Discussion The next budget

[richfororbit]

Hi,

So I read via yahoo news, that on the website called Verge, there are rumours, or speculation that funding for the station may change, and not last beyond some believed a few years back to 2028.

The 2019 budget is due early next month. Should be interesting.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/24/16930154/nasa-international-space-station-president-trump-budget-request-2025

The following day, the Astronaut senator Mr Nelson had this to say.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/25/16933836/senator-bill-nelson-trump-administration-international-space-station-2025

 

[richfororbit]

https://www.nasa.gov/budget

Well the budget has been published. Lightfoot's address, has shown an ambitious outlook for low Earth orbit, as well as the Moon. Clearly, Mars will be a good while into the future, as Aldrin's book was more dedicated to getting there within a time frame that now is focused on the Moon.

The first space launch flight would appear to be 2020, and not 19. A personnel mission to the Moon in 2023. I doubt that is landing. The end of funds for the station by 2025, as a first part of the lunar station is launched into orbit.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

You missed the big part of this: It's a request, not a final, set-in-stone budget. Congress can (and likely will) alter it to suit their own agenda.

 

[richfororbit]

Ah..well yeah, during when I watched it, I was thinking some of this needs to get the senate's approval. The whole thing does, but yes, you are correct. But what is for sure is, no mission to Mars.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

But what is for sure is, no mission to Mars.

I would have been utterly stunned if NASA actually went for a manned mission to Mars under the current political climate.

To be completely honest, there's no real pressure to go to the Moon right now, let alone Mars. We're not racing the Chinese to get to Mars like we were racing the Soviets to reach the Moon.

 

[APDAF]

Besides... Elon is more likely to do it by then anyway

 

[Urwumpe]

The fate of WFIRST is more annoying IMHO than the expected not-happening of a Mars mission.

 

[richfororbit]

I'm not unhappy about that budget, it seems good enough. It would seem other missions may need to be added into a future budget, like Europa.

But yes, Mars simply because the previous government had stated a mission with twenty years. And in Trump's first year, it still looked like that.

Aldrin has been publicizing Mars for the past five years since his book was written back then, some of his book has now just turned fictional. It is only an idea until it happens or a dream. But yeah, two months ago that was ended. And this budget proposal confirms that. The next budget will probably include, some early funding for a lander construction.

 

[IronRain]

The White House’s $19.9 billion NASA budget outline released Monday would continue development of NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule and begin the deployment of a mini-space station around the moon as soon as 2022, but the proposal would cancel WFIRST, a flagship-class astronomy mission planned for launch in the mid-2020s.

The funding request submitted to Congress on Monday calls for $10.5 billion in fiscal year 2019, which begins Oct. 1, to prepare for human exploration of the moon as a stepping stone toward eventual missions to Mars and deeper into the solar system.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate will draft their own budget for NASA and other federal agencies to send to the White House for President Trump’s signature, and there will likely be changes to the Trump administration’s proposal when the final budget is enacted.

Members of Congress from both parties have expressed concern with parts of the NASA budget request.

The budget proposal refocuses NASA on lunar exploration using the agency’s Space Launch System and Orion spaceship, two multibillion-dollar programs that could make their first unpiloted test flight together in 2020, several years later than originally intended.

Source:
https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/02/...xploration-but-cancels-major-space-telescope/

 

[4throck]

The lunar space station actually makes sense.
It's the step forward regarding ISS, and still within what ESA and Russia can do.

Apollo also used the Command Module as a lunar space station.... so it's logical to follow up on that.

Can't go to Mars until we can live outside Earth (radiation protection, some sort of artificial gravity, isolation, etc). So that needs to be done first on Lunar orbit.