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Trump’s NASA Proposal

17 Comments

Loren Grush has the details.

This is just a proposal; as she notes, Culberson is likely to restore the Europa lander. And in general, the White House proposes, and Congress disposes. What really matters is what gets appropriated.

17 thoughts on “Trump’s NASA Proposal”

  2. I’m disappointed to see that SLS isn’t being given the role it’s most suited for (and would excel at); cancellation.

    As for JWST, I’ve long wanted that thing canceled due to cost, but I’m undecided at the moment due to not knowing how much more it will cost. (If it’s almost done, might as well use the thing).

    I don’t like the idea of cutting off some of the instruments on DSCOVR; they’re already paid for and in space. Cut off the funding for processing the data, fine, but at least let the raw data be available – we’ve already paid for it.

    As for the earth climate stuff, I’d hoped for larger cuts, but at least this is a step in the right direction. I am puzzled though; for some of the missions, such as ocean color monitoring, why have an independent platform at all? Simply add an instrument to ISS or to another research sat.

  3. SLS still there is a shame, JWST is so far along it’s probably better to just get it launched.

    A lot of AGW deniers would have liked to have seen Earth science slashed, but genuine skeptics (if there is such a thing on AGW) would want NASA to continue science on climate change to resolve the debate over it.

    1. Especially since the satellite data contradicts the claims of the AGW alarmists. But there was never really a proposal to slash Earth sciences but rather to shift them to NOAA, which does make sense.

      There really isn’t a way to resolve the debate of AGW because it isn’t about what is taking place in the climate but rather leftists long held goals of controlling other people and their religious views of the environment that are irrespective of rational thought or science.

      There is nothing about leftist ideology that would change if it was shown that the humans are not causing the climate to change outside of natural variation.

      1. Yes, the “What If We Create a Better World For Nothing?” syndrome. Digging the hole deeper was never so virtuous.

    2. Indeed, I’ve been saying that the most likely result when it all washes out is that skeptical science will become as well funded by government as activist science. This will horrify the activists.

  4. The cut to NASA’s budget is very small and I don’t think it will happen. Maybe the education program will take a haircut but it wont be eliminated.

    Trump is making big demands in cuts knowing he wont get them. It is part of bargaining. It is similar to Obama always proposing huge spending increases knowing he wouldn’t get them but would still get net spending increases. It is doubtful that Trump can get net spending decreases out of congress. At best, he can slow the rate of spending increases.

    The interesting thing here is that agencies aren’t being asked to cut all programs by X% but are being asked to reach a target cut by eliminating entire programs or that entire departments are targeted for elimination. This is a much harder and detailed way to reduce spending.

  5. The death of SLS, if it happens, will take years. The first blow was the SpaceX lunar flight announcement; NASA has to do a rush study to see if they can even get close time-wise (ignoring that the SLS launch and building a life support system for the EM-1 Orion would cost 10x as much as the SpaceX flight).

    The second blow will be underfunding/lack of funding for more than 2-3 payloads. With no payloads, SLS will slowly lose support. Something has to be given to MSFC to buy off—er, satisfy, the AL delegation, and probably something to LA as well. The most immediate question, to me, is if Orion ever flies with a human being in the command seat. If SpaceX succeeds in opening cislunar space to commercial traffic, it’s hard to see Orion as anything but painfully redundant.

    Even if SLS dies, sunk cost fallacy says we’re still likely to get 3-4 flights out of it as they use up the RS-25’s. I hope somebody at NASA is trying to come up with good ideas for using those flights. (I’d use them to toss huge containers of supplies, and maybe tanks of water, to E-M Lagrange to await the inevitable commercial outpost.) Stop spending on Orion and you can fund the supply flights. Stop spending on SLS, and you can sign rental contracts that will pay for much of the construction costs of the outpost, and afford to have MSFC build a small vehicle for sorties into lunar orbit (like the Space Exploration Vehicle that was bandied about) or maybe a lunar lander that would stage out of the outpost.

  7. From the article:

    “STEM education is critical to our long-term competitiveness as a country, and it’s interesting in a year where a movie like Hidden Figures was on the national stage that the administration would de-emphasize the role NASA plays in getting kids excited about space.”

    The way to get kids excited about space is by actually *doing* stuff in space. That’s how it worked for me in the 60s. I don’t recall having an astronaut visit my classroom.

    1. Yep. Another way to get kids excited about space is to make “becoming an astronaut” more likely than “winning the lottery”. If winning the lottery is a long-shot pipe dream, and becoming an astronaut is only 20% as likely as that, you’re not going to get many kids working hard towards that goal.

    2. My daughter, who just placed for a nice residency, wasn’t inspired for STEM by anything NASA did.

      Maybe if NASA’s education efforts didn’t exist kids would become excited about things that had a better chance of being marketable? Maybe SpaceX is inspiring kids now more in that way for space?

      Inspiring kids to a career centered around feeding off the government research teat is not, I would suggest, good for our society.

    3. Indeed, the continuing attempts to boost enthusiasm about spaceflight through education are doomed in an educational climate most attuned to feel-goods curricula. To do so when no new achievements BEO in human spaceflight are being are being funded is utter folly. Now, if NASA were to encourage private achievements, and then fund spaceflight academies teaching rigorous team-oriented STEM curricula producing teams of years standing inside those academies that graduated to being intensely competitive teams in the marketplace, then *that* would have far better justification, and my support.

  8. “get kids excited about space is by actually *doing* stuff in space”

    Agree with previous comments on this. Only thing I’d add is that people, kids especially, easily peel back the layers of “promotion” and tell if there’s any substance underneath.

  9. Get adults interested in space by having a market to trade ownership shares. It would be like the penny stock market with huge opportunity for large percentage gains but unlike penny stocks, it’s value would never go to zero because it’s backed by assets that just have to be held until they appreciate (assuming we ever do leave the cradle.)

    1. Hence the Lunar Embassy.

      Ken, you might want to follow that model and set up the Ares Embassy.

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