NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, left, discusses the agency's fiscal 2016 budget with reporters at the Kennedy Space Center while spaceport director Robert Cabana, right, looks on. William Harwood\/CBS News<\/p>\n
The Obama administration's fiscal 2016 budget includes $18.5 billion for NASA -- a half-billion-dollar increase -- that continues development of a new mega-rocket and capsule for deep space exploration and significantly boosts funding for commercial spacecraft to ferry crews to and from the space station, agency officials said Monday. <\/p>\n
The budget proposal also includes funding to continue studies of a proposed crewed mission to visit an asteroid in the 2020s, to pay for ongoing and planned robotic Mars missions and to keep the $6 billion James Webb Space Telescope, the long-awaited successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, on track for launch in late 2018. <\/p>\n
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\"President Obama today is proposing an FY 2016 budget of $18.5 billion for NASA, building on the significant investments the administration has made in America's space program over the past six years,\" NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told Kennedy Space Center workers. <\/p>\n
Standing in front of an Orion deep space exploration capsule that completed an initial test flight in December, Bolden said the budget represented a \"half billion-dollar increase over last year's enacted budget, and it is a clear vote of confidence to you, the employees of NASA, and the ambitious exploration program you are executing.\" <\/p>\n
Repeating what has become a sort of mantra for senior NASA officials, Bolden said the agency \"is firmly on a journey to Mars. Make no mistake, this journey will help guide and define our generation.\" <\/p>\n
While eventual Mars flights are not expected until the mid 2030s at the earliest, NASA's long-range focus is the red planet, a goal Bolden promotes at every opportunity. <\/p>\n
NASA's human exploration program accounts for nearly half of the agency's 2016 budget request, or $8.51 billion. That total includes $3.106 billion for International Space Station operations, $1.244 billion for commercial crew spacecraft, $2.863 billion for the Orion deep space capsule and the heavy-lift Space Launch System booster and $400 million for research and development. <\/p>\n
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What NASA would do with an extra half-billion dollars<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, left, discusses the agency's fiscal 2016 budget with reporters at the Kennedy Space Center while spaceport director Robert Cabana, right, looks on. Continue reading