NASA Management & Reality

In a teleconference with NASA employees, as reported in Florida Today’s article, “Get with the program, Bolden tells NASA workers“, NASA Administrator Bolden made several statements that…well, looking at the numbers, just don’t add up.

One of the more bizarro claims was,

Explaining the decision to abandon Constellation, Bolden said that in the current “dire” fiscal climate he could not ethically recommend to the president that pouring tens of billions more dollars into Constellation was essential.

Well, the facts are different.

The U.S. Budget consists of two budgets, Discretionary and Non-Discretionary. The Discretionary budget includes such budgets as NASA, Education, Housing, Science, and so on and is the portion of the budget that is squooshy. Non-Discretionary spending is for the likes of DoD, Medicare, Medicaid and even Social Security.

Here’s what the budget picture looks like:

NASA v. US Budget

Just glancing at this and one quickly gets the idea that we could erase all non-discretionary spending and still be going into debt. Cutting 1/3 of 0.48%, or 0.16% that is Constellation’s amount, of the U.S. Budget to cut back the deficit is… A. Joke.

So, NASA Administrator Bolden’s claim that he recommended cutting Constellation to help the President bring down the budget deficit is just pure nonsense.

Time Magazine – Obama Budget Grounds NASA

Time To Go Boldly