eder@hsvaic.boeing.com (Dani Eder) (06/15/91)
In article <1991Jun11.200742.12731@csun.edu> swalton@corona.csun.edu (Stephen Walton) writes: > >1) It is incorrect to conclude that funding frozen at last year's levels would >not severely hurt these programs. The funding profile of any space flight >project is not flat -- instead it grows sharply in the early years, and then >decreases as hardware problems have been solved and the project moves toward >launch and mission operations. CRAF/Cassini, AXAF, and EOS all required large >increases in FY '92, and the House action would deny these increases. The >situation is particularly severe for CRAF and Cassini, both of which have >perishable launch windows. > Hopefully the committees involved are intelligent enough to understand that planetary exploration missions rise and fall in funding through their development cycles, and the intent of the amendment is to freeze the overall planetary exploration budget at last year's level. If the committees are too dumb to understand this, we need to educate them fast, since projects winding down, like Mars Observer, will get unneeded windfalls, while those ramping up will be stalled. Dani Eder