News NASA FY 2018 Budget Blueprint

Nicholas Kang

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The budget blueprint: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/2018_blueprint_nasa.pdf

What NASA Acting Administrator says: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/...statement-on-fiscal-year-2018-budget-proposal

President Donald Trump's 2018 NASA Budget:

The President’s 2018 Budget requests $19.1 billion for NASA, a 0.8 percent decrease from the 2017 annualized CR level, with targeted increases consistent with the President’s priorities.

• Supports and expands public-private partnerships as the foundation of future U.S. civilian space efforts. The Budget creates new opportunities for collaboration with industry on space station operations, supports public-private partnerships for deep-space habitation and exploration systems, funds data buys from companies operating small satellite constellations, and supports work with industry to develop and commercialize new space technologies.

• Paves the way for eventual over-land commercial supersonic flights and safer, more efficient air travel with a strong program of aeronautics research. The Budget provides $624 million for aeronautics research and development.

• Reinvigorates robotic exploration of the Solar System by providing $1.9 billion for the Planetary Science program, including funding for a mission to repeatedly fly by Jupiter’s icy ocean moon Europa and a Mars rover that would launch in 2020. To preserve the balance of NASA’s science portfolio and maintain flexibility to conduct missions that were determined to be more important by the science community, the Budget provides no funding for a multi-billion-dollar mission to land on Europa. The Budget also supports initiatives that use smaller, less expensive satellites to advance science in a cost-effective manner.

• Provides $3.7 billion for continued development of the Orion crew vehicle, Space Launch System, and associated ground system, to send American astronauts on deep-space missions. To accommodate increasing development costs, the Budget cancels the multi-billion-dollar Asteroid Redirect Mission. NASA will investigate approaches for reducing the costs of exploration missions to enable a more expansive exploration program.

• Provides $1.8 billion for a focused, balanced Earth science portfolio that supports the priorities of the science and applications communities, a savings of $102 million from the 2017 annualized CR level. The Budget terminates four Earth science missions (PACE, OCO-3, DSCOVR Earth-viewing instruments, and CLARREO Pathfinder) and reduces funding for Earth science research grants.

Eliminates the $115 million Office of Education, resulting in a more focused education effort through NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The Office of Education has experienced significant challenges in implementing a NASA-wide education strategy and is performing functions that are duplicative of other parts of the agency.

• Restructures a duplicative robotic satellite refueling demonstration mission to reduce its cost and better position it to support a nascent commercial satellite servicing industry, resulting in a savings of $88 million from the 2017 annualized CR level.

• Strengthens NASA’s cybersecurity capabilities, safeguarding critical systems and data.
 

Mafo

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"The Budget terminates four Earth science missions (PACE, OCO-3, DSCOVR Earth-viewing instruments, and CLARREO Pathfinder)"

Re: DSCOVR, so they would actually stop using a climate satellite launched in 2015?! That seems ridiculous to me!
 

Thunder Chicken

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"The Budget terminates four Earth science missions (PACE, OCO-3, DSCOVR Earth-viewing instruments, and CLARREO Pathfinder)"

Re: DSCOVR, so they would actually stop using a climate satellite launched in 2015?! That seems ridiculous to me!

The Earth-viewing instruments. It has other science payloads.

These cuts, plus the ones proposed for the DOE and EPA, all are intended to eradicate the capability to accurately determine the role of man-made CO2 with regard to global warming and to examine means to remediate the situation. Politicians hate facts that get in the way of their funded interests. Gotta get rid of all these pesky fact-gathering activities so we can make environmental and energy policy based on feels! :facepalm:
 

Urwumpe

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Come on, even if they are doing this like some kind of "What does it, measure climate change? Who needs this?"

The rest of the world will still fund proper science. The USA are important, but not all.
 

Thunder Chicken

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Come on, even if they are doing this like some kind of "What does it, measure climate change? Who needs this?" The rest of the world will still fund proper science. The USA are important, but not all.

That's true, but that isn't the point. Our country is taking a direction where scientific knowledge that could be used to guide policy is being actively curtailed and suppressed. We're now have a government that needs the freedom from objective science and thought in order to spin "facts" that suits their agenda. All politicians are guilty of this to some degree, but it is truly Orwellian in degree now.
 

RisingFury

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Come on, even if they are doing this like some kind of "What does it, measure climate change? Who needs this?"

The rest of the world will still fund proper science. The USA are important, but not all.

That's true, but that isn't the point. Our country is taking a direction where scientific knowledge that could be used to guide policy is being actively curtailed and suppressed. We're now have a government that needs the freedom from objective science and thought in order to spin "facts" that suits their agenda. All politicians are guilty of this to some degree, but it is truly Orwellian in degree now.

Agreed. The science at this point is settled, though we still need to monitor the climate.

The issue is that in US, facts don't matter any more. Science doesn't matter. Education doesn't matter.
 

4throck

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Am I the only one interested on Orion?
I do hope that the US finally resumes manned exploration.
The Europa mission is also interesting.

These are the things that may focus people imagination into what can be achieved through science.
 

Thunder Chicken

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Agreed. The science at this point is settled, though we still need to monitor the climate.

Well, I wouldn't say settled. The nature of teasing out the influence of human influence on global warming is such that probabilities exist. The consensus is that there is a high probability that our actions contribute, but much more study is needed to determine to what degree. We would need at least that amount of understanding to determine what remedial actions could be taken, or if any are possible.

The issue is that in US, facts don't matter any more. Science doesn't matter. Education doesn't matter.

:( Not what I was hoping for my country, not by a long shot.
 

Unstung

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Cutting funding for the Earth observing instruments on GoreSat DSCOVR is laughably petty. Keeping the mission operational costs relatively little, and funding a few science instruments is probably a small fraction of that cost.

For some reason the Republicans historically like to underfund research (aeronautics, space technology). Maybe it's because too much of the money goes to those damn academics.
 

richfororbit

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I have to admit the Asteroid mission would of been interesting by a crew. Sadly it wasn't going to be.

I recall reading an article on the NASA site about three years ago, showing a two Astronauts doing training in a swimming pool, of how would they do an EVA.:cool:
 
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