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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
The article claims, in its headline, that Trump added to the NASA budget. But when you read the description (which hardly anyone does), it turns out the budget was REDUCED by $400 million (more when you account for inflation). The headline is very disingenuous.
Finally...
Back to what NASA was founded to do.
I am sure the liberals will sue to block the new law because the bill does not require the crew to be a majority of muslims, ergo its racist.
And $500 Million to carry the gold TRUMP sign in 40 foot high letters with them.
I can't wait to see how the whiny little Trump-hating bitches spin this.
We're going to give NASA less than 3%of what we spend on killing people here on Earth.
The devil is in the details.
You mean President Bannon told Herr #PresidentTweety to sign this because Bannon wants an escape plan after he finishes phucking up this planet?
At some point Trump is going to realize that most of his followers are just curious to see what stupid lie he's going to tweet next. Or maybe not. I keep being amazed by his mental density, so maybe I'm projecting my inability to learn (how not to be amazed) on his apparent inability to learn anything.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
If we don't do things incrementally, we'll never get them done. We all learn this in the private sector.
Ask any PC...
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
Surprise! The crew is be Hillary Clinton and her daughter. Oddly enough, Bill didn't object...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Annual_budget
>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.
Plain lie.
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".
You idiots can figure out a way to twist everything around to being negative about the POTUS. Did your God Obama ever make a mistake?
Orange colored and there's no sign of any intelligence there.
And Mars is just as bad. DrabbadabbaTISH!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Have always been surprised at Trump's support of NASA, whether as magnanimously as he would like us think or not. At least it is not a 30% or more cut like some other agencies. He rejects science, except when it comes to expanding real estate...
I guess the good news here is that we can conclude that the Grays - whom I assume are in total control of every President - do NOT want to eat us! They do not seem to care about our health.
Of course, that doesn't mean that they don't want to turn us into some powdered industrial product. But at least they do not want to eat us!
Science is about science. It is not about money. By giving us more money, he proves he hates us.
I mean, look at who is... Oh, nevermind.
They're going to build a wall on Mars?
sudden and is the worst 0off
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"
will cancel it, and we'll be right back to were we started.
Trump could make up NASA's budget shortfall by skipping a few weekend getaways to Mar-a-Lago on the taxpayers' dime and maybe having his wife and son move into the White House after the kid gets out of school in five weeks.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Cruz (R-TX) and Rubio (R-FL)
PROK for the PROK GOD!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I don't understand how giving less money to NASA is adding to the budget?
NASA shall go to Mars, just with less money than before without going to Mars? Or do I get this wrong?
Will they have solved the human factors problems? Such as ensuring that the astronauts can still see by the end of the mission, that their life expectancies haven't been greatly reduced by radiation, and that they don't murder each other during the flight?
I don't actually know what the initial proposed budget was. but so-called increases are over an earlier proposed budget level for the same time period.
You see a Mars mission. Trump sees deporting immigrants 4 at a time.
Why does NASA needs so much money to go to mars? After all studios shot movie martian on mars for only $108 million. And that was including catering for the film crew!
The State takes most of what you make each month in tax, and then puts a tiny fraction of it towards things you would do with it, which you could have done anyway if your wealth hadn't been taken from you - and people bounce up and down like things are great.
I hope he signs up to go. Then again, Mars prolly doesn't want him either.
From the article " 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."
Trump wants this mission cut from NASA's budget. This is the ARM mission.
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?
Spacenews reports that SpaceX has been working with NASA to identify potential landing sites on Mars for both its Red Dragon spacecraft starting in 2020 and future human missions. SpaceX, working with scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and elsewhere, had identified several potential landing sites, including one that looks particularly promising - Arcadia Planitia.
Those landing sites are of particular interest, he said, for SpaceX’s long-term vision of establishing a human settlement on Mars, but he said the company wouldn’t rule our sending Red Dragon spacecraft elsewhere on the planet to serve other customers. “We’re quite open to making use of this platform to take various payloads to other locations as well,” he said. “We’re really looking to turn this into a steady cadence, where we’re sending Dragons to Mars on basically every opportunity.”
The Red Dragon spacecraft, he said, could carry about one ton of useful payload to Mars, with options for those payloads to remain in the capsule after landing or be deployed on the surface. “SpaceX is a transportation company,” he said. “We transport cargo to the space station, we deliver payloads to orbit, so we’re very happy to deliver payloads to Mars.”
Fans of the book/movie "The Martian" would be happy if SpaceX does select Arcadia Planitia for their first landing site as that was the landing site of the Ares 3.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
as "we will have a man on Mars in 20 years" for the past 50 years. Now it has been extended to infinity. This only trumps up the Mission To Nowhere as everyone loves to talk about Mars because you can defer costs to build real hardware to some other smucks 20 years into the future. Unlike if Moon is the goal then gotta come up with some real money now to build a lander, transfer stage, etc.
But wait, there are some people talking about the Moon besides Spudis and Wingo. Maybe we get some action before we are all dead of old age:
http://www.spacex.com/news/201...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
And Spudis blog has some interesting comments, http://www.spudislunarresource...
mfwright@batnet.com
> he still owns, and profits fully from, every single thing his businesses are doing, while he's President, meaning that just about anyone (including Foreign Governments) can straight up pay him money (which is grossly in violation of the constitution).
Most of the country's early presidents, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson owned businesses which had customers from other countries. You have an opinion about what the Constitution means, and the people who actually wrote the Constitution disagree, they thought that when they wrote "emoluments of the office" they meant exactly what they said, emoluments - payments for holding the office, as opposed to ordinary buying and selling things at market prices. Most presidents from George Washington to John F Kennedy sold things (business) just as they bought things (shopping). It wasn't until 1965, LBJ, the presidents starting moving their business wealth into a blind trust.
Was there some constitutional amendment in 1965? I don't know of any change in the Constitution that required LBJ to do that, it just looks good politically.
Yes, it does. It inspires a level of confidence. Lying about doing is another story.
I'm waiting for some foreign leader to decide to out Trump. Probably after some major misstep, but maybe during the next election season.
I'm normally all for a space program, but I can't support a plan based on inflating Trump's already massive ego. Just... no.
There becomes a difference between selling some products from a farm or a brewery and buying-into overseas businesses to the tune of millions upon millions of dollars. Buying/selling products does not necessarily mean partnerships, but foreign business stakes do.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
> 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.
his trips to Mar-a-Lago are a drop in the bucket next to the rest of the insanity he's proposing (like the wall, or the crazy expansion of the military). Focus on the stuff that matters. Otherwise you're just falling into the trap that is the non-stop stream of distractions he presents...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Funding is up. Perhaps the article was not well-worded, but for sure, by some, it was poorly read. The NASA budget was 19.3 billion for 2017, 19.5 billion for 2018. Trump was originally going to go with 19.1 billion but that was bumped up to the 19.5. Seems some folks just need to be sarcastic, and will twist the truth to do it. Doesn't it ever get old?
He wouldn't otherwise if a few Indian women didn't send a rocket to Mars for ~$70 million. Too bad they can't work at NASA. We'll have to wait for another WWII scientist exchange before we get any real brains over here.
Of course he'll absolve all connection with them before they open apart from the complimentary Art of the Deal vidcom breakfasts.
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.
<sarcasm>
Your attitude is exactly what's wrong these days. "Pay for what I want even if I have to tax you at 100%." Here's a tip, it's not all about you.
Otherwise why don't you go move to North Korea? The government owns everything. That sounds like the society that you deserve.
</sarcasm>
Can we please dispense with this reductio ad absurdum. The current U.S. budget deficit is over $400 billion. The U.S. national debt is over $18 trillion. Wanting to bring both under control while not wanting to be taxed at over 50% doesn't imply that one wants to live in Somalia. In fact, just about the opposite is true.
Yep. As I said: a mission creep. Government looking, what else it can do...
The rules are simple. If (what seems like) a problem:
then the government must not touch it.
For the government to violate this principle is tyranny — taxpayer's money is confiscated to pay for things, he would not have paid for voluntarily.
And, like all other tyrannies, it is also inefficient. Your own example of public education is an ongoing disaster: per-pupil costs of public schools have quadrupled since the 1960-ies (inflation-adjusted), but 70% of the 8th-graders still can not be said to be "proficient" in reading.
Space-exploration is fascinating — leave it to Musk, Bezos, and Branson. They spend their own monies on it...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
> That's even worse.
> Ambition and egotism are deadly dangerous things.
It'll be significant, for good or bad (probably both).
Keep in mind ALL presidents think that a) they should be president and b) the voters will recognize that. So a huge ego is the number one defining character trait of someone who runs for President. The second happens to be loyalty.
Trump will do things big, compared to other presidents. He'll do something good in a big a way and something bad in a big way.
Yeah, and the next sentence explains that figure as: "These losses included $18 billion in medical and mental health care spending, $87 billion in other tangible costs, and $345 billion in pain, suffering, and reduced quality of life."
Different ways to count it can result in vastly different numbers — depending on what one wishes to demonstrate, ha-ha... The point remains, though, the cost of crime, however you count it, is still below the "commie socialist programs" that serviscope_minor attempted to justify.
Of course, it is not! Moreover, I argue, that it is not about reducing crime at all. It is about genuine compassion for some and the ability to spread the wealth around for others. That "spreading" of the wealth of captive taxpayers is pure unadulterated tyranny, of course, and the folks advocating it usually have a vast conflict of interest.
The overhead of charities ranges from 15% to as much as 70% — with government's operations being on the greater side of it. It is an incredibly lucrative and powerful position to be in control of spending even $1 billion, even if a mere $150 million of it are yours to dispense on the "overhead". With $800 billion per year you can find words, sponsor poems, finance movies and other artworks, and even find a smooth talking nincompoop, who will sincerely protect your trough, while denouncing opponents as greedy and egoistic bastards...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It'll be significant, for good or bad (probably both).
The latter, yes, the former? I honestly don't think Trump could manage that even by chance.
Keep in mind ALL presidents think that a) they should be president and b) the voters will recognize that. So a huge ego is the number one defining character trait of someone who runs for President. The second happens to be loyalty.
Nope, and nope. Even ignoring the people who were VP to President, some of whom resented it, Trump doesn't have loyalty, he demands devotion, a far more nefarious sentiment. I will grant he has an overinflated value to himself, but I perceive that as a small ego, not a large one. However, that is because my conceptual picture is different from yours.
Trump will do things big, compared to other presidents. He'll do something good in a big a way and something bad in a big way.
No, Trump will claim the smallest thing is big, huge, good, essential, and entirely his own work, and downplay any terrible results. His reaction to losing the popular vote, the Central Park 5, and more, tells us that.
could someone please explain to me why we're not putting a permanent base on the moon first?
To keep the aliens out...
Z^1
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
...Z^1
Thank you... as always
How wude!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Ya just aren't gettin' any, are ya?
The largest international press corporation on the planet not enough for you? You have no case. Strafor had plenty of places to clip from at the time.
I really don't get why you are so enamored of a small company that appeared to be no good at anything other than self promotion. They made a massive fuss about their security but then got easily and spectacularly hacked.