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Trump Administration Wants To End NASA Funding For ISS By 2025 (theverge.com)
According to budget documents seen by The Verge, the Trump administration is preparing to end support for the International Space Station program by 2025. As a result, American astronauts could be grounded on Earth for years with no destination in space until NASA develops new vehicles for its deep space travel plans. From the report: The draft may change before an official budget request is released on February 12th. However, two people familiar with the matter have confirmed to The Verge that the directive will be in the final proposal. We reached out to NASA for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication. Any budget proposal from the Trump administration will also be subject to scrutiny and approval by Congress. But even announcing the intention to cancel ISS funding could send a signal to NASA's international partners that the U.S. is no longer interested in continuing the program. Many of NASA's partners still have yet to decide if they'd like to continue working on the station beyond 2024. The International Space Station has been an ongoing program for more than two decades. It costs NASA between $3 to $4 billion each year, and represents a more than $87 billion investment from the U.S. government. It's become a major hub for conducting both government and commercial experiments in microgravity, as well as testing out how the human body responds to weightlessness.
"Musk's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy will make launches cheap enough for that to be feasible."
Same thing they told us about the %$#@% Space Shuttle. They promised weekly launches and cost of a few hundred dollars a kg to LEO. The best they ever did was 9 launches in 1985. And the average cost to LEO was $60000/kg.
But this time it's different. ... How different? Most likely, not very.
NASA budgets are fueled by taxpayer dollars. And taxpayers don't really see their taxes as an investment with returns, nor do they often raise their hand and volunteer to raise taxes by the billions in order to properly fund specific projects.
Compare and contrast that with Tesla, budgets are fueled by investors. And investors want to see revenue and returns, which require Musk to deliver. Is he on schedule? No, he has slipped, no doubt. But he has managed to innovate and deliver like no one else in the EV market, and reduce the cost of his product over the last 10 years to something that the average consumer can afford, not just the 1%.
Yes, I'd say this time is different. Moving space programs into the private sector is likely the solution to beating $60000/kg.
So privileged in fact that it's the only group you could make this comment about without tens of people jumping down your throat calling you a racist.
Yes, in fact that's the case. The white "race" (actually a social construct employed to divide the working class) has been subjugating others for centuries. Now they start to get a little push back and they act like they're the ones being oppressed. Most white people wouldn't last a month as a black person in the US.