Scientists Protest NASA Budget at Advisory Council Meeting

The outcries against the NASA budget request — many of which were voiced at the first public meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s science advisory subcommittee May 3-4 — have been growing since February when it was revealed that science spending would remain essentially flat, at around $5.3 billion through the end of the decade. By comparison, the five-year forecast for space science spending that accompanied NASA’s 2006 budget request last year was $3 billion higher. NASA now wants to shift that $3 billion to the shuttle program over the next five years.