The Director of the Astrophysics Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate visited Huntsville again on Thursday, which he seems to do around once a year. It's always interesting to hear how NASA funding works and changes. Astrophysics currently gets the largest share of money of the SMD, but will drop to third out of four next year when Earth science and planetary/lunar science get great increases. SMD as a whole is currently allocated $4.5 billion dollars out of NASA's rather small $17.5 billion dollar budget.

He gave a brief overview of all the current and future missions, including giving high praise to the GLAST team. The GLAST “first light” press conference will be held during the first week of August, when they'll also be renaming the satellite. It was also pleasing to me to note that the satellite I work with, Swift, was ranked at the top of the list for best future science potential out of all ten active missions at the time of the senior review this year and has been funded through at least 2012.

He noted that the budget will probably be under a continuing resolution for the start of the 2009 fiscal year, and that the budget represents the priorities of the nation.