The final bill retains the House language instructing NASA to add another dedicated science mission by 2001, and provides science funds in LMSA and shuttle funds in Human Space Flight for that purpose. There are more than a dozen congressionally designated projects, requiring offsetting cuts in mission reserves and other regular Earth Science accounts. Although the House proposed to terminate the Triana program, the final bill keeps it alive but directs NASA to suspend all work until the National Academy of Sciences completes an evaluation of the mission. The supplement to the request is entirely for 16 congressionally designated projects. Although the Senate appropriated Space Station funds in a separate account to prevent NASA from siphoning funds from other Human Space Flight programs to cover cost overruns in the Station, the final bill preserves the existing Human Space Flight account structure.
Engineering research makes up the largest part of the portfolio.
NASA funds approximately a third of total federal support for engineering research, and is the second largest agency sponsor behind the Department of Defense. The environmental sciences are about a quarter of NASA's portfolio, but NASA accounts for nearly 40 percent of total federal support for environmental sciences research. Approximately two-thirds of NASA's physical sciences funding goes to astronomy, and most of the remaining third goes to physics. NASA is the second largest federal sponsor of physical sciences behind the Department of Energy, and is the leading sponsor of astronomy research. Funding for environmental sciences research has been increasing, mostly because of NASA's and the Clinton Administration's strong support for the Mission to Planet Earth program, now the Earth Science program.