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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.
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."
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"
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.
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
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.