Slashdot Mirror
Trump Adds To NASA Budget, Approves Crewed Mission To Mars (nbcnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: President Donald Trump signed a law on Tuesday authorizing funding for a crewed NASA mission to Mars. The new bill (S.442) adds a crewed mission to the red planet as a key NASA objective and authorizes the space agency to direct test human space flight programs that will enable more crewed exploration in deep space. The space agency has $19.5 billion in funding for the 2018 fiscal year, which starts this October. Trump had allocated $19.1 billion for NASA in his budget, which is slightly down from the current year, but still an improvement from the past decade, which saw the end of the space shuttle program. The commander in chief signed the bill surrounded by astronauts and his former Republican rivals, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who both sponsored the bill. Getting to Mars, though, isn't expected to happen during the Trump presidency. NASA has its sights set on getting to the red planet in the 2030s. In the near term, NASA plans to test its Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket, in addition to visiting an asteroid and redirecting a chunk of it into orbit around the moon. Astronauts could later visit the boulder and use the mission to test some of the tools needed for a Mars mission.
inb4 the anonymous poster who rails against space nutters in every space article
Umm. Perhaps the gender equality and muslim outreach dollars were cut but STEM budget lines remained the same or increased,
Were you ever angry that NASA was converted in a propaganda tool.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Trump does not yet have the dictator powers implied by the headline. Nor dose anyone consider him the driving vision of the space program.
I think he and the bill sponsors really only declined to try and stop what NASA was doing under Obama
Now we find out if the legislative branch also will keep the Senate Launch System in business.
No one expects them to cancel the SLS either.
But the non-event will be "NEWS".
He can't remain President long enough to actually do the mission.
Hell, he won't be Pres long enough for hardware designs, much less actually bending metal.
Much less launching anything...
That's NASA's biggest problem these last few decades - no way to stick to anything beyond the term(s) of the current President, so nothing can really be done that takes longer than about five years....
Which is another way of saying "nothing can really be done."
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Not really sure either. Most of those that I know who advocated for Trump during the primaries and the general election did so for the lulz. They wanted to see how screwed up it would get, literally one invoked the, "hold on, I'm making popcorn" trope.
These were not otherwise-unintelligent people either. While I find their particular choice distasteful, the concept of throwing the wrench into the works, especially with the seeming underhandedness of how the DNC and the Clintons worked to ensure her nomination was not without a certain appeal. Unfortunately the particulars in this instance may have made this worse.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Uh, I hate to break it to you, but the NASA budget during the Apollo years averaged over 3% of the federal budget from '63 to '69, and peaked at almost 4.5%.
NASA might have been doing other things besides Apollo, but from '64 to '70 Apollo was over 50% of NASA's budget, peaking at 70% in 1967. If we want to have that kind of space program again, but with Mars as the destination, it's going to cost a lot more than has been allocated.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I don't understand how giving less money to NASA is adding to the budget?
This country (with no hostile neighbors) will cease to exist if it doesn't spend more on war than the next 7 most militaristic countries combined?
No President before Trump has pushed so many bald-faced lies so quickly either. Even if all dialogue prior to Inauguration Day is discounted, he literally got the ball rolling by lying about aspects of his inauguration itself, and has not relented since then, and he's even brought it up multiple times without being prompted to do so.
I was no fan of Clinton either, but I doubt that she would have been so incredibly blatant about her lies. I expect she would have operated more like the Patrician from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, which I would ascribe as being lawful evil to lawful neutral depending on the issue. Trump is more like chaotic evil to chaotic neutral, in the sense the he doesn't even understand how the power of the Presidency works and how those he chooses to associate with directly demonstrate his decision-making skills.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
He is cutting NASA's budget for this year (from $19.5B to $19.1B) but is expressing support for a goal that will cost WAY more than that AFTER HE LEAVES OFFICE, so paying for it will be somebody else's problem.
Isn't this what Obama did with ObamaCare? It expressed a goal that will cost WAY more than expected AFTER HE LEFT OFFICE, so paying for it will be somebody else's problem?
NBC news, what do you expect? The bill passed the house without amendment, and it passed the Senate. Lots of Democrats probably voted for it. But leave it to the breathless idiots in the media to report on this like Trump did it all by himself. The actual bill says this:
(Sec. 412) The key U.S. objectives for human expansion into space shall include achieving human exploration of Mars and beyond through the prioritization of those technologies and capabilities best suited for such a mission in accordance with the stepping stone approach to exploration specified in federal law.
This contradicts much of the story. And the comments being made here...
Murphy was an optimist
Well.. While we are making stupid claims... How about Obama's trips to the Med, where he and his wife took separate aircraft and a boat load of friends? And what makes you think protecting the president in FL is all that much more expensive than having him at the White House? It's not like they don't have SS staff in both places at this point...
Haters gota hate I guess....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Obama lied all the time, just the press constantly covered for him. The media is still covering for him, somehow there are multiple transcripts and recordings of Trump campaign officials, but you know, there wasn't any wire taps.
LOL. No. Just 'No'.
The Republicans made up so much crap about Obama it was unbelievable. I remember being told by a few of my far right friends that it WOULD MOST DEFINITELY come down to a fight from house to house throughout the USA against Muslims because Obama would open the flood gates and they would be grabbing women and murdering men. Current peaceful neighborhoods would be broken by the tanks and the fighter planes having to hold off the terrorists. ...
Fast forward today those same friends say... "Yep. We were right about everything." LOL. You guys were right about exactly jack shit.
You guys are the ones who need to stop making stuff up.
That isn't to say that Obama is totally honest. I'm 100% confident he isn't. But we're talking about two whole different levels of dishonesty.
It's like you murder someone and then when someone points out how that is wrong, you point out how someone else shoplifted. It's stupid and it's ridiculous.
But don't you dare to confiscate my money to do it...
Your attitude is exactly what's wrong these days. "Pay for what I want, but don't pay for what I don't want." Here's a tip, it's not all about you, and if you want things you need to capitulate to what others want too.
Otherwise why don't you go move to Somalia? They don't collect taxes there. That sounds like the society that you deserve.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This is nonsense. Trump is a populous president. Like him or hate him that is his thing. His thing is turning the will of his base into reality.
Clinton has evolved on some minor issues, but her thing is being establishment which brings with it some internalized power. She does not have to agree with the public, she does not have to do what they want. Do you think the public actually wanted a war with Russia? No, that was just the politicians.
If Trump had been a politician for any amount of time we would of seen that as well, his base simply has not changed any of their opinions. Their were multiple times throughout the run where he tried changing his message and went back because of the feedback. That was actually one of the most common insults used on him throughout the early and middle of the race, that his policies changed every time you spoke to him.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
> to the tune of millions upon millions of dollars
George Washington had a half BILLION dollars (expressed in today's dollars, of course). The very same people who *wrote* the Constitution supported Washington for president, and didn't see any Constitutional issue.
One commentator at the time did see it as a *political* liability. Most people agree it is better public relations to divest, which is why most recent presidents have done so.
I don't know if Trump's business ventures will turn out to be a significant problem or not. I hope not, of course. Understanding a bit of his personality, he's always focused on the biggest, most grandiose thing. Running the United States is far grander than naming royalties on a hotel, so based on his personality I don't think he gives a shit about a hotel right now - he's running the whole COUNTRY and he's likely trying to be the most significant president in recent history. A little money is no longer an issue - he could lose half his money and still be a multi-billionaire. For him, it's about doing something HUGE, doing things that will be in high history books.
It would certainly look better if he sold off all of his businesses. I've sold two businesses, both simple, very small companies. One took three months to sell, the other took two years. I would guesstimate that given the complexity of some of Trump's hundreds of business relationships, it would take perhaps three or four years to get most of them sold off. That's an issue. I don't know that there is a particularly good solution now that he's president. I voted against him because I didn't think he should be president, but anyway now he's president and he has these business interests that aren't going to vanish - just as the early presidents did. It's certainly an optics problem. It's not a Constitutional problem, according to the people who wrote the Constitution.