From: Bob Snyder <rsnyder@toontown.erial.nj.us> Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 13:27:23 -0400
[...snip...]
Don't expect warnings like this in the future; Congress is likely to drop the Space Environment Center's funding to 0.
Bob
Saw Bob's message and remembered another received some time ago... ------------- Begin Forwarded Message ------------- Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:35:12 GMT From: Space Environment Center <sec@sec.noaa.gov> To: sec-announcement-send@dawn.sec.noaa.gov Subject: SEC-Letter Dear Friend, The following describes Space Environment Center's unfortunate financial situation. For the coming fiscal year, the House Committee-recommended funding creates a huge shortfall, and the Senate Committee's recommendation implies no support for space weather service at all this year. Possibly a new service would be established elsewhere in the government, but that is uncertain at this point. We thought you would like to know. Ernest Hildner and the staff of SEC ======================================================================== U.S. SPACE WEATHER SERVICE IN DEEP TROUBLE SUMMARY For Fiscal Year 2004, starting October 1, 2003, the House Appropriations Bill for Commerce, Justice, and State continues Space Environment Center's funding at $5.2 M (a reduction of 40% below the FY02 level). Worse, the FY04 Senate Appropriations Bill zeroes Space Environment Center and all space weather in NOAA, so services, data and observations, and archiving would all disappear if the final appropriation is at the Senate level. At the House funding level, starting October 1 SEC will rapidly lose about half its staff, negatively affecting its ability to serve the Nation with operational products, data collection, and R&D. Unless the appropriation level for Space Environment Center is restored to the level of the President's FY04 Budget Request, $8.3 million, the Nation's civilian space weather service is in trouble. At the President's requested funding level, Space Environment Center can almost return to FY02 level of services, data, and R&D. BACKGROUND NOAA's Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colorado, provides a range of services to the Nation related to space weather phenomena. Among other activities, the Center is the unique provider of real-time monitoring and forecasting of solar and geophysical events, it conducts research in solar-terrestrial physics, and it develops techniques for forecasting solar and geophysical disturbances. That is, Space Environment Center is the Nation's space weather service, monitoring and predicting conditions in space, much as the National Weather Service does for meteorological weather. SEC jointly operates the Space Weather Operations Center with the U.S. Air Force and serves as the national and world warning center for disturbances that can affect people and equipment working in the space environment. It is the government's official source for alerts and warnings of disturbances. Customers include DoD, NASA, FAA, airlines, operators of electric power grids, communicators, satellite operators, the National Space Weather Program, and commercial providers of value-added space weather services. Partnering with researchers funded by NSF, NASA, and the DoD, Space Environment Center is the place where much of the nation's $100s of millions annual investment in the National Space Weather Program and in space physics research is applied for the benefit of commerce, defense, NASA spaceflight, and individual taxpayers. SEC's appropriation lines can be found in the Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research portion of the Budget. In the omnibus appropriations Bill for FY 2003, the SEC received a severe cut to its budget of about 40%, with no explanation for the reduction. One-time funding additions have kept SEC afloat in FY2003. The President's Budget request is $8.3 million for SEC in FY2004 (an amount consistent with its past budgetary levels), but the House Commerce-Justice-State Appropriations Committee provides only $5.2 million, or roughly 40% less than the amount necessary to maintain SEC at its current operational effectiveness. Again for FY04, no explanatory text was included in the Committee Report to explain this reduction, and it far exceeds the 18 % reduction below request meted out to NOAA Research overall and the 1% reduction to National Weather Service's request. The Bill has not yet been acted upon by the full House. The Senate Appropriations Committee explains its termination of space weather in NOAA in the Report accompanying its Commerce-Justice-State Bill as follows. The full text of the Senate Report may be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/T?&report=sr144&dbname=cp108& Solar observation. - The "Atmospheric" in NOAA does not extend to the astral. Absolutely no funds are provided for solar observation. Such activities are rightly the bailiwick of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Air Force. Needless to say, there is no evidence to suggest that NASA and the Air Force agree that one or the other, or both, should operate the Nation's civilian space weather service. CONCLUSION Unless SEC's appropriation level is increased in Conference, the best outlook is that Space Environment Center shrinks to less than half its capability (House mark), and the worst is that space weather will disappear from NOAA (Senate mark). In this case, the Nation's space weather service will have to be reconstituted in some other agency, at greater cost and lesser capability, to meet the Nation's needs. ************************************************** Ernest Hildner Director, Space Environment Center Tel: 303-497-3311 Manager, NOAA Space Weather Program Fax: 303 497-3645 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305 www.sec.noaa.gov ------------- End Forwarded Message ------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------- Gregory Hicks | Principal Systems Engineer Cadence Design Systems | Direct: 408.576.3609 555 River Oaks Pkwy M/S 6B1 | Fax: 408.894.3400 San Jose, CA 95134 | Internet: ghicks@cadence.com "The trouble with doing anything right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was." When a team of dedicated individuals makes a commitment to act as one... the sky's the limit. Just because "We've always done it that way" is not necessarily a good reason to continue to do so... Grace Hopper, Rear Admiral, United States Navy