Washington – August 1, 1999 – As President and President-Elect of the American Astronomical Society, we are gravely disturbed by the recent report issued by the House Appropriations VA-HUD and Independent Agencies Subcommittee.
The report suggests deep cuts for NASA and NSF budgets — cuts that will have a devastating impact on astronomical research in the United States, and on US Space Science in particular.
We understand and support the fiscally responsible attitude underlying the Report's recommendations but we believe that the specific cuts outlined disregard public enthusiasm for NASA and NSF programs and overlook the dramatic benefits that both agencies generate for our Nation.
NASA and NSF scientific programs have revolutionized our world; in applied research alone, the Internet and space-based communication systems are incontestable successes. In addition, the Report negates long-term plans constructed by the Agencies in collaboration with the US scientific and technical communities.
Indeed, it calls for the cancellation of important programs that are well along in their development phases, such as the last of the NASA's Great Observatories series.
It is particularly shocking to us that the proposed cuts directly target NASA's Office of Space Science and NSF at this time. NASA's "Origins" program has caught the public imagination with wildly successful images from the Hubble Space Telescope, with the recently launched Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and with the expectation of discovering other Earths in the new millennium.
The NSF-driven Information Technology for the Twentieth Century initiative, which promises to vastly expand the power of the Internet and computing in general, is just beginning.
We believe that adequate support for a wide spectrum of fundamental research is necessary for a robust National scientific enterprise. We urge the House Appropriations Committee not to accept the report from the VA-HUD-IA subcommittee without further discussion and amendment.
