507 



HUMAN. PHYSICAL, AND FISCAL RESOURCES 169 



increase of 41 percent), the largest percent increase in any federal 

 agency (Figures 4-26 and 4-27). 



National Aeronautics and Space Administration 



Satellites are increasingly important in modern oceanographic 

 research. NASA provides funding for construction, operation, and 

 related research for ocean satellite missions such as TOPEX/Poseidon, 

 instruments such as SeaWiFS and the NASA Scatterometer, and 

 data collection and analysis from other satellites such as ESA's 

 Earth Resources Satellite- 1 (see "Physical Resources"). It is diffi- 

 cult from NASA's budget presentation to identify specific ocean- 

 related funding after fiscal year 1989, except for individual satel- 

 lites. Expenditures for fiscal years 1982-1992 are shown in Tables 

 4-7 and 4-8 in two categories. Research and Analysis and Flight 

 Programs. Funding of university-based researchers has nearly qua- 

 drupled in current dollars, from $3.3 million in 1982 to $12.6 

 million in 1992. NASA's ocean-related funding has grown, par- 

 ticularly for the development of new satellite sensors. Growth of 

 NASA's budget in Earth observations is expected to be substantial 

 as the Mission to Planet Earth begins and the Earth Observing 

 System satellites are developed. 



Discussion 



Overall, federal funding of oceanographic research in the 1980s 

 was relatively constant. Figure 4-27 shows that total federal spending 

 on oceanographic research grew 5.1 percent from fiscal year 1982 

 to fiscal year 1992 (in constant 1982 dollars), an increase of about 

 0.6 percent annually. 



Although this report focuses on funding trends in the ocean 

 sciences, funds for individual oceanographic investigators are in- 

 fluenced by the rapid growth in the number of academic oceanog- 

 raphers and a significant increase in the costs of ocean science. 

 Throughout the period of slow growth in federal spending on the 

 ocean sciences in the 1980s, the number of scientists competing 

 for funds continued to grow. According to the OSB survey (see 

 "Human Resources"), the number of Ph.D. -level academic ocean 

 scientists increased about 70 percent from 1980 to 1990. WHOI 

 data indicate that the number of proposals per staff member in- 

 creased from 2.8 in 1975 to 4.8 in 1991. This finding seems to 

 confirm a general impression among research oceanographers that 

 they now spend more time writing proposals than in the past. 



