The latest NASA budget will redirect the focus of the space program, increasing funding for certain initiatives while scaling back on others. What do these changes mean for the aerospace industry as a whole?

Although the latest National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) budget will do away with certain long-standing provisions of the space program, including future attempts to send manned missions to the moon and short-term plans for human space exploration, it will also open new opportunities for development thanks to a larger overall funding package. These new priorities may reflect shifting trends in the aerospace industry as a whole.

According to NASA’s Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Estimates, released earlier this month, the national space agency expects to scrap most of the “Vision for Space Exploration” plan introduced in January 2004, including the Constellation program, which was intended to expand human spaceflight missions and eventually resume sending astronauts to the moon. NASA is also planning to retire the space shuttle within the next year.

Despite these cutbacks, the overall budget for NASA will climb from $18.7 billion to $19 billion in the next fiscal year, increasing slightly each following year through 2015, for a total of $100 billion over five years. These additional funds are intended to shift priority from manned spaceflight onto developing new technologies and boosting scientific research.

A review panel commissioned by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) found that “NASA’s program to repeat many of the achievements of the Apollo era, 50 years later, was the least attractive approach to space exploration as compared to potential alternatives. Furthermore, NASA’s attempts to pursue its moon goals, while inadequate to that task, had drawn funding away from other NASA programs, including robotic space exploration, science and Earth observations.”

The OMB report emphasizes that future prospects for the space agency will focus on reducing operational costs and building closer partnerships with the aerospace industry, with some of the largest gains going to increasing commercial crew and cargo capabilities.

Other highlights from the OMB’s 2011 space program budget summary include:

• $1.2 billion for research in exploration technology involving NASA, private industry and academia, which will “potentially [create] entire new industries”;
• $500 million in industry contracts for helping transport astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) and “catalyzing new businesses and significant new jobs”;
• $3.2 billion in research grants for missions and equipment to study the planets and stars, including Mars;
• $183 million to extend the life of the ISS past its planned retirement date of 2016; and
• $600 million to complete the five remaining space shuttle missions and retire the shuttle.

“NASA investment in the commercial spaceflight industry is a win-win decision: commercial crew will create thousands of high-tech jobs in the United States, especially in Florida, while reducing the spaceflight gap and preventing us from sending billions to Russia,” Bretton Alexander, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said in response to the budget projections. “This is on par with the early days of aviation and the U.S. Airmail Act, which spurred the growth of an entire new industry that now adds billions to the U.S. economy every year.”

The robotics industry may also see a boost, as NASA expects to significantly increase efforts toward automated exploration of the moon, Mars and asteroids, with individual missions and project life-cycles that can run up to $800 million in cost, Popular Mechanics reports.

The outlook for the overall aerospace and defense sector is beginning to improve after a challenging year. According to a report from Deloitte last month, although U.S. defense spending is expected to decline to 3.8 percent of gross domestic product by 2015, upcoming military initiatives are expected to require 30,000 to 40,000 A&D contractor jobs to meet new equipment, maintenance and transportation needs.

The Deloitte report also forecasts that the commercial aviation industry will continue to recover due to returned growth in revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs), a measure of profitability for airline passengers. As a result, “commercial aircraft producers might be convinced that a reduction in production levels could be avoided — a relief to the thousands of suppliers to this industry.”

“2009 in retrospect was the trough in the current economic cycle for A&D,” the report concludes, “and as we start the new decade, we should see a steady climb in 2010 for the industry.”

Earlier: The Future of U.S. Space Flight

Resources

Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Estimates
NASA, Feb. 1, 2010

The Federal Budget Fiscal Year 2011: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
White House Office of Management and Budget, February 2010

CSF Statement on…NASA Budget Increase
by John Gedmark
Commercial Spaceflight Federation, Jan. 29, 2010

5 Winners in Obama’s Space Budget
by Joe Pappalardo
Popular Mechanics, Feb. 1, 2010

Aerospace and Defense — 2010 U.S. Outlook
by Tom Captain and Chuck Wald
Deloitte, Jan. 19, 2010