Monday, March 1 2010 was "NASA Night" as LPSC, which is the evening presentation and Q&A by designated representatives from NASA Headquarters. This year, the briefing was given jointly by Jim Green and Laurie Leshin. Jim Green spoke first with an update on SMD (the Science Mission Directorate) activity.
Some interesting bits: a number of key, long-term NASA staffers will be retiring soon, including Tom Morgan, Marilyn Lindstrom, and Dave Lindstrom. Marilyn I know personally because she is the program officer for the Mars Fundamental Research program, and she has been invaluable in helping me transfer my grant from one institusiton to another. So there will be some new civil servant positions opening at NASA HQ in the not-too-distant future to help fill the large voids left by this round of retirements. In terms of funds, SMD funding has increased by $512 million in the President's budget, which is a strong statement of support. NASA will be working with the DOE to restart Pu-238 production, which is needed to help power spacecraft in distant portions of our Solar System. This last bit is very good news indeed. I have said, only half-kidding, that perhaps we should be buying nuclear materials from Iran or North Korea for our space program. At least we would make it unavailable for them to build nukes, but the flip side is this sort of encourages them to produce more. Anyway, it's good to hear that NASA is taking the shortage of nuclear materials so seriously.
One of the cautionary notes Jim Green gave the audience is that we (meaning grant recipients) need to spend our allocated funds in a more timely fashion. The reason being, he continued, is that Congress views these encumbered (i.e., dedicated to a given institution or purpose) but unspent funds as "wasted." This is troubling to hear, and part of the trouble is that is takes NASA a while to actually get funds out to the institutions. I don't know what the average time frame is, but I believe 9-12 months after a grant is submitted is not atypical. I talked with Jim Green briefly about this after the meeting and suggested that one plausible scenario for a delay in spent funds is university spending cycle. Meaning some university professors are barred from using NASA funds for anything other than summer salary. Therefore if the funding comes through in October, for example, they may not be able to use any of those funds for salary until the following May or June. This may not explain the whole situation Jim Green was referring to, but it may be a contributing factor. More on the rest of the evening in Part II.
