NASA Budget Guts Aeronautic Research To Support Space

NASA is the "National Aeronautics and Space Administration," and ex-director Sean O'Keefe was fond of saying that he wasn't going to forget the first "A". But the new NASA budget strips resources from aeronautics programs in order to fund the two bottomless appetites of the space program: the shuttle's return to flight, and the International Space Station.

In the last round of cuts, in 2003, O'Keefe was a strong proponent of retaining the four basic and applied aeronautic research centers that NASA inherited from the earlier National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics. Those centers are: Ames Research Center at Northern California's Moffett Field, Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB in the Mojave Desert, Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA, and Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland, OH.

If these cuts make it through Congress -- far from certain, as home-state legislators see NASA as a jobs program, and are expected to oppose cuts in their districts -- Langley Research Center will lay off some 1,000 of its roughly 3,900 people. The layoffs have already started, with 500 technicians and 150 employees of contractor Jacobs Sverdrup being put on notice.

The budget cuts almost 40% of Langley's wind tunnel work in 2006, with slightly larger cuts projected for 2007. Langley is already trying to demolish facilities, including several historic buildings and a historic 1929 full-scale wind tunnel now managed by Old Dominion University. The only thing special about Langley, as opposed to any other laboratory, is its twenty-odd wind tunnels. Wind tunnels were constructed as soon as the center was opened in 1917; These wind tunnels were used for much of the seminal NACA research of the 1920s and 30s, and for the tests that led to the 1940s and 1950s X-Planes.

The basic research done at Langley ultimately finds its way into civil and military aircraft -- but because it can take 20 years for a concept to make it from research paper to test flight, this research can't be replaced by private industry or universities. For example, advanced concepts that were Langley research projects in the 50s, 60s and 70s, to include the externally blown flap, the supercritical wing, and fly-by-wire controls, are key selling points in the Boeing C-17 Globemaster, in production now for the USAF. Civil aviation has also benefited from basic research into such advanced aerodynamics, not to mention spin studies (Langley has a rare spin tunnel), wind shear, and wake-vortex hazards. The developments in crashworthiness written into the latest amendments to FAR 23 and FAR 25, and incorporated into new aircraft like the Cirrus and the Gippsland Airvan, began with research at Langley.

The cuts may end Langley, but the cuts don't end at Langley by any means. Glenn in Cleveland is slated to lose 4 wind tunnels and other facilities related to powerplant research, some 650 jobs (of about 2,000) and will take a $130 million budget cut. One of the targeted facilities is the only full-size wind tunnel in the nation where certain engines can be ignited.

Even Dryden, the second smallest of NASA's centers, will lose about 40 jobs. (Much Dryden work is related to the Space Shuttle).

All the jobs eliminated agency-wide relate to aeronautical research. There are no job cuts in space research, and there appear to be none in the sprawling headquarters bureaucracy.

Contrary to some media reports, the overall NASA budget was not cut. Instead, it was not increased as much as NASA expected. NASA's proposed budget of $16.45 billion is 2.4 percent increased over the 2005 budget. NASA, however, was counting on another $547 million. On top of that, continued cost overruns in the space shuttle return-to-flight and the International Space Station squeeze everything else in the budget.

Along with the four legacy aeronautical centers, NASA operates two manned space flight centers, Kennedy in Florida and Johnson in Houston, two that are primarily concerned with rocket propulsion, the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, and the Stennis Space Flight Center in Hancock County, MS, and two that focus on astronomy and unmanned space missions: Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed under contract by CalTech in Pasadena.

FMI: www.nasa.gov