…as lawmakers cut the agency’s budget

NASA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) will both see their budgets fall during fiscal year 2012, according to a preliminary agreement by a House-Senate committee, which met on 14 November.

NASA would receive $17.8bn, a $648m drop that represents a 3.5 per cent cut. The figure is nearly $1bn less than had been asked for by the White House. Meanwhile, OSTP would see its much smaller budget fall much further, by more than 30 per cent under the conference agreement, from $6.65m to $4.5m.