White House freezes NASA’s budget at 2010 level

February 16, 2011 at 10:51 am | Posted in Space Law Current Events | Leave a comment

by Sara M. Langston with the blog faculty

The Obama administration has announced its 2012 budget request, which if approved would freeze spending for NASA and other federal agencies at 2010 levels for the next fiscal year.

The 2012 budget request allocates $18.7 billion for NASA, the same amount the agency received in 2010. That’s about $300 million less than NASA was alloted in the president’s 2011 budget request.

“The times today are very difficult fiscally, and we’re going to live within a budget,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said at a press conference Monday. “What we do has to be affordable, sustainable, and it has to make sense.”

The move is part of an overall five-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending that the White House is proposing. [Full story]