Euroconsult, a Paris-based consulting group, recently released its annual report stating that global budgets for space programs dropped by $800 million in 2012, the first drop in space spending in 17 years. The drop is attributed to deep cuts in the U.S. civil- and defense-related space projects and a failure of other nations to meet the difference.
The U.S. in 2012, was responsible for $38.7 billion of the world’s $72.1 billion investment in space in 2012. This represents a sequestration-influenced drop of $8.8 billion since U.S. peak spending in 2009. Russia, which has increased its space funding by more than 30 percent over the last five years, is the only nation that — besides the U.S. — spent more than $10 billion per year in space spending, according to the report.
There is a concern among the scientific community that — in the absence of support from the federal government — the U.S. may be eclipsed in regards to scientific innovation. With technical and scientific innovation traditionally being the key behind wealth creation in the U.S., some have argued that the stifling of scientific discovery will directly and immediately undercut the nation’s future economic growth.
According to conservative columnist George Will, from 1970 to 1995, federal support for research in the physical sciences, as a fraction of gross domestic product, declined 54 percent; in engineering, 51 percent, and on a per-student basis, state support of public universities has declined for more than two decades and was at the lowest level in a quarter-century before the current economic downturn. Annual federal spending on mathematics, the physical sciences and engineering now equals only the increase in health-care costs every nine weeks.
Will said Republicans are rightly determined to be economizers, but they must make distinctions.
“Congressional conservatives can demonstrate that skill by defending research spending that sustains collaboration among complex institutions – corporations’ research entities and research universities,” Will wrote.
Many have been bolstered with the notion that cuts the the federal science agencies would force cuts to waste and needless research programs, such as “causes of stress in Bolivia,” “eco consequences of early human-set fires in New Zealand” and “Mayan architecture and the salt industry.”
All of the proceeding are National Science Foundation-funded projects that have been singled out in a USA Today op-ed by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and House Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith.
However, many feel that the most important discoveries in science happen accidentally while looking for something else. The notion of “prioritizing” research creates a differentiation between “acceptable” research and “unacceptable” research that can move according to the preference of the person judging. This is thought to have the potential to stifle intellectual discussions and debates and create “acceptable science.”
The increase of China’s space research and development spending per GDP — 2.2 percent by 2015 to the United States’ 2.8 percent currently — and recent motions toward establishing a space station have encouraged Congress to increase science spending for 2014. The NSF will see a budget increase of 4.2 percent while the Department of Energy will see a 9.7 percent increase. NASA will see a 4.1 percent increase — similar to the increase the Census Bureau will receive — and the NOAA Office of Atmospheric Research will see a budget increase of 23.8 percent.
The increase comes with congressional mandates to NASA to spend no more than $8 billion in the construction of 2016’s James Webb Space Telescope. The funding language also bans NASA from collaborating with the Chinese unless the White House can vouch for any potential risks to national security.