Congressional budget action appears to just save two of seventeen on-going NASA missions
Though no final budget has yet been approved, based on the language in the budget the House has approved and sent to the Senate, only two of the seventeen on-going missions presently in space are specifically allocated money, thus allowing the Trump administration to zero out funding for the remaining fifteen.
The two missions saved are Osiris-Apex, on its way to the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis, and the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS), four satellites in orbit that observe the Earth’s magnetosphere.
The article at the link is typical of our propaganda press. It clearly opposes any cuts to NASA, and lobbies repeatedly for all funding to be reinstated. This pattern has gotten quite boring and tedious. It would be so refreshing to see a more objective take, at least one in a while.
However, its reporting confirms my own reporting from mid-September, where I noted that the vague language in the House budget bill would allow Trump to cut these missions. Congress wants to preen itself as supporting all funding for NASA, while carefully allowing Trump to go ahead with large cuts.
It is a good thing these two missions have been saved, though it does appear their funding has been trimmed. Of the fifteen missions in limbo, the only two that seem worth keeping is the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and New Horizons, though the second should likely be set up similar to the two Voyager spacecraft, with a very small crew aimed mainly at keeping the spacecraft functioning and able to send back data periodically.
We are in great debt. It is time that the federal government make some real choices. We can no longer afford to buy all the candy in the store.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Though no final budget has yet been approved, based on the language in the budget the House has approved and sent to the Senate, only two of the seventeen on-going missions presently in space are specifically allocated money, thus allowing the Trump administration to zero out funding for the remaining fifteen.
The two missions saved are Osiris-Apex, on its way to the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis, and the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS), four satellites in orbit that observe the Earth’s magnetosphere.
The article at the link is typical of our propaganda press. It clearly opposes any cuts to NASA, and lobbies repeatedly for all funding to be reinstated. This pattern has gotten quite boring and tedious. It would be so refreshing to see a more objective take, at least one in a while.
However, its reporting confirms my own reporting from mid-September, where I noted that the vague language in the House budget bill would allow Trump to cut these missions. Congress wants to preen itself as supporting all funding for NASA, while carefully allowing Trump to go ahead with large cuts.
It is a good thing these two missions have been saved, though it does appear their funding has been trimmed. Of the fifteen missions in limbo, the only two that seem worth keeping is the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and New Horizons, though the second should likely be set up similar to the two Voyager spacecraft, with a very small crew aimed mainly at keeping the spacecraft functioning and able to send back data periodically.
We are in great debt. It is time that the federal government make some real choices. We can no longer afford to buy all the candy in the store.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Well Grace Roman ought to be launched as well.
….even at the cost of Chandra
Saville,
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is not “ongoing,” however! It is still being fabricated.
(But it is going to be funded, last I checked. Which is good.)
Hello Bob,
“Of the fifteen missions in limbo, the only two that seem worth keeping is the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and New Horizons, though the second should likely be set up similar to the two Voyager spacecraft, with a very small crew aimed mainly at keeping the spacecraft functioning and able to send back data periodically.”
Yeah, I think the NH staff could be trimmed: Looks like there are still over 100 people listed on staff, though it is not clear to me (a) how much work all of them are still putting in on the mission, given the end of its primary mission and the lack of any further planned flybys, or (b) how much they are still being paid. At only $14.7 million (2024 budget), I suspect that some of these people have a fairly nominal presence on the mission payroll now.
https://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/The-Team.php
But yes, given the reduced science output, it does seem like Alan Stern could make do with a staff size closer to Voyager. Still, that has value. It’s the only active mission in the Kuiper Belt now. It will be a few decades before any new missions get out there, at least.
Just a question here… If anyone knows the answer… Are the mission scientists that look after the Voyager and new horizons missions working on them full time? I can’t imagine a world where you need to check in every few days and get a full time wage….
I’m sure that any of the “grey beards” would be willing to donate their time to keep viable missions going… I have zero idea of how the cost breaks down, but I have no doubt that if mission personal were given the choice, they would donate a few hours of free time to keep their babies alive.
On a side note…. I still have no idea what and why is going on with your governmental shutdown ( it’s ok… I don’t have the bandwidth to take a detailed dive… No explanation needed. ), but I have been told that mission critical folks are still working, but non mission critical folks are banned from even donating their time for free.. even down to receiving and answering emails. It must be so frustrating when someone really wants to work but has been hamstrung by the system.
Lee S,
Sadly, there were a lot of people on government payrolls still drawing full-time salary and benefits for showing up at work as little as one day per month when Trump took office for the second time. This is because government employment has been used for decades as a way for the Democratic Party to pay its minions with taxpayer funds for no-show or barely-show “jobs.” Their ranks have been pruned since, but Trump is taking the Democrat-forced government “shutdown” as an opportunity to dump the remainder.
The cause of said “shutdown” is straightforward. The Democratic Party insists on continuing federal welfare and medical care expenditures for the millions of illegal immigrants it let into the country during the Biden regime and has been willing to impose this (partial) shutdown in order to get its way. It is still Democratic Party policy to “stuff” the voter rolls with more pliable foreigners whom they still intend to make into citizens and voters should they ever regain power. The Trump administration is busily rounding up and deporting these folks, but cutting off their taxpayer-funded goodies in the meantime will induce many to self-deport and save the government the trouble of winkling them out and showing them the door.
The latest SpaceX usurpation attempt?
https://phys.org/news/2025-10-source-mega-constellations-overcrowding.html
A new paper from researchers at the National University of Defense Technology in China published in the National Science Review suggests an alternative to these multiple mega-constellations—a single, modular system similar to how cloud computing works on the current internet.
Eco-spies:
Members of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a network of nearly 100 cities that together make up 20% of the global gross domestic product, have pledged to work together to reduce urban greenhouse gas emissions. In an article published in AGU Advances, D. Y. Ahn and colleagues tried a “top-down” approach, using space-based observations to estimate emissions for 54 C40 cities.
https://phys.org/news/2025-10-satellite-scans-urban-emissions.html
“We are in great debt. It is time that the federal government make some real choices. We can no longer afford to buy all the candy in the store.”
Cutting NASA is like driving around burning up a tank of gas looking for a service station a penny cheaper.
I am fed up with NASA being the eternal whipping boy of fiscal hawks who never say a thing about tax breaks.
So I will leave libertarians (who want to deconstruct America’s in-house space capability) with a question.
Which outfit survived economic ups-and downs
A.) TWA
B.) USAF
I want NASA to have USAF staying power.
Why do you lot want Braniff?
Jeff Wright wrote, “Which outfit survived economic ups-and downs:
A.) TWA
B.) USAF
I want NASA to have USAF staying power.”
This is absolutely the most absurd comparison I have ever seen anyone ever make. The Air Force is funded entirely from coerced taxes. It doesn’t need to make a profit to survive. TWA was a private company that had to produce a good product or customers would flee. Eventually the product was bad, the customers did flee, and TWA died.
Moreover, their purposes are different. To compare the survival of each to make a point is worse than comparing apples to oranges, it is like comparing a supermassive black hole with a fish to prove that it is better to weigh more.
That you, Jeff Wright, seem utterly unaware of these basic economic facts makes you look quite ridiculous. I don’t say that as an insult, but as an an accurate description of this comment.
”Eventually the product was bad, the customers did flee, and TWA died.”
Speaking as someone who used to fly every other week, TWA’s product was among the best in the business. It was bought by a much bigger airline solely for their gates at JFK. The rest of TWA was unceremoniously dismantled.
It was as if Boeing had bought SpaceX in 2017 for the leases at LC-39A and LC-40 and then dismantled the rest of the company. Fortunately, that didn’t happen to SpaceX, but it did to TWA.
There are vultures out there, and it doesn’t pay to ignore them.
@Dick Eagleson,
It seems that all the US problems can be blamed on immigration if you try hard enough.
If there genuinely are folks working for NASA and drawing a wage for doing basically nothing then yes, get rid or pay by the hour… Some statistics would be nice. I’m pretty sure there are very few illegal immigrants working for NASA tho.
Lee S,
Said like a typical leftist. Leftists cannot distinguish between the beneficial, law abiding legals who are eager to keep America great and the detrimental, law breaking, misdemeanant/felonious illegals who are here for the nefarious purpose of suckling from the taxpayer’s teat.
_____________
Jeff Wright asked: “Which outfit survived economic ups-and downs A.) TWA B.) USAF”
Should we consider the amount of government funding each received? The USAF couldn’t survive the economic ups and downs except for all its government funding. TWA received, how much government money? None?
A better question: Which outfit provided a service the public wanted to fly on: A.) TWA B.) USAF?
A related question: Which outfit provides a service the space industry eagerly pays to fly on: A.) SpaceX B.) NASA?
I think we answer that last question by pondering the number of launches of paying commercial payloads SpaceX’s rockets have made vs. the number NASA’s rockets have made. Or, instead of the number of flights, let’s try the tonnes taken to orbit.
It would be nice for NASA to have USAF staying power, but at what cost?
Tax breaks? It sure would be nice to have a break from all the taxes we have to pay to get almost nothing in return. Where NASA’s portion of our tax money is concerned, we are discovering that commercial rocket companies can develop better rockets for less cost than NASA has done, and comparing SLS with Starship, SLS uses existing hardware and largely existing ground support equipment and facilities yet still cost several tens of billions of dollars* and a dozen years to develop, but Starship is only now approaching a single ten billion dollars in nine years from its first (a year later, there was a second) Power Point introduction — including developing and building two and three generations of ground support equipment, facilities, engines, and flight hardware. Starship is being developed to be reusable, high launch cadence, and low cost, and its capacity seems to exceed SLS’s block III. What a tax break that is.
Depending upon NASA for virtually everything, for the last two-thirds of a century, has left us with very few products from space. Mostly just communications (from private companies) and weather forecasts (from NOAA). By not allowing Americans to use NASA’s monopoly on launch access for space manufacturing, We the People have lost half a century of space benefits that we should have had. The Outer Space Treaty says that space should be used for the benefit of all mankind, but only governments have received most of the benefits of using space. What a waste of two-thirds of a century.
Now that We the People control access to space, we have lowered the cost and increased the availability of that access. We have begun to increase the space products and the benefits that We get from space. We are beginning to figure out how to achieve the dreams that Walt Disney and Wernher von Braun showed us in the 1950s — dreams that we had counted on NASA to bring to fruition, that NASA’s employees had thought they would bring to life. Now that We the People have our own companies that can do their own work in space, NASA’s employees can join or found companies that turn dreams into realities, and to do it independent of taxpayer money.
With all those new companies and all their new products, we can generate far more productivity, and that will generate far more tax revenue that can be used to help pay down the national debt. All we have to do now is figure out how to get Congress to pay down that debt rather than increase spending.
To return to the analogy: having Braniff is far more desirable than having NASA, as we would have far more productivity than we get with government.
NASA has held us back. Not intentionally, but it failed to do what it takes to reduce the cost of launch to space. Instead of giving us the low cost, rapid access that the Space Shuttle was supposed to give us, NASA stuck with the expensive, low cadence Shuttle. This left us with so little access that we didn’t get the benefits of space that The Outer Space Treaty promised.
So, why would we ever want NASA, which holds us back, when commercial space companies are chomping at the bit to use commercial launch companies’ reduced cost and frequent access to space so that they can give us valuable benefits from space? With commercial space, we get the benefits of lower launch costs and easy access to space that government and NASA promised us half a century ago, when they were developing the Space Shuttle. Government rarely gives us the things that it promises,** but private companies must follow through on their promises or go out of business.
Cutting NASA is like driving past a service station with half-price gas that gets twice the milage instead of burning up a tank of gas driving all the way to the expensive, previously-favorite station.
Jeff,
Thank you for bringing up these topics. They got me thinking harder about our future need for NASA. I used to think that it should be turned back into a resource like the NACA, but now I am pondering that even that conversion could be worse than just disbanding NASA as yet another useless arm of the government. NASA’s employees would be better off in the private sector, and we would be better off with them there, too. Jared Isaacman and Elon Musk are two good recent examples. Isaacman was making great progress, when he was in charge of innovation. Musk was distracted from his innovations when he tried to save taxpayers a lot of money, savings that have yet to come about.
ad astra lucrum
_________________
* SLS launch cost is supposed to start out at $4 billion each but drop to $800 million in the next five years, or so. However, those prices don’t include development costs and other non-recurring costs. Artemis I and II are verification flights, and it is only Artemis III, IV, V, and VI that would be the operational flights to the surface of the Moon. If we amortize development and verification costs to the operational flights now planned, each flight costs over $10 billion.
** NASA’s Project Apollo kept government’s promise of giving us the Moon, and we all believed that we finally had a government agency that we could count on. Too bad we were wrong. Congress and President Nixon turned it into just another government agency. Government abandoned the Moon right after it gifted it to us, so we had it only for a short time.
Yeah, as an airline brat, I largely agree: TWA had its issues, but it is more fair to say that it was murdered rather than committed suicide.
It’s a pity, since once upon a time it was the gold standard in the American airline industry. The oil embargoes and deregulation hammered it hard, but any chance it had at restoring itself was dashed when it got gobbled up by Carl Icahn, who stripped it for parts and a bankruptcy filing before he was finally forced out.
TWA’s death despite being top notch is why I want NASA to travel the same stability (and funding level) as the armed services. NASA needs its own Rickover.
Now I hear this same anti-NASA administration just forked over $20 billion to Argentina.
I need to punch something.
Jeff Wright,
You wrote: “NASA needs its own Rickover.”
Do you mean like John Glenn or Neil Armstrong?