which allows you to more easily distribute your message to other members of the Appropriations committees. No letter head or institutional logo is attached to the FAX sent. NEWS (April 6, 2006): Congressman Boehlert urges restoration of NASA Research and Analysis Funds in testimony before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice and Commerce and Related Agencies. APPROPRIATIONS PROCESS UNDERWAY: Congress is holding hearings on the proposed FY07 NASA budget and has yet to approve the Initial FY06 NASA Operating Plan. Congress needs to be informed about the slashing of NASA Research and Analysis programs - 25% over 2006 and 2007. NASA should be directed to restore R&A funds cut in the Initial FY06 Operating Plan, and Congress should restore the cuts proposed for R&A in the FY2007 budget proposal. The money will not stay there, however, unless NASA is barred from transferring funds out of Space Science. IMPORTANT DATES COMING UP: APRIL 26 - Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science Hearing: NASA FY07 Budget Request May 3-4 - First meeting of the NASA science advisory subcommittees in College Park, MD. This meeting is open to the public - attend if you can. o Membership (not yet available) o Preliminary Agenda WHAT NASA IS DOING AND WHY NASA is continuing to cut R&A programs 15% retroactively in FY06 and an additional 15% in FY07, with Astrobiology being cut 50%. "Because there will be fewer missions within SMD, a larger body of advanced research and development to prepare for future missions will not be required." Mary Cleave, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, in a letter to the science community, March 6, 2006. FULL TEXT (PDF), and ENCLOSURE (PDF). See also NASA notice posted on NSPIRES, April 4, 2006. TEXT WHY THIS MAKES NO SENSE "Science capability cannot be maintained when support for research shrinks. Cutting science research necessarily results in the loss of primarily young scientists and the degradation of sub-disciplines, from which we cannot bounce back quickly. This position ensures whatever missions we do in the future will reflect a decreased capability. Such missions will be more limited, less cost-effective, and return less science." Mark Sykes and Heidi Hammel in Space News Commentary (TBP Monday, March 27). NASA Research and Analysis funds (excepting instrument development programs) have been at most flat in constant dollars this decade, whereas between 2001 and 2005 mission data more than doubled and between 2005 and 2008 mission data is expected to increase more than five-fold. R&A is not keeping up and a rapidly increasing amount of tax-payer funded data is not even being looked at. Fewer missions does not mean less work that is needed to be done. NASA is also cutting the Planetary Data System, which is simply bizarre - future missions are being identified whose data will not be archived. Why are Planetary Research Programs Critical to Solar System Exploration? ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND LINKS NASA transfers funds from Science to Exploration. Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator, in a letter to Congressman S.L. Boehlert, February 6, 2006 - see pgs. 3 and 5 - FULL TEXT (PDF) NASA Initial FY2006 Operating Plan Spreadsheet (PDF) Table Summarizing FY 2007 Budget Request for NASA (PDF) DOING THE MATH Letter from Mark V. Sykes (PSI Director) to Michael Griffin, protesting cuts to NASA science research (February 9, 2006).