NASA Congressional Attention and Budget Spending

Dominique Awis1
Charleston, SC

Abstract
This article will attempt to study Congressional attention in the form of Congressional hearings and NASAs budget spending changes. This article firstly
makes an argument that NASAs budget has been improperly measured and
will attempt to find a more substantive way to measure NASA budget changes.
Predictors of NASA budget changes such as Congressional attention and Presidential attention will be tested and results discussed. While Hogan (2007) has
effectively used Punctuated Equilibrium Theory to investigate media attention
and Congressional attention, correlation for these variables has not been tested
and compared with Disproportionate Information Processing theory.
Keywords: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, government
attention, Congress, Congressional hearings, budget allocation, NASA
spending, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, Disproportionate Information
Processing

1. Introduction
The United States has the authority and legitimacy to conduct outer space
activities because of U.S. space policy; space policy is an integration of both
foreign and domestic policy, foreign policy through international law and relations and domestic policy through scientific research, education, and largely
technological development. [1]

URL: dmawis.wordpress.com || twitter.com/spaceloss (Dominique Awis)

Political Science College of Charleston

1 B.A.

Preprint submitted to Space Policy Journal

December 23, 2016

NASA was effectively established in 1958 when two executive orders by

President Eisenhower transferred Department of Defense functions to NASA
(Executive Order no. 10783,10793). The Department of Defense had began
space-related research and activities since the 1940s, largely with atmospheric
and rocketry science. [2] NASA integrated itself with other institutions such
as NACA, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and various U.S.
propulsion laboratories. [2]
NASAs main goals listed in the unamended National Aeronautics and Space
Act of 1958 Congressional Declaration of Policy and Purpose are to do some
combination of the following: a) peaceful purposes of outer space, b) aeronautical and space activities for state security, c) expansion of human knowledge
of atmospheres and space, and d) development of aeronautical and space vehicle technologies. The amended National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958
includes Earth science, the commercial use of space, international cooperation
of space activities, bioengineering research, ground propulsion systems, and potential hazards of near-Earth objects.
Space policy is a modern phenomena as the US government has grown in
complexity over time, and therefore has increased attention to areas once not
within the agenda sphere of the U.S. government. The U.S. government created
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, as a result of this
increased attention. NASA was established when the U.S. government began
to allocate attention to space, science, and technology policy in the 1950s and
was mandated by law to focus attention to this area of policy. [3]
The increase of attention to space, science, and technology policy, the creation of NASA is also largely credited from the pressures of national defense [2]
such that the Space Race was a result of a crisis. Historians Logsdon (1970),
Launius (1994), Beschloss (1997) have found that the US initiated the Space
Race in the 1960s as a competition with the Soviet Union [4]. The US is famously the first regime to place a man on the Moon and return him safely to
Earth in July 1969, effectively winning the Cold War Space Race.

2. Theory
Thus far, the status of research of policy processes of spaceflight have been
discussed, however, aside from Hogans (2007) work, there is little research regarding government attention and NASA budget spending. Attention is particularly important in the agenda setting stage of the policy process; the attention
of government is important in designating the problems from the issues used
in the decision making process of public policy [5].
Agenda setting is the process in which a decision making organization diverts
attention to some issues but not others [3]. Government organizations have
limited attention and thus the allocation of attention is important in the policy
process [3]. Regarding Congress and the president, the level of attention will be
important in determining the degree to which organizations have control over
the agenda setting process of NASA and space policy.
Budget spending is important because it provides a measurement for which
to analyze policy changes quantitatively. Punctuated equilibrium theory, PET,
seeks to explain budget changes with attention, such that attention causes a
change in policy (i.e. more attention, more change). PET theorizes a critical
mass of attention is needed to cause change in spending [6]. Attention is necessary for change, however, may be rare in the world of information overkill [7].
Attention diversity is an important factor to also consider; attention diversity
refers to items that take up space within the agenda sphere, such that attention
should measured while taking the entire agenda in account [7].
Jones and Baumgartners (2005) theory of disproportionate information processing, DIP, seeks to further explain the attention-spending relationship. While
Jones and Baumgartner (2005) do not claim the attention-spending relationship to be one-on-one, large spending increases tend to follow large increases in
attention [8]. This is to say that there is no possibility attention-spending relationship is spurious; confounding variables may be due to political, economic,
or institutional factors [8].
Regarding causal factors of the attention-spending relationship, institutional

friction may prevent changes to spending despite an increase in attention; there

is a possibility an increase of attention will cause a rethinking of the policy issue
in particular, preventing any spending changes [8]. Thus, much attention may
cause little change. Regarding a possible negative correlation in the attentionspending relationship, DIP has evidence that if the expressed public opinion of
an issue may contribute to spending change; if the public prefers less government
spending, a negative correlation may occur [8].
Jones and Baumgartner (2005) theorize that before changes can be made
to spending, attention must reach a certain level, and this depends on agenda
space because a full agenda may cause an issue to be less likely to gain attention;
this holds that with a lower threshold, there are less items on the agenda and
therefore less attention is needed for changes in budget [3]. If space policy
issues appear to have less attention, this might not result in spending changes
if the threshold is higher; a lower threshold given year might cause a higher
attention-spending relationship.
The purpose of this study is determine if a relationship between Congressional and presidential attention and budget spending change exists such that
a positive or negative correlation between attention and spending to a conventionally accepted statistical significant p-value of 0.05 or less will occur, however
accepting at p-value of less than 0.1 as a relationship indicator.
This is not to say that this study will seek to determine causation of the
attention-spending relationship, or make a claim against the theory of disproportionate information processing. This study will only seek to see how DIP
can be used to conceptualize the policy process of space policy, including NASA,
with an interest in manned spaceflight programs. This study will also seek to
find a correlation of the attention-spending relationship of manned spaceflight
and manned spaceflight spending only.
Because attention is important in the agenda setting stage of the policy
process and it is unclear the degree of agenda setting power between Congress
and the president, this relationship will test the reverse relationship, spendingattention. Testing the spending-attention relationship might shed insight into
4

this question because a higher correlation of attention-spending is consistent

with a high degree of importance in the agenda setting stage of policy, while
a higher correlation of spending-attention is consistent with importance in the
evaluation stage of the agenda-setting process. Simply, the agenda setting requires attention resulting in a spending change increase while the evaluation
process requires spending change resulting in an attention increase.

3. Data and Methods

3.1. Data
Data used in this study will be taken from the Policy Agendas Project 2013
database compiled by Baumgartner and Jones (2013). The years used will be
between 1948-2013 given availability of data. [9]
The independent and dependent attention variables will be the ratio of government and media attention in comparison to the total issues; the percent of
the total was used to account for the zero-sum of attention space and limitations. The values were taken directly from the Policy Agendas Project 2013
data which were calculated as a percentage total of spending in comparison to
the entire U.S. budget, adjusted for inflation to three significant digits.
The government attention will be Congressional hearings and Presidential
attention in the form of State of the Union speech mentions that refer to NASA
and space activities. Congressional hearings are important in the policy process
as hearings allow Congress to collect information to use in the decision making
process. The State of the Union is an important agenda setting channel by
which the president discusses salient issues.
The dependent and independent variable, spending change, used the given
percent total of spending of NASA and space activities per each year to three
significant digits. For this study, the percent total of budget, was used which
was calculated as a percentage total of spending in comparison to the entire
U.S. budget adjusted for inflation to three significant digits, was used.

For the spending change variable measurement, the absolute value of the
percent change of the given percent total value was calculated as the value of
spending change; the absolute value was taken under the argument that change
can be both negative and positive, and therefore spending change should be a
positive value.
3.2. Methods
Various linear regressions were performed to investigate the attention-spending
and spending-attention relationship. Mortensen (2009) observes a two year lag
between Congressional attention and spending to account for attention preceding spending in time; this is due to the Congressional budget cycle and time
delay of policy changes; Presidential attention is estimated to require one-year
time lag. [8] This lag between variables is assuming the same lag for attentionspending and spending-attention cycles.

The (1) analysis used Congressional attention as the independent variable

and spending change as the dependent variable. This regression can be represented by:

Spending.Changet = + 1 Congressional.Attentiont2

The (2) analysis used Congressional attention as the independent variable

and spending change as the dependent variable controlling for the Apollo era.
The (3) test is the same regression analysis with Presidential attention as variable to test correlation.

4. Results
4.1. Congressional Attention and Budget Spending
It is clear from the regression analysis shown on Table 1 that Congressional
attention does have a positive correlation with NASA budget spending to a p
6

value of less than 0.1 signifying a weak relationship. If the Apollo Era was
controlled for and this same analysis was repeated, it shows a relationship to
a significant level of statistical correlation at p value less than 0.05 using the
66 observations. Figure 7 shows a plot of this regression analysis. As seen in
figures 2-5, this relationship between NASA budget spending and Congressional
attention can be seen at various angles as a density plot for further investigation.
4.2. Presidential Attention and Budget Spending
As seen from Table 1, Presidential attention regardless of Controlling for
Apollo Era management there is a statistically acceptable level of significance
between correlation of variables. As seen in Figure 8, the regression analysis is
plotted.
Congressional Attention and Spending:
National Space Policy 19482014
Apollo 204 accident

Spending

Attention

2.5 %

2%

Spending Change

Gemini

1.5 %
140%
Apollo

120%

Skylab
Shuttle Retires
Moon Landing

100%
80%

Space Shuttle R&D

Hubble Repair
Challenger accident
Columbia accident

Sputnik 1/NASA est.

1%

Auth. Act/SLS
Space Shuttle Flight
Space Exploration Initiative Expedition 1

60%
40%

0.5 %

Constellation
ISS Launch

20%
0%

0%
1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

Year

Figure 1: Figure caption

2000

2010

Congressional Attention

Mercury

Table 1:

Dependent variable:
Regression 1

Regression 2

10.479

Congressional Attention

(6.234)

0.260

Controlling for Apollo Era

(0.098)
4.415

Presidential Attention

(2.193)

0.332

Controlling for Apollo Era

(0.072)

Observations
Note:

66

p<0.1;

p<0.05;

p<0.01

Figure 2: Figure caption

5. Conclusion
In summation, the point of this study was to stress the imporatance in understanding Congressional attention and how it relates to NASA budget changes.
The study determined an important positive relationship exists between Congressional hearings and NASAs budget such that an increase in Congressional
hearings will result in an increase of NASAs budget change. It is not yet determined whether the result will be positive or negative because the study only
measured change as a positive value.
Proponents should note change is effectively reached when NASAs budget
is increased or decreased as a percentage of the overall US federal budget, not
simply in dollars. Much has to be taken into account for this to be understood
such as how many issues the US Federal government is paying attention to and
allocating money to.
The budget shows NASA has indeed faced major changes during the Apollo
9

Figure 3: Figure caption

Era of 1957-1969, but after this period NASAs budget has not changed. This
can be shown by the flatline of NASA budget attention as seen on Figure 1.
There were some spikes in spending during this period but there is no account
of what lead to the changes aside from the correlation of Congressional attention
in the form of NASA and spaceflight hearings.
In conclusion, there is much more to learn from these findings, but this
study was a permissible place to start, inviting others to analyze Congressional
hearings as a mechanism for budget change. Budget change has been properly measured and proponents of budget change can associate what periods in
NASAs history resulted in changes. Whether or not the changes have increase
or decreased is another venture a researcher might take and see where Congressional hearings fall as a predictor in purpose to effectively reallocate money to
issues such as spaceflight.

10

Figure 4: Figure caption

References
[1] A. Steinberg, Space policy responsiveness: The relationship between public
opinion and nasa funding, Space Policy 27:4 (2011) 240246.
[2] S. Garber, R. Launius, A Brief History of NASA: Launching NASA, National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2005.
[3] B. D. Jones, F. Baumgartner, The Politics of Attention: How Government
Prioritizes Problems, The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., 2005.
[4] W. Kay, Problem definitions and policy contradictions: John f. kennedy and
the space race, in: The Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 31:1, 2003, pp. 131151.
[5] T. R. Dye, Understanding Public Policy, Longman, 2012.
[6] P. Cairney, Understanding Public Policy: Theories and Issues, Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011.
11

Figure 5: Figure caption

[7] A. Boydstun, S. Bevan, H. F. Thomas III, The importance of attention

diversity and how to measure it, in: The Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 42:2,
2014, pp. 173196.
[8] P. B. Mortensen, Political attention and public spending in the united states,
in: The Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 37:3, 2009, pp. 435455.
[9] F. Baumgartner, B. D. Jones, The Policy Agendas Project, University of
Texas at Austin, 2013.

12

Presidential Attention and Spending:

Space Policy
Spending

Attention

8%

140%
4%

120%
100%
80%

2%

60%
40%
20%
0%

0%
1950

1960

1970

1980
Year

Figure 6: Figure caption

13

1990

2000

2010

Presidential Attention

Spending Change

6%

Congressional Attention and

Spending Change: 19492013
140 %
120 %

Spending Change

100 %
80 %
60 %
40 %
20 %
0%
0%

0.5 %

1%

1.5 %

Congressional Attention

Figure 7: Figure caption

14

2%

2.5 %

Presidential Attention and

Spending Change: 19492015
140 %
120 %

Spending Change

100 %
80 %
60 %
40 %
20 %
0%
0%

2%

4%
Presidential Attention

Figure 8: Figure caption

15

6%

8%