US National Radio Astronomy undergoes Budget Cuts

The US National Radio Astronomy Observatory, in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Tuesday announced layoffs and travel restrictions.

Director Anthony Beasley, who was appointed in February, had to find $3 million in 2013 budget cuts — about 6% of the organization’s budget, excluding its commitments to the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array in Chile.

The cuts include layoffs of 26 staff members.

According to Beasley, it will mean that there will be less support for users of facilities such as the Very Long Baseline Array and Green Bank Telescope (pictured). “Morale is obviously being impacted by this,” he says.

Beasley says the cuts reflect the overall efforts of the National Science Foundation to trim budgets in order to make way for new projects, such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

NRAO is not the only astronomy community forced to tighten its belt. The National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, announced in April that it was laying off 35 scientists and support workers.

AIA Concerned by NASA, NOAA Cuts

The Aerospace Industries Association is concerned about the substantial cuts being made to the budgets of NASA and NOAA in the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science markup of the fiscal year 2012 appropriations bill.

"We recognize that tough economic times call for tough choices," said AIA President and CEO Marion C. Blakey. "However, cutting NASA and NOAA this deeply threatens American leadership in space and impairs our ability to make life-saving weather predictions."

The subcommittee's markup cuts NASA's space programs by 10 percent from the President's request and nearly 13 percent from the NASA authorization passed last October. AIA acknowledges that many NASA mission areas were adequately supported-but some suffered draconian cuts.

Given the current fiscal environment, AIA believes the $18.7 billion in funding proposed by the President provides the minimum required for these important programs.

AIA supports appropriations reflecting the policy priorities of the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 as closely as possible and opposes the termination of programs contrary to the priorities of the Authorization Act.

With the imminent retirement of the Space Shuttle, NASA must be adequately funded to continue our visible national commitment to space exploration, science, aeronautics and technology leadership-something that 58 percent of Americans recently polled by the Pew Research Center supported.

"Each ride to the space station that NASA buys from Russia is the annual equivalent of 1000 American aerospace jobs," Blakey said. "We should be paying Americans instead of Russians."

In addition, NOAA would get $1 billion less than the President's request-an 18 percent cut in a year when storms have already taken hundreds of lives and shown the need for accurate forecasts.

AIAA Budget cuts will retrict NASA and Human Spaceflight

AIAA President Dave Thompson has testified before the House Committee on Science and Technology on "Decisions on the Future Direction and Funding for NASA: What Will They Mean for the U.S. Aerospace Workforce and Industrial Base?"

Thompson and his fellow panelists were asked to address the effects of NASA's future direction and funding on the country's aerospace industry and the nation as a whole.

Thompson said that the number of retiring professionals exceeds the supply of younger aerospace engineers entering the profession, and warned the committee that over half of all current aerospace engineers will reach retirement age within five years.

"If talented young engineers and scientists are not recruited, retained, and developed to replace the generation that is near retirement, then the U.S. stands to lose the critical economic and national security benefits of the domestic aerospace industry."

He added that finding talented young engineers will become progressively more difficult at a time when fewer Americans are opting to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

He painted a stark picture of the future of the industry, noting that only 15 percent of American students opt to pursue degrees in STEM disciplines at the undergraduate level, compared to nearly 50 percent of students in Asia and Europe.

Thompson noted that the situation at the graduate level is even bleaker, with fewer American students pursuing doctoral degrees in STEM subjects than students in Europe and China.

Stressing the importance of human space flight in inspiring future generation of aerospace workers, Thompson warned that "A major cutback in U.S. human space programs would be substantially detrimental to the future of the aerospace workforce."

Citing MIT's recent "Survey of Aerospace Student Attitudes," he said that 40 percent of students currently enrolled in engineering programs in the United States cited human space flight as their inspiration for pursing their degrees.

Thompson ended his testimony by urging the Administration and Congress to consider the collateral damage if human space programs were curtailed. As human space flight programs represented 20% of aerospace industry revenues during 2008, any major cutbacks could have large and adverse ripple effects on the American economy as well as the future of the aerospace industry."