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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.
On a reduced budget.
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".
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!
You don't have a microwave? Luddite!
He doesn't want to be spied on.
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.
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.
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?
Actually the Wikipedia article on the National Aeronautics and Space Act has an interesting list of the legislation's priorities, starting with priority #1:
Historically speaking the act, which was signed into law in July of 1958, was a reaction to the "Sputnik Crisis" created by the Soviet launch of an artificial satellite eight months earlier in October of 1957 -- an act which filled Americans with awe and a little dread, knowing that a Soviet device was passing overhead every 96 minutes.
So arguably NASA was founded to achieve preeminence in Earth orbit, not necessarily manned space exploration, which isn't mentioned at all in the legislation. Yuri Gagarin's Vostok 1 flight was still three years in the future, and JFKs Rice Moon Speech followed a year and a half after that. That speech is well worth watching, by the way, if all you've ever seen is the "We choose to go to the moon" line.
Manned exploration of the outer solar system wasn't really what the founding of NASA was all about; in fact manned spaceflight has only a single mention in the unamended 1958 text:
... the term "aeronautical and space vehicles" means aircraft, missiles, satellites, and other space vehicles, manned and unmanned, together with related equipment, devices, components, and parts.
The main focus of NASA at its founding was to provide a single agency to coordinate space and spaced-based research, which at the time would have been largely (although not exclusively) Earth-focused.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I disagree, and here's why.
The Clintons have always responded to public feedback. If anything that's been one of the biggest knocks against them, that they were without principles and could be swayed by opinion polling. Compare her positions in 2008 and 2016 - do you think she really had a change of heart? Or even look at how much she shifted left in response to Sanders' challenge, adopting versions of many of his stances. Lesser/weaker ones to be sure, but it's not like she was unyielding.
Contrast this to Trump. Has he changed on anything of any significance, at all, even when those things have proven unpopular? Even unpopular with his own voters? He won't even do basic things that people are asking of him like releasing his tax returns, or taking actual actions to distance himself from his businesses. Hell, everyone says the Clintons were corrupt, but at least they recognized that there were lines of behavior that they shouldn't be crossing, and had the sense of shame to be embarrassed about it. Trump doesn't give a rat's ass about that - 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).
Presumably the martians will pay for it.
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.
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
> 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.
Yeah... you can't really strongarm a planet which has Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator technology.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
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.
The country can not survive without defense and maintaining law-and-order. Everything else is unnecessary and should therefor be done by non-government entities.
Tax-supported public education predates the founding of the United States. It was not a Federal entity, but it was public-funded through taxes.
There's a lot more to the United States than the Constitution, and there was from Day 1, or if you want to be pedantic about it, Day -4361 as the nation was founded almost twelve years before the Constitution was ratified. The basic framework of society already existed even prior to that, the Constitution was not written to wipe the slate clean and start over.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Trump? Selfless? Seriously?
No, trump just needs a distraction so he's tossing out a "hey lets go to Mars" statement right now. He's not spending a bunch of money on it. In fact he's cutting money across the board for things like health care so he can waste money on a military buildup. It's just a distraction. And you fell for it.