House ignores request for more NASA money for moon mission
A House committee today approved a NASA budget that ignored the Trump administration’s request for $1.6 billion more money to support its attempt to land a manned mission on the Moon by 2024.
Instead, the committee shifted more money into earth science and Gateway.
Whether this budget is what ends up being enacted remains to be seen. It does appear however that Trump will have great trouble funding his Moon project. Sadly, that lack of funding does not mean the overall federal budget is coming under control. On the contrary, it appears the Democratic-controlled House simply wants to spend lots of money, but on different things.
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A House committee today approved a NASA budget that ignored the Trump administration’s request for $1.6 billion more money to support its attempt to land a manned mission on the Moon by 2024.
Instead, the committee shifted more money into earth science and Gateway.
Whether this budget is what ends up being enacted remains to be seen. It does appear however that Trump will have great trouble funding his Moon project. Sadly, that lack of funding does not mean the overall federal budget is coming under control. On the contrary, it appears the Democratic-controlled House simply wants to spend lots of money, but on different things.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Earth science + gateway = establishment stuff.
Moon 2024 = Trump stuff.
They don’t want to give him this win, especially not during his second term.
P.S.: Nothing against Earth science or better measurements of climate change. I don’t want to see it associated with liberal talking points; actually we have to free it from the politicization that poisoned those fields.
This is a House Appropriations Committee, not an Authorization Committee. So what happened is that committee decided to provide funds for what was already in their hopper — namely the original Trump budget request from February plus the amendments given that subsequently. The size and scope of the Artemis project has not been approved by the House, and how much to allocate to it this coming year has not been decided by an authorization committee, so arguably the appro- privation committee has been operating as it should. There’s still plenty of time to amend NASA’s funding, either in the House or Senate, or Joint Conference sessions.
Other than this being Democrats against Trump (and Bridenstein) this isn’t a real case of “Democrats Against Trump.” House committees have worked this way back during the Obama administration, the GW Bush administration, the Ciinton administration, and so on maybe as far as George Washingtons.
Does this mean that Trump wont be getting his cut to Gateway funding?
I think it is more likely that these lunar prospecting missions will get going than any type of “big” program. They can build them up incrementally to support larger (in scope, scale, and difficulty) missions as time goes on. They operate on shorter timelines, especially for the outcome, which fit in better with the budgeting process.
But with Democrats giving more money to SLS/Orion/Gateway who knows? Just goes to show how little control Trump has over the process and how hard it would be for him to do what so many space nerds want in cancelling SLS.