The Congressional Budget Office issued an updated estimate today of the cost of President Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense system. Lacking detailed data from the Administration, CBO based its analysis on the capabilities called for in Trump’s January 2025 Executive Order and concluded the total cost over 20 years is $1.2 trillion, about twice its estimate last year, with the bulk of it for Space-Based Interceptors.

Trump issued the Iron Dome for America Executive Order on January 27, 2025, seven days after his second term began. He soon renamed it Golden Dome in part to distinguish it from Israel’s Iron Dome system which has more limited capabilities. Trump appointed Gen. Michael Guetlein to lead the project and in an Oval Office meeting on May 20, 2025, said it would cost $175 billion and be completed in three years, before he leaves office.

By then CBO had estimated the cost at $524 billion based on information available at the time.

Guetlein has since raised his estimate to $185 billion, but it is widely viewed as far too low.

Several important points: First, the CBO’s cost estimates are usually wrong, in either direction, which means the cost could be a lot less, or a lot more. Odds are that in this case its estimate is trending in the right direction. Guetlein’s cost estimate is absurdly too low.

Second, the high cost helps explain why a lot of investment money is pouring into a lot of new space startups, for both rocket and satellite companies. Wall Street sees the federal government spending a lot of money on Golden Dome, and wants to get into the action. For the same reason this is why a lot of space companies have shifted their focus from civilian projects to the military.

Finally, the idea of Golden Dome is perfectly reasonable, as its concept has already been proven both by the U.S.’s Patriot missile system and Israel’s Iron Dome. The implementation however is going to be bad, because the people in Washington being asked to do it have a terrible track record. They routinely waste money and manage projects badly.

The vote was along party lines, with the Republicans approving and the Democrats opposing. As expected, while the overall budget was maintained, the Republicans went along with the sense of Trump’s cuts — and the desires of NASA administrator Jared Isaacman — by shifting money from science to exploration within the budget.

The subcommittee bill provides $8.926 billion for human exploration, an increase of about $400 million above the request, and the request itself favors exploration. … The subcommittee’s bill raises the FY2027 level for [NASA science] to $6 billion, but that’s still a $1.3 billion reduction from current spending as Ranking Member Grace Meng (D-New York) pointed out.

The bill also agreed with Trump’s proposal to eliminate NASA’s STEM education office, something Isaacman had repeatedly testified was redundant and a waste of money.

In other words, the committee is giving Isaacman more flexibility with the money it is giving him, as I predicted.

This is only the first step in the budget process. The budget still has to be approved by the full House, the Senate, and the President. Expect changes.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman yesterday appeared before a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations committee, and as happened last week when Isaacman appeared before a House committee, the reality of what happened at the hearing differed greatly from what most new sources reported.

The main topic of both hearings were the proposed $5.6 billion cut in NASA’s budget, proposed by President Trump. Isaacman has made it clear he does not oppose this cut, stating repeatedly in public that he has plenty of money to do what he wants, that there is much waste and needless spending at NASA that needs reform, and by trimming that out he will find the cash he needs.

As I noted in reporting about that House hearing, I was struck by the lack of hard opposition to those cuts. The Republicans generally made little of the issue, though they seemed generally opposed to the cuts. And though the Democrats as expected blasted the cuts, they did so in a generally subdued manner, only showing passion in noting the elimination to NASA STEM education office. Isaacman’s willingness to push back hard against more spending took the wind out of their demands for more money, and so they muted their protests.

Unfortunately, if you relied on our propaganda press for an honest report of this House hearing, you would have been misinformed. As shown below, that propaganda press distorted this reality to back big government spending without question.

• CNN: They are going to be rejected again’: NASA chief faces grilling on Trump’s budget proposal
• Space News: House Science Committee pans NASA budget request
• Space.com: ‘That’s just not a winning strategy’: Congress objects (again) to Trump’s planned NASA budget cuts
• Aerospace America: House Science Committee members vow to reject NASA budget cuts
• Fox Huntsville: NASA’s Isaacman defends budget amid lawmaker concerns over science cuts

The Senate hearing yesterday followed the exact same pattern. The questioning was generally friendly, and Isaacman aggressively pushed back at the demands for more spending by Democrats. This made their push for more spending more difficult, because Isaacman knows what he is talking about, supports an ambitious space program at NASA, and if he says he doesn’t need the extra money, they look foolish throwing it at him.

Yet, the propaganda press once again tried to spin the hearing to promote more spending. Though this hearing got less coverage, the following two stories were typical:

• SpacePolicyOnline: Key Senators Agree NASA FY2027 Budget Request Inadequate
• Aviation Week: Senate Panel Members Blast NASA’s 2027 Budget Request

Only one news source (outside of my reporting here), R&D World, reporting this hearing accurately: Senate largely hearing splits on party lines over proposed $5.6 billion NASA cut

Now, I am not naive. I fully expect Congress to restore most of the proposed cuts to NASA’s budget. At the same time, both hearings suggest that Congress will also afford Isaacman more leeway on how he uses the money. He will be able to cut or reshape major projects. He will be able to shut down some offices that he considers wasteful or redundant. And above all, he will be given the freedom to reform NASA in ways no Congress has allowed in decades.

As per the provisions in last year’s reconciliation budget bill (dubbed for propaganda reasons by Trump the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”), the FAA was authorized to begin charging fees (another word for taxes) on the mass of each launch payload. The agency last week announced it is now doing so.

More information here.

For 2026, that fee is 25 cents per pound of payload, capped at $30,000 per launch or reentry. The fees would fund work on improving integration of launches and reentries into the national airspace system directed by an FAA reauthorization act in 2024.

Though the amount per launch is small compared to the cost of the launch itself, this new tax is expected to provide ample funds to allow the FAA to expand its licensing operations to meet the growing launch industry. The real challenge will be whether the bureaucracy can stay focused on its main task of serving the public, or use the money to build a new bureaucratic empire aimed at garnering power over the private sector. History suggests we should be pessimistic, and expect the latter.

In the meantime, rocket companies are simply going to apply this new tax to the makers of their payloads, who in turn will have their customers pay the cost.

“On behalf of President Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as a member of the National Science Board is terminated, effective immediately,” reads a 24 April email from Mary Sprowls of the presidential personnel office to each NSB member. “Thank you for your service.”

The article at the link, from the journal Science, takes the typical one-sided propaganda press anti-Trump view, interviewing only those who oppose Trump and spending most of its time screaming “He’s destroying science!”

A wider view would ask this: Is there a reason that the president of the United States, elected by the American people, might have reasons to question the management of this board? At the moment the federal government is running a deficit that is back-breaking, and this board publicly criticized Trump’s effort to rein in spending when he proposed a 55% cut in NSF’s budget. If they are not going to cooperate with their boss, then maybe they should leave, and not let the door hit them as they head out.

The Science article also included this howler: “the mass firing is the latest indication that the White House is ignoring the board’s authority and dictating policies at NSF.” Um, who elected them? No one. In fact, they were appointed by the president himself, and he is the only one with the constitutional authority to decide these matters.

Expect court suits of course, with some lower level unelected judge somewhere attempting to take over running the executive branch by demanding these board members remain in power, defying the elected president of the U.S.

There has been a lot of attention given by the propaganda press to the testimony yesterday by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman before the House Science Committee, with almost all of that coverage focused on two issues, Trump’s proposal to cut NASA’s budget significantly, and the public statement by Isaacman that two Lunar Gateway modules were delivered “corroded.”

On the corrosion issue, much of the press focused on whether Isaacman’s statement is true (contractors are denying it). I instead was struck by how little pushback there was overall from Congress about Isaacman’s proposal to cancel Gateway entirely. In two hours of testimony, only one congressman brought it up, and even he did not challenge Isaacman’s decision very strongly.

Put simply, it really didn’t matter whether these modules were corroded or not. Congress is not going to challenge Isaacman on this decision. Some politicians might use it in fund-raising letters or at press events as a hammer to win votes or donations, but when it comes time to approve NASA’s budget, they are willing to accept Isaacman’s overall judgment. Gateway will be gone.

As for the budget cuts, I was also struck by the lack of hard opposition from Congress, despite reporting from the propaganda press (like this story) suggesting the cuts were rejected outright. Though repeatedly Isaacman was questioned about those cuts — especially from Democrats — repeatedly he fought back hard, to good effect. He supports Trump’s cuts and does not want more money, because in reviewing NASA’s budget and recent actions, he has found there is ample cash available in Trump’s reduced budget by simply shutting down bad or duplicative projects and focusing his resources more effectively.

The only threatened program that seemed to generate any passion from Congress was Trump’s effort to eliminate NASA’s education STEM program. “We need this program to inspire kids!” they would say. Isaacman would bluntly respond “No we don’t,” noting that NASA issues millions in education grants outside that program (making that program duplicative and unnecessary), and that the best way NASA can inspire kids is to actually fly missions, not send money to some bureaucratic program. Isaacman wants to use that money to make building the lunar base more likely.

Over and over again Isaacman pulled the rug out from under this big-spending congress critters by simply pointing out the truth to them, with one exchange with Zoe Lofgren (D-California) quite typical. She clearly was opposed to Trump’s cuts and wanted to challenge any cancellations being put forth. To do so, however, she wanted Isaacman to provide more detailed information about those cuts. Issacman said sure, I’m glad to provide you everything you want, but then added this:

I am here at NASA for the mission. If there is a program that is under-performing, not meeting expectations, or not [using] the best resources, I can assure you and promise you I will over-communicate and make the case why those resources should be spent on something else that better serves NASA’s mission.

In other words, if Congress wants to fund useless pork, or a mission that can’t do what it promises, Isaacman was making it clear that he was going fight against it, and will use his public platform to do so.

This puts the pork-lovers in a difficult position. Isaacman now has clout with the public. To go against him will not win votes. Moreover, he is playing this game very smartly. They all want a successful government space program, and he is eager to give to them. He is just demanding they let him do it using his own judgment. He will not support any program he thinks is counter productive, and he said so candidly over and over.

As a result, there was little pushback from Congress during this hearing over Isaacman’s major reshaping of Artemis. And though it is very likely they will restore most of Trump’s cuts, it is also very likely Isaacman will convince them to give him more flexibility on how to use the money.

Using NASA wisely, for the first time in decades

Isaacman also argued strongly, with little opposition, that the goal should be to off-load as much of NASA’s work to the private sector. Let NASA do stuff the private sector can’t, but the instant the private sector can do it, NASA should back off, stop doing it, and move on to other stuff outside the realm of the private sector.

Overall, this hearing reaffirms my earlier conclusion that Isaacman’s political skills are far better than anyone expected. He is forcing Congress to shift its focus from funding pork to funding a real American space effort, and to do so in a way that will in quickly foster a vibrant American space industry, outside government.

Keep your fingers crossed. If Isaacman succeeds in this effort, he will profoundly change America’s future in space, and for the good.

Link here. I found this interview with NASA administrator Jared Issacman to be very informative and worth reading, especially in regards to his comments on the proposed cuts to NASA’s budget.

First, he admits right off the bat that the heat shield was his biggest concern during the Artemis-2 mission. He also took a swipe at past NASA management over this issue. After noting that the initial inspection of the Artemis-2 shield after recovery showed it experienced little serious damage, he added this: “All that aside, if you’re going to wait three and a half years between missions, just replace the heat shield.” In other words, after Artemis-1 NASA management dithered when it saw the damaged heat shield. It should have immediately moved to replace it.

As for the proposed Trump budget cuts and the opposition to those cuts by many in Congress, Issacman said this:

There’s a lot of passionate people out here [referring I think to the space industry and its advocates]. They can do incredible things, from a scientific perspective. I don’t know how many of them have ever pulled together a financial model, and driven execution on some of these things to say what should or shouldn’t be the right budget.

Now, all that said, of course, we will maximize every dollar that Congress affords to the agency. But it is not healthy, for the agency, to get in this mindset that we have to spend our way out of every problem. And I don’t think it’s good for the country to think we have to print our way out of every problem. [emphasis mine]

This is not the first time Isaacman has indicated he thinks NASA can survive these cuts, and in fact can do as well if not better by using what it gets more wisely. It is however the first time he has put NASA’s budget in the context of the entire federal budget, which is badly out of control. Isaacman does not want more money from Congress because he thinks it is bad for the nation to spend itself into debt. He thinks he has enough to do the job.

The entire interview is worth reading. It indicates a very practical and honest mindset. Everyone might not agree with every proposal Isaacman has put forth, but he is clearly approaching things from a very good place.

I pay even less attention to authorization bills that have only been approved by a committee, and have not yet been voted on by either house. Such bills are ephemeral and the stuff of fantasy. It is nice to know what’s in them, but until such bills are actually approved by both houses of Congress and signed by the president, their language is even more unworthy of serious attention.

Have the pigs in the Senate learned to stop gorging themselves?

Nonetheless, the NASA authorization bill that was just approved by the Senate Commerce committee is worth reviewing, but not for the reasons that has interested the rest of the mainstream and even the aerospace press.

True, the bill extends ISS until 2032. True, it fully supports the commercial private space stations being built to replace it. True, it endorses NASA administrator Jared Isaacman’s restructuring of the Artemis program. True, it rejects all of Trump’s proposed cuts to NASA’s science programs. And true, it strongly endorses a Moon base as a first step to colonizing Mars.

All of these facts are significant, but to focus on each specifically — as it appears the entire press has done — is to miss the forest for the trees.

You see, what this authorization bill really tells us is that the Senate has finally cried “Uncle!” on SLS, Orion, and all of the NASA-designed, -owned, and -built projects that the Senate for years has supported blindly, funneling endless gobs of cash to these programs no matter how poorly they were built, how incapable they were of getting anything done, and how much money they wasted. All that mattered was to keep the pork flowing. To our lovely but corrupt Senators, that money had to be spent, regardless of how badly NASA managed and spent it.

The most recent example of this was last fall’s budget bill. In it Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) inserted language requiring NASA to fly SLS for two more missions, through Artemis-5. The amendments also funded Lunar Gateway, and ISS for five more years. It didn’t matter that SLS is too expensive, too cumbersome, and too slow to launch, making it useless for developing any viable American space program anywhere. The money had to be spent.

Something clearly has changed in this new authorization bill, which you can read here [pdf]. Its language suggests the Senate, and Cruz, are now taking a different tack. Instead of expanding these and additional government projects, the bill very clearly focuses on encouraging NASA to rely on the private sector. For example, in outlining its demand that a continuous human presence be maintained after ISS, it states right at the beginning that:

Capabilities in low-Earth orbit should include a mix of crewed and uncrewed commercial platforms [and that these] platforms in low-Earth orbit should transition from government-only enterprises to commercially led enterprises.

No more government space stations. NASA can help fund the construction of privately-owned stations, but once built it will simply buy space on them rather than own and operate them.

Even more significant is what this bill says and does not say about SLS. It says nothing about extending the rocket beyond the first five Artemis missions, as presently required by Cruz amendments in the budget bill. Instead, it expressly notes that SLS “has not met the flight rate” as required by the 2022 NASA authorization act, and that the planned more powerful upper stage is “behind schedule and over budget.” It then basically endorses Isaacman’s plan, already begun, to abandon that upper stage and replace it with ULA’s Centaur-5 upper stage, used on its Vulcan rocket.

The bill then requests a briefing in 60 days from Isaacman, reassessing SLS, its budget, and its components, including “a balancing of government and industry workforce components, roles, and responsibilities.” The bill also says this quite unequivocally:

The Administrator may enter into agreements with United States commercial providers or engage in public-private partnerships to procure capabilities and services to support the human exploration of the Moon and cislunar space.

SpaceX’s Superheavy after the October 2024 test flight,
safely captured during the very first attempt

In other words, Isaacman is almost given carte blanche to use commercial resources for NASA’s lunar program. Thus, this language quite literally lays the groundwork for replacing SLS after that fifth Artemis mission, with that replacement process beginning now.

Nor is this all. Throughout the bill the language repeatedly encourages NASA to obtain what it needs from the private sector, in low-Earth orbit, in building a lunar base, a manned spacesuit, in developing missions to Mars, etc. Rather than fund another big NASA project — as the Senate has demanded for decades — it now wants NASA to use its funds to buy such things from outside the agency.

Hallelujah and amen! We might finally have seen a miracle occur: Senators actually writing a bill to support the American people, rather than take their money to build empires and bureaucracies in DC.

I am not so naive to think this new outlook doesn’t carry hidden mines that could blow it up in an instant. The bill for one demands many reports from NASA and Isaacman, and thus reserves the right of Congress to change everything if it so desires.

The bill also very carefully makes sure some pork is distributed to NASA and other agencies. It designates the Johnson Space Center in Texas as responsible for all NASA activities on the commercial space stations, while also making clear that it wants Johnson to have that same responsibility with the future Moon base, without saying so directly. The Glenn Research Center in Ohio is also given the lead in developing communications and GPS capabilities for the lunar base.

Nor is this the only pork in the bill, though refreshingly there is far less compared to previous NASA authorization bills.

Based on this bill, it does really appear that the Senate has finally recognized that SLS — and the government itself — is not the way the United States is going to colonize the solar system. They appear to have finally realized, after almost a half century of resistance, that for the American government to conquer the heavens, the government must rely on the American people to do it.

What a concept! It is almost as if these senators have suddenly realized what country they live in. It ain’t the Soviet Union, ruled from above by government commissars, but the United States, where we have a government for, by, and of the people.

You would think they’d know this, but then they are politicians, and for them, knowledge is generally considered an unnecessary component of their work.

Meanwhile nothing is set in stone. The bill still has to be approved by the Senate, and it must match the bill the House writes up. Though no one knows where those negotiations will lead, the House has tended over the years to favor commercial space and private enterprise, so I don’t think it will change things much for the worse.

Stay tuned. While the future remains decidedly uncertain, there are hopeful glimmers, and it does appear they are growing brighter.

The White House today released a new executive order that has the typically grand title these type of orders usually have: “Ensuring American Space Superiority”. That it was released one day after Jared Isaacman was confirmed as NASA administrator by the Senate was no accident, as this executive order demands a lot of action by him, with a clear focus on reshaping and better structuring the entire manned exploration program of the space agency.

The order begins about outlining some basic goals. It demands that the U.S. return to the Moon by 2028, establish the “initial elements” a base there by 2030, and do so by “enhancing sustainability and cost-effectiveness of launch and exploration architectures, including enabling commercial launch services and prioritizing lunar exploration.” It also demands this commercial civilian exploration occur in the context of American security concerns.

Above all, the order demands that these goals focus on “growing a vibrant commercial space economy through the power of American free enterprise,” in order to attract “at least $50 billion of additional investment in American space markets by 2028, and increasing launch and reentry cadence through new and upgraded facilities, improved efficiency, and policy reforms.”

To achieve these goals, the order then outlines a number of actions required by the NASA administrator, the secretaries of Commerce, War, and State, as well as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy (APDP), all coordinated by the assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST).

All of this is unsurprising. Much of it is not much different than the basic general space goals that every administration has touted for decades. Among this generality however was one very specific item, a demand to complete within 90 days the following review:

by the Secretary of Commerce and the Administrator of NASA, in consultation with the Director of OMB, of their respective major space acquisition programs to identify any such programs that are more than 30 percent behind schedule based on the program’s acquisition baseline, 30 percent over cost based on the program’s baseline, unable to meet any key performance parameters, or unaligned with the priorities in this order, along with a description of their planned mitigation or remediation efforts.

If that isn’t a very precise description of SLS and Orion, I don’t know what is. It appears this executive order is quite specifically laying the political groundwork for ending both, and to do so the Trump administration wants this report on hand to show both Congress and the public. Note too that the report isn’t simply supposed to identify these over-budget and behind schedule programs, but to outline the “planned mitigation or remediation efforts”, efforts that must work to “grow a vibrant commercial space economy through the power of American free enterprise.”

In other words, Trump wants Isaacman to work up a new Artemis program that he can present to Congress, no longer relying on a government-owned rocket (SLS). It is also likely that Isaacman and Trump discussed this entire strategy during their meetings leading up to Trump’s renomination of Isaacman.

What will that new plan entail? You can bet, based on the order’s focus on private enterprise, that it will involve SpaceX, with a strong dash of Blue Origin on the side. It will also include the many American startups planning the first launch of new rockets in 2026 (Rocket Lab, Relativity, Stoke Space) as well as others already established (Firefly and Northrop Grumman). That plan is also going to include the four commercial space station projects under development, as well as all the other peripheral industries involved.

Damage to Orion heat shield caused during re-entry in 2022,
including “cavities resulting from the loss of large chunks”

And you can also bet it will outline the phasing out of SLS, Orion, and possibly Lunar Gateway, as quickly as possible. It might not cancel the already scheduled and funded next three Artemis SLS/Orion missions, but it is also very likely it will recommend that these programs be cancelled thereafter.

The deadline for the release of this report, 90 days from today or the middle of March, also suggests it is intended as a weapon for not only cancelling later SLS/Orion missions, but for forcing a change on the Artemis-2 mission, scheduled for the February-April 2026 time frame. That mission plans to fly four astronauts around the Moon, launched on SLS and flying inside an Orion capsule with a questionable heat shield (see the image to the right) and an untested environmental system. To fly such a manned mission with such questionable equipment is unconscionable, and appears to be another example of NASA putting scheduling ahead of good engineering and safety, as it did with Challenger and Columbia.

The deadline for this report suggests that Trump’s executive order today is precisely aimed at providing Isaacman the political clout he needs to pull those astronauts from that mission, for legitimate safety concerns. When he releases this report in March, he will do so with great fanfare, in a manner that will allow him to take such a politically charged action. All he needs to do is make sure Artemis-2 does not launch beforehand, a delay of only a matter of weeks.

Be prepared for political fireworks come March.

The Senate today finally confirmed Jared Isaacman to be the next NASA administrator, by a vote of 67 to 30.

All of the opposition came from Democrats, who fear Isaacman will eliminate several NASA centers in their states, centers that for decades have accomplished little but be jobs programs sucking money from the American taxpayer.

During hearings and private meetings with the senators Isaacman denied he had any intention to do this. In fact, the 62-page policy document Isaacman had written outlining his plans when he was first nominated for this position back in the spring makes it clear that is not his goal.

Instead, an honest read of that document shows that Isaacman has approached this position as administrator like the businessman he is. He intends to review every aspect of NASA’s operations and to restructure them to run more efficiently. For one example, he plans to eliminate the numerous “deputies” that every manager at NASA has been given. The managers should do the work, not hire a flunky to do it for them.

He also plans to review the next two Artemis missions, specifically looking at the Orion capsule and the questions relating to its heat shield and its untested environmental system. The concern that I and many others have expressed is that this capsule is not ready yet for a manned mission. The heat shield showed significant and unexpected damage on its return to Earth from its first unmanned mission around the Moon in 2022. Rather than replace it or redesign it, NASA has decided to push ahead and fly four astronauts on it around the Moon no later than April 2026. The agency’s solution will be to change the capsule’s flight path to reduce stress on the shield, a solution that might work but remains untested. It is also willing to fly the astronauts in a capsule with a untested environmental system. This NASA decision to push ahead is so it can meet the goal of Trump and Congress to get humans back on the Moon ahead of the Chinese, and hopefully within Trump’s present term of office.

In other words, NASA management is once again putting schedule ahead of safety and engineering, as it did with Challenger and again with Columbia.

It appears that Isaacman will at least review this situation. Whether he will have the courage to take the astronauts off that mission however remains unknown. He will certainly face fierce opposition from Trump and Congress if he does so.

In mid-November a bi-partisan group of senators introduced legislation they claimed would help the U.S. beat China in space by creating a new government agency called the “National Institute for Space Research.”

The absurdity of creating a new agency to do this was obvious. Don’t we already have something called NASA that is tasked with this job? As I noted then, “This is just pork.”

Rather than funding real research or development in space, this legislation simply creates another Washington government agency supposedly functioning independent of presidential or even congressional oversight (a legal structure the courts have increasingly declared unconstitutional).

Well, it appears two congress critters in the House have decided they had to keep up with the Jones in the Senate, and have now introduced their own variation of this legislation.

Yesterday, Congresswoman Valerie Foushee [D-North Carolina], Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, and Congressman Daniel Webster [R-Florida] introduced H.R. 6638, the Space Resources Institute Act, bipartisan legislation which directs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Administrator and the Secretary of Commerce to report to Congress on the merits and feasibility of establishing a dedicated space resources institute relating to space resources, the surface materials, water, and metals often found on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids.

The bill would give NASA 180 days to submit its report.

This is just more junk from Congress that will do nothing but distract NASA from its real business, fostering a new American aerospace industry capable of colonizing the solar system for profit. Note too that like the Senate bill, this House bill is a bi-partisan effort in stupidity.

As I said in reporting on the Senate version of this proposal, “Ugh. There are times I wish I didn’t have to read the news from DC. It almost always depresses me.”

All 15 committee Republicans and three of the 13 Democrats voted in favor: Senators Ted Cruz (Chairman, R-Texas), John Thune (R-South Dakota), Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), Deb Fischer (R-Nebraska), Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), Todd Young (R-Indiana), Ted Budd (R-North Carolina), Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri), John Curtis (R-Utah), Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), Tim Sheehy (R-Montana), Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming), Maria Cantwell (Ranking Member, D-Washington), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin), and John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania).

Ten of the 13 Democrats voted no: Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), Gary Peters (D-Michigan), Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois), Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada), Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico), John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado), Andy Kim (D-New Jersey), and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Delaware).

In the previous April 2025 confirmation vote two Democrats, Kim and Hickenlooper, had voted yes. Now they voted no. In turn in April Fetterman had voted no and now changed his vote to yes.

Isaacman’s nomination still has to be confirmed by the Senate. No vote has been scheduled, but there have been indications that it will be scheduled in the next week or so. If not, the vote will have to wait until after the New Year. In either case, it is expected Isaacman will be approved handily.

The space subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee yesterday held a hearing on space, one day after the Senate held its own hearing on the nomination of Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator.

The House hearing however was not about Isaacman, but was apparently staged to highlight what appears to be strong reservations within Congress about NASA’s Artemis program, as presently structured. Its timing, just after the Isaacman hearing, was clearly aimed at garnering as much publicity as possible.

Video of the hearing can be seen here.

The focus of the hearing was also on China, and how there is real fear in Congress that its space program is outstripping NASA’s. Both the Republican committee chairman and the ranking Democrat stressed these concerns, and the need to beat China to the Moon and beyond.

More important, all four witnesses pushed the same point.

The rallying cry at this hearing as well as yesterday’s is the “race” with China.

…Foushee asked each of the witnesses for one-word answers to the question: is NASA on track to get back to the Moon before Chinese taikonauts arrive?

Not all succeeded with one word, but their sentiment was similar. Cheng replied “no, I am very pessimistic.” Swope: “worried.” Besha: “maybe.” Griffin: “no possible way…with the present plan.”

Former NASA administrator Mike Griffin was the most blunt in his criticism of NASA.

Former NASA administrator Mike Griffin
speaking at the hearing

He agreed on the need for U.S. leadership and sustainable presence, but is convinced NASA is headed in the wrong direction. “We have squandered a 60-year head start because Artemis won’t work” largely because the Human Landing Systems (HLSs) needed to get astronauts down to and back from the lunar surface require in-space refueling of cryogenic propellants.

Both HLS landers NASA has under contract — SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark II — rely on in-space cryogenic refueling even though it has never been demonstrated. Cryogenic propellants need to be constantly replenished due to boil-off, a distinct challenge in orbit around Earth or the Moon.

Griffin doesn’t see a way to overcome that with current technology and insists NASA should “only stick to a plan if it makes sense” and Artemis doesn’t. “We should start again.”

Griffin’s technical concerns shouldn’t be taken too seriously. In fact, I think he is fundamentally wrong, since eventually it is going to be necessary to develop this refueling technology if we are going to colonize the solar system.

The bottom line however is the nature of the hearing itself. Congressional hearings like this are never an accident. They are planned photo-ops designed to push a polticial agenda. Each witness was chosen by the committee knowing essentially what each would say, and that includes Griffin. The committee wanted these opinions aired, in a manner that would be noticed by the press.

In other words, both parties in Congress were making it clear they want the U.S. to succeed in space, and from both parties in the House there is growing hostility to Artemis as presently designed.

These facts do not speak well for the future of SLS and Orion.

Nothing that happened at yesterday’s Senate hearing of Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA’s next administrator was a surprise, or very significant, even if most media reports attempted to imply what happened had some importance. Here are just a small sampling:

• CNN: Trump’s NASA pick faces questions on leaked ‘Project Athena’ plan in rare second confirmation hearing
• UPI: NASA nominee Jared Isaacman affirms need to beat China to moon
• Washington Times: Jared Isaacman, Trump’s NASA nominee, sees lunar landing, space base as crucial to national security
• The Hill: NASA nominee refuses to say if Musk was in room when Trump offered job
• Space News: Isaacman, senators emphasize urgency in returning humans to the moon
• Reuters: Trump’s NASA pick stresses moon race urgency, pressed on Musk ties in Senate hearing

To be fair, all of these reports focused on simply reporting what happened during the hearing, and the headlines above actually provide a good summary. Isaacman committed to the Artemis program, touted SLS and Orion as the fastest way to get Americans back to the Moon ahead of the Chinese, and dotted all the “i”s and crossed all the “t”s required to convince the senators he will continue the pork projects they so dearly love. He also dodged efforts by several partisan Democrats to imply Isaacman’s past business dealings with Musk and SpaceX posed some sort of conflict of interest.

What none of the news reports did — and I am going to do now — is take a deeper look. Did anything Isaacman promise in connection with NASA and its Artemis program mean anything in the long run? Is the race to get back to the Moon ahead of China of any importance?

I say without fear that all of this is blather, and means nothing in the long run. The American space program is no longer being run by NASA, and all of NASA’s present plans with Artemis, using SLS, Orion, and the Lunar Gateway station, are ephemeral, transitory, and will by history be seen as inconsequential by future space historians.

It is very simple. Even if the next few Artemis missions fly as planned, with no problems, all they will accomplish will be to put a few humans on the Moon for a very short time, with no long lasting impact. SLS and Orion as designed can do nothing more than repeat Apollo, plant a flag, provide some politicians some cool photo ops, but do nothing to establish the United States in space, building real colonies on the Moon, Mars, and the asteroids.

You see, NASA’s Artemis program is nothing more than a very expensive toy for politicians, allowing them to strut like proud roosters before the media, claiming they’ve made America a leader in space, when all they’ve really done is spend a lot of money on a one-off project that builds nothing substantial or permanent.

Yesterday’s hearing was simply another example of this, a vapid photo op for these politicians with no real substance. As summarized cogently by Marcia Smith at SpacePolicyOnline.com:

Ultimately, the hearing unveiled no big surprises and most members seem strongly supportive of the nomination. The committee vote on Monday is at 5:30 pm ET, just as Senators return to Washington for next week’s work. Seven other unrelated nominations are on the docket. When it will go before the full Senate is unknown, but the committee’s leadership is eager to get him confirmed.

In other words, this was nothing more than a performance for the cameras, as Isaacman’s nomination was assured even before the hearing began.

Superheavy after the October 2024 flight,
safely captured during the very first attempt

So what is America’s real space program? I’ve said this more than a few times recently, because the political game described above acts to distract us from reality, but the real American space program is now being run almost entirely by SpaceX. It is building the rocket (Starship) that will make colonization of the Moon and Mars possible. It has the rocket (Falcon 9) that is making a profitable orbital space industry possible.

And most important of all, it has the cash in its own pocket to pay for this. It doesn’t need to cater to the whims and quid pro quos demanded of Washington senators and congressmen to get the funding to pay for Starship. It gets that revenue from Starlink, and in fact those annual revenues are right now getting close to matching NASA’s own annual budget.

Nor is SpaceX alone in this. The American aerospace private sector is across the board becoming increasingly independent from NASA. It now has two rockets that are reusable (SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Blue Origin’s New Glenn), and by next year will have three more (SpaceX’s Starship, Rocket Lab’s Neutron, and Stoke Space’s Nova).

The American space stations under development

That private sector is also building four commercial private space stations, with one (Vast) planning the launch of its first demo station by next year. And that station is being funded entirely with private investment capital.

Multiple American companies are also now making money on orbiting constellations that provide high resolution data and imaging of the Earth, for commercial and government customers. Other companies are making money providing satellite companies tug and robotic servicing.

And even more significant, there are now companies flying recoverable capsules designed expressly to produce products in orbit for sale on Earth, with Varda leading the way. Large amounts of investment capital has been pouring into this new industry, because investors see large amounts of profits from the products it will produce.

Soon to wave in many places not on Earth

The future in space is quite bright, and this isn’t because Jared Isaacman yesterday committed NASA to beating China back to the Moon. It is bright because numerous free Americans are creating their own dreams in space, and making a lot of money as they do so.

And most important of all, despite SpaceX’s present dominance, the American space effort is varied, competitive, and widespread. Its growth is occurring industry wide, with many players all competing for profit. And it is increasingly independent from government funding.

So, it is nice Jared Isaacman will soon be NASA’s next administrator. And it is good that he intends to reshape the agency to make it more effective. But in the end, the real space program is elsewhere, among ordinary Americans following their own dreams. And it will be those Americans, not NASA, that will colonize the solar system for the United States.

My heart be still: A bi-partisan group of senators, led by Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), yesterday introduced legislation they claim will help the U.S. beat China in space by creating a new government agency called the “National Institute for Space Research,” designed to encourage research in space tied to the proposed commercial space stations.

Reports indicate that China is launching new modules to its Tiangong space station to meet growing demands for science and to boost international cooperation and is developing a new-generation crew spacecraft with two variants: one for low Earth orbit (LEO) and one for crewed lunar missions. China has been actively promoting international cooperation through Tiangong, offering countries like Oman, Egypt, Pakistan, and others opportunities to participate in space research largely for free or at an extremely low cost. China has also offered to train foreign astronauts, garnering interest from countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the UAE to train engineers, scientists, and mission operators for satellite development, and to launch services in which Egypt, Algeria, and Argentina are actively involved. This is a part of China’s broader Belt and Road Initiative, where space cooperation is bundled with tech transfer, loans, development projects, and the like.

This underscores strategic and accelerating investment by foreign adversaries in space-based infrastructure, research, and exploration. China’s ability to offer space-based partnerships to other nations allows it to build soft power and potentially shift international norms in space governance and tech standards.

In response, the Space RACE Act would create a National Institute for Space Research, a federally controlled but independently operated entity designed to coordinate and advance U.S. microgravity research in LEO using next-generation space platforms after the retirement of the ISS.

The last thing this bill will achieve is a stronger American space industry. Rather than funding real research or development in space, this legislation simply creates another Washington government agency supposedly functioning independent of presidential or even congressional oversight (a legal structure the courts have increasingly declared unconstitutional).

This is just more pork. It is also symbolic of the stupidity of our elected officials, who still do not really understand the real reasons beyond the on-going renaissance in America’s space effort. It hasn’t been the government that made it happen. It has been the private dreams of competing companies and individuals, figuring out ways they could make money launching rockets, often with the government acting as a major obstacle. Rather than streamline our bloated government to get it out of the way of this new private sector, these senators want to create more government to dictate how that sector functions.

Ugh. There are times I wish I didn’t have to read the news from DC. It almost always depresses me.

The change will go into effect 6 am (local time) on November 17, 2025.

The restrictions had limited flights out of 40 major airports across the country. Normal flight schedules should resume tomorrow. For rockets, this means launches can once again take place at any time of the day. The restrictions had placed a curfew on any launches from 6 am to 10 pm local time.

The press release included this intriguing tidbit:

The FAA is aware of reports of non-compliance by carriers over the course of the emergency order. The agency is reviewing and assessing enforcement options.

If the FAA does anything to penalize any airline or rocket company it would be a very typical example of government pettiness. But then, I have learned never to expect anything better from bureaucracies.

SpaceX tonight at 10:21 pm (Eastern) successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

I specify the launch time because it occurred just outside the FAA’s so-called curfew banning all launches from 6 am to 10 pm local time, due to the government shutdown and a shortage of air traffic controllers to coordinate aviation and rocket launches. Though the Senate today voted to end the shutdown, that shutdown has not yet ended, and won’t until the House passes the Senate budget version and Trump signs it.

Thus, it appears Blue Origin has negotiated an exemption for its now planned launch of New Glenn on November 12, 2025 in the afternoon.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

147 SpaceX (a new record)
70 China
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 147 to 115.

Note that I had made an error in entering my numbers earlier this week in regards to China, and have now corrected the mistake, thus revising the numbers in the last few launch reports.

Revenue over the first nine months of this year rose 20% to €1.75 billion while losses mounted to €55 million so far in 2025. Part of the problem was the Trump administration reassessment of spending that had been decided last year, including the delay of contract renewals and decisions on new awards, Chief Executive Officer Adel Al-Saleh said. Large contracts have also been delayed by the longest congressional budget standoff in US history, now in its sixth week, he said. “We’re experiencing timing delays in some contract awards due to the continuing resolution and subsequent government shutdown,” Al-Saleh said on a conference call with stock analysts.

The company remains in the black, and it expects to make up these losses from other customers. It is also in the process of completing its purchase of the satellite company Intelsat, which has also impacted its profits.

The article notes one interesting aspect of this Luxembourg company, that reflects the unique approach to tax dollars by that nation’s government: “Luxembourg taxpayers own one-sixth of SES shares, but wield a third of the voting power after underwriting its creation four decades ago.” The government doesn’t simply spend its tax revenue, like most governments. It treats that revenue as investment capital, and uses it to make money for the benefit of its citizens.

If only more governments would take this approach!

Accordingly, with respect to commercial space launches and reentries, under the authority provided to the FAA Administrator by 49 U.S.C. §§ 40103, 40113, and 46105(c), and authority delegated to the FAA Administrator under 51 U.S.C. § 50909(a), it is hereby ordered that, beginning at 6:00 a.m. EST on November 10, 2025, and until this Order is cancelled, Commercial space launches and reentries will only be permitted between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. local time.

It appears the curfew has been imposed because of a shortage of air traffic controllers due to the government shutdown. Each launch needs to be coordinated with air traffic control, and it appears the FAA won’t have the people it needs to do this during the day. This is part of the overall 10% reduction in flights at forty of the busiest airports nationwide imposed at the same time, also due to the shutdown.

This order is going to probably impact planned launches by SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and others, with SpaceX likely affected the most.

Note: I got the curfew times backwards initially, and was corrected by my readers. Post is now correct.

Link to the press release is here. To read the actual report go here.

The report was issued by the LEO Policy Working Group, which calls itself “an independent body dedicated to providing forward-looking, data-driven analysis and policy recommendations to ensure the successful and sustainable deployment of next-generation Low Earth Orbit satellite systems.” In reviewing the membership of this group, I noticed that only one member appeared drawn from the industry itself (a former OneWeb advisor). The rest of the members were from lobbying groups, government agencies, academia, or DC think tanks.

Thus, I immediately wondered if this report was aimed against SpaceX and its present dominance, designed to justify further government regulation against it.

In reviewing the report however it does not seem so, at least on the surface. The report very accurately and detail describes the present state of the industry and all the players, including all the present constellations in orbit or under construction. It also describes the state of the launch industry on which they depend, including the risks entailed by SpaceX’s present dominance. At the same time it also notes at length that there is no evidence that SpaceX is doing anything to take advantage of that dominance.

Its recommendations are generally vague, and can be summed up simply as “Government should remain vigilant but do nothing drastic at this time.”

The report’s main benefit however its overall summary of the industry, as well as its detailed description of how the spectrum is regulated by government agencies.

Click for original.

Its recommendations for the latter seem reasonable and based on strengthening competition rather than government control. For example, it details how many many constellations obtain a license for bandwidth from the FCC but then are very late in launching their satellite constellations, as noted by its graph to the right.

A key concern is whether these milestone requirements strike the right balance between facilitating market entry and deterring frivolous or infeasible applications. Some argue that these deployment deadlines are too lengthy and should be shortened, given the rapidly evolving ecosystem in LEO. Another consideration is whether enforcement of the buildout milestones is sufficient to offset the incentive for prospective satellite operators to apply and then later drop out if sufficient financing is not secured. The primary issue is how the FCC should distinguish systems that are legitimately trying to meet buildout requirements versus purely speculative or frivolous applications. The Commission has not yet tested how milestone waivers are to be handled, with Amazon’s Project Kuiper serving as one of the first cases to raise this issue. The ITU already has some precedent for handling waiver requests, which could serve as a reference point for the FCC.36

Introducing a higher up-front financial bond (for example, an escalating bond of $5 million or more post authorization) could serve as a stronger incentive to meet deployment milestones. Such a bond could be structured to release funds as verified buildout milestones are met. Conversely, failure to meet deadlines could result in partial forfeiture. This system would add accountability while giving applicants the opportunity to recover costs through performance. One of the potential downsides is that higher application fees or bond requirements may crowd out less well-funded startups and early innovators.

The report also suggests the FCC require a more incremental approach for these milestones, as well as introduce more firm scheduling requirements.

Overall, I recommend my readers take a look at this report. They will find it very informative.

Unfortunately, we won’t be the only ones reading it. The vagueness of some of its recommendations will allow every lobbying group in Washington, no matter who each represents, to quote this report for ammunition. Expect a number of government players, especially our camera-loving politicians, to use it to promote their own petty causes.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser is suing President Donald Trump’s administration over its “retaliatory” decision to relocate U.S. Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.

In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado on Wednesday, Weiser wrote that the president “could not have been clearer about his motivations” for the move, citing Trump’s comments during the Oval Office announcement last month acknowledging that Colorado’s elections, which he falsely described as “crooked,” were a “big factor” in his decision.

That admission makes Trump’s decision to vacate Space Command’s temporary location in Colorado — the latest twist in a years-long battle over the permanent home of Space Force headquarters — an unconstitutional violation of state sovereignty, Weiser said in a press conference. “The executive branch isn’t allowed to punish, retaliate, or seek to coerce states who lawfully exercise powers that are reserved to them,” Weiser said. “And that includes the power to oversee the time, place and manner of elections.”

Weiser’s lawsuit has little chance of winning in court. No state can tell the federal government where to place its facilities, no matter what the reason. The suit is mainly a crumb Weiser is throwing to his local Democratic Party supporters, showing them he as is equally controlled by Trump Derangement Syndrome as they are.

I should note that I also strongly disagree with Trump’s decision in this case. It will cost a lot of money, and will gain us nothing. The military’s space operations have been based in Colorado for more than a half century. Though a major reorganization of this bureaucratic structure is warranted, it would be far better to reorganize it there, rather than try to recreate it elsewhere.

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.

NASA’s management had previously extended the orbiter’s mission several times, with the last extension going until the end of the 2025 fiscal year, that ended on September 30, 2025. No new budget has yet been approved, and the proposed Trump budget had included no money for extending the mission farther.

Due to the government shutdown, NASA is currently unable to say whether Juno is still operating or already powered down. At the time of publication, responses from agency officials state that “NASA is currently closed due to a lapse in government funding … Please reach back out after an appropriation or continuing resolution is approved.”

Under shutdown rules, only missions that fall under “excepted activities” — those required to protect life, property, or national security — can continue operations or communications. NASA’s continuity plans also specify that carryover funding may only be applied to “presidential priorities,” which limits what science programs can proceed during a lapse.

Juno does not fall into those protected categories, and was also zeroed-out on the President’s fiscal year 2026 budget request — making the mission, presumably, not a priority. So, until normal government operations resume, the spacecraft’s future is uncertain.

I think Juno’s future at this point is not uncertain in the least. While other active missions that the Trump proposed shutting down might get revived, Juno is unlikely to be one of them. I suspect the science team has put it in hibernation, and is already beginning to move on to other projects and work. They are being coy about this in the faint hope Congress will save Juno, but this should not be a priority. At this point I think NASA would be wiser to spend its resources elsewhere.

A group of senators last week announced the re-introduction of a bill they had proposed previously in 2023 that they claim would encourage new spaceport development across the United States. From their press release:

Today, U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper, John Cornyn, Ben Ray Luján, and Roger Wicker introduced the bipartisan Spaceport Project Opportunities for Resilient Transportation (SPACEPORT) Act, which would encourage the development of commercial spaceports through the modernization of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Space Transportation Infrastructure Matching (STIM) grant program.

Spaceports, including the Colorado Air and Space Port in Adams County, are ground-based launch and reentry sites that can be used to support public and private ventures into space. “Spaceports are Colorado’s gateway to the commercial space boom, and we need to prioritize that infrastructure if we want to stay at the top of the space industry,” said Hickenlooper. “American space exploration has come a long way, but we can and should go even further,” said Cornyn. “By investing in our spaceport infrastructure, this legislation helps ensure the U.S. space industry remains competitive and is prepared to handle future national security threats.”

Though two of these four senators are Republicans (Cornyn and Wicker), the political leanings of this group is decidedly uni-party and establishment based. Polls for example show that Cornyn is not liked by conservatives in Texas, and will lose a primary challenge from the state’s attorney general Ken Paxton. Wicker doesn’t have the same polling issues, but he has also taken positions that suggests he is a willing member of the Republican establishment that has resisted change for decades.

And the actual bill [pdf] itself proves that all four senators are pure swamp. It doesn’t do anything to directly support spaceport development, as Hickenlooper and Cornyn claim. Instead, it would create a $10 million grant fund that the transportation secretary could hand out willy-nilly each year to political friends and buddies. It would also require the heads of Transportation, Defense, Commerce, and NASA to issue a report every four years that simply reviews the state of America’s space industry and describes it.

The bill does nothing to reduce regulation, the main obstacle blocking the U.S. rocket and space industry. If anything, it allows that red tape to flourish by creating this slush fund that politicians can later use to bribe private companies. The report itself will require more bureaucrats and paperwork, and will act to prevent that bureaucracy from doing its regulatory responsibilities, thus slowing license approvals further.

Introducing a bill like this does not guarantee passage of course. It failed previously in 2023. I suspect it is even more likely to fail now, because the trend appears to be moving away from this kind of funding and legal gabblygook.

The key is the language of the bill. From the link above:

The bill was largely unchanged from what the CJS [commerce, justice and science] subcommittee approved July 14. It includes $24.838 billion for NASA, nearly the same as the $24.875 billion the agency received in fiscal 2024 and 2025, and far above the $18.8 billion the administration proposed for fiscal 2026 in May.

Members adopted a manager’s amendment, a package of noncontroversial changes and corrections, on a voice vote. That amendment also made additions to the report accompanying the bill. The report includes language expressing support for several NASA missions targeted for cancellation, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Juno mission at Jupiter and the New Horizons mission in the Kuiper Belt.

The report does not specify funding levels for those missions, but the “continues support” language signals to NASA that it should fund continue operations within the agency’s science budget. [emphasis mine]

It is the vagueness of this language that suggests the support is ephemeral. The courts recently have consistently ruled that if Congress doesn’t specifically mandate spending on a project, the White House is free to move money around as it sees fit. By not expressly outlining funding for Chandra, Juno, and New Horizons, these congressmen are playing a shell game, whereby to their constituents they can point to this vote and claim they wholeheartedly supported NASA and these missions. At the same time, they also appear to be allowing Trump the freedom to go ahead and shut the missions down, as his budget has already proposed.

None of this is yet real. The bill still must be passed by the full House, as well as the Senate. It then has to be signed by Trump. A lot of changes would happen in that process.

Either way, it appears that within the House at least, there is some movement to at least make some budget cuts possible. The sad thing is that the House is not actually cutting the budget, even as it is allowing Trump a way to cut these relatively inexpensive on-going missions. Considering the debt, it would have been much better had the committee actually trimmed NASA’s budget, even a little, while at the same time allocating specific funds to keep these very cost-effective missions alive.

As noted bluntly by Health & Human Services secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr. at a Senate hearing last week, “We were lied to about everything:” A new study of the entire population 11 years and older of a single province in Italy, 300,000 people in total, has now proven that the mRNA COVID jab results in a terrifying and skyrocketing increase in the numbers of cancer cases.

The researchers found that “vaccinated” individuals had far higher hospitalization rates for new cancer diagnoses than the unvaccinated, particularly for breast, bladder, and colorectal cancers. Hospitalizations for cancer were 35% higher in the vaccinated (HR 1.23). The risk spike was strongest among men and those with no prior COVID infection.

• Overall Cancer Risk: +23% after just one dose
• Breast Cancer: +54% increased risk
• Bladder Cancer: +62% increased risk
• Colorectal Cancer: +35% increased risk

The researchers warn that the danger persisted and continued increasing after multiple doses.

In other words, the entire world is now facing a possibly major increase in cancer cases and a significant lowering of life expectancy, because it panicked in 2020 over a respiratory virus comparable to the flu. Those few voices (such as mine) that tried to resist that panic and call for a reasoned response were routinely blacklisted and silenced, and the result is now an impending disaster, on top of the catastrophes we have already suffered due to lockdowns, social distancing, and mask and jab mandates.

Kennedy summed up this situation quite well at that Senate hearing on September, 4, 2025. He was attacked ruthlessly over and over again by Democratic Party senators, only to hit them back twice as hard, noting how they are all in the pay of the pharmaceutical companies that make the jab, bribes totaling millions. He started however with this stark condemnation:

Kennedy at Senate hearing on September 4, 2025

We were lied to about everything. We were lied to about natural immunity. We were told again and again the vaccines would prevent transmission, they’d prevent infection. It wasn’t true. They knew it wasn’t true from the start, because that’s what the animal studies and clinical trials showed.

We were told there was science behind cloth masks. The CDC allowed the teachers’ unions to write the order closing our schools, which hurt working people all over the country. And then pretended it was science based.

…Probably the most famous scientist on ACIP [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] was Martin Kulldorff from Harvard, the great world-renowned epidemiologist. He criticized the Covid booster mandates. They ejected him … because he wasn’t in the orthodoxy.

Biden said in August [before he was elected] “I would never take that vaccine, the Trump vaccine.” He came in, he mandated it, and then he fired the two top health officials at FDA who said this thing has not been properly tested.

Kennedy repeatedly made it clear to both sides of the aisle during this hearing that he would not back down, that he intended to clean house at the CDC, that he intended to fire everyone involved in this debacle. He also made it clear that the problem wasn’t just the lying and corruption in connection to the COVID jab, the problem went back decades across the entire government health community, requiring a major and merciless house-cleaning.

To this I say “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” I hope he succeeds, though so far it seems he has only begun to fight, and has been met with determined opposition.

The Senate hearing that was held yesterday, entitled “There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise: Why Congress and NASA Must Thwart China in the Space Race”, was clearly organized by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to promote a continuation of the SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway parts of NASA’s Artemis program. And he was able to do so because senators from both parties felt the same way. They all want to continue this pork, and don’t really care whether those expensive assets can really accomplish what they promise.

Furthermore, the hearing was also structured to allow these politicians to loudly proclaim their desire to beat China back to the Moon, using this pork. They want the U.S. first, but they are almost all want to do this through a government-run program.

As such, the choice of witnesses and the questions put to them were carefully orchestrated to push this narrative. To paraphrase: “We have to beat China to the Moon! And we have make sure a NASA program runs the effort! And above all, we mustn’t let Donald Trump cut any of NASA’s funding, anywhere!”

It was therefore not surprising that the most newsworthy quote from the hearing was the comments by former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine about Starship and how its choice as a manned lunar lander was a bad one, and that it was likely going to the prime reason China will put humans back on the Moon ahead of us.

Jim Bridenstine at yesterday’s hearing

He started by stating bluntly, “”It is highly unlikely that we will land on the moon before China.” He then went on to criticize the decision of NASA, after he had left the agency, to pick Starship as the manned lunar lander.

Instead of buying a moonlander, we’re going to buy a a big rocket. … The architecture is [complicated]. We need to launch Starship. That first Starship is a fueling depot that’s in orbit around the Earth. Then we need … up to dozens of additional Starships to refuel the first Starship. So imagine launching Starship over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, dozens of times, no delays, no explosions to refuel the first Starship. Then once it’s fully refueled, then that Starship has to fuel another Starship that is in fact human rated, which that process hasn’t even started yet.

He then outlined the complexity of launching SLS and Orion and having it rendezvous and dock with that manned Starship in lunar orbit, all of which seemed to him a bad idea. “This is an architecture that no NASA administrator that I’m aware of would have selected had they had the choice.”

What was fascinating about Bridenstine’s comments was that while he questioned Starship extensively, he said nothing about the significant questions about SLS and Orion. SLS did have overruns in the past but that’s “behind us. It’s done.” Orion meanwhile was “a shiny object … usable today.” No mention of its questionable heat shield or its as yet untested environmental system that must keep its astronauts alive.

Other witnesses lauded the medical research on ISS, without noting that none of that research produces products for sale on Earth. None mentioned the new commercial sector that is doing the same, but actually providing those products to Americans while making a profit. Over and over both senators and witnesses proclaimed the need to fund NASA, because without NASA nothing would happen at all.

The expected real per launch cost of SLS and Orion

The bottom line is that there will likely be no cancellation of SLS, Orion, or Lunar Gateway in the near future. Congress wants all three, and is willing to throw money at them for years to come to keep them alive. Though Starship might delay things a bit, as Bridenstine claimed, the reason China will get its lunar base built first will be because of SLS, Orion, and Gateway, not Starship. SLS and Orion are inefficient, cumbersome, and too expensive, and Gateway puts our assets not on the Moon but in space. You can’t build a manned lunar base with a rocket and capsule that only launches at best once a year, carrying four people. Nor can you do it building a lunar space station in an orbit that makes landing on the Moon more expensive and difficult.

Yet Congress wants them, and it held this hearing expressly to convince the country that these projects should be funded forever. And unless something dramatic happens, such as Orion failing during its first manned mission next year, or SpaceX leaping ahead with its own manned missions to Mars, we should expect Congress to fund SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway endlessly for many years to come.

There was at least one small hope during this hearing. One witness, Lieutenant General John Shaw, former deputy commander of the U.S. Space Command, made it a point to repeatedly advocate for a wider view outside of funding a government-run NASA program to plant a flag on the Moon.

John Shaw

My bottom line up front for the committee today is that I am an advocate for and a champion of a unified grand space strategy for our nation for the earth-moon system and beyond. Yet such a grand strategy which would unify and synergize our national efforts across civil, commercial, and national security activities in pursuit of common goals, opportunities, and capabilities does not currently exist. And I believe our mission to return Americans to the moon can be a powerful and a central driver as well as a beneficiary of such a strategy.

In his testimony he consistently focused on encouraging many different capabilities by the private sector across a wide spectrum, not on simply funding SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway, noting that by doing so the government would be enabling its goal of establishing a lunar base far more effectively. This is the concept I put forth in December last year. And though a majority of the senators seemed uninterested in this approach, there were more than a few that appeared to agree with it.

Thus, though the boondoggles will go on, it does appear Congress is also willing to shift focus away from them, albeit with some reluctance.

We can only hope that given time and events, this reluctance will eventually fade and be replaced with a more coherent approach, focused not on funding NASA but helping the American people themselves colonize the solar system.

Today Trump reinstated that decision, once again announcing that the Space Force headquarters will move to Huntsville, Alabama.

The politics for this change have been and will continue to be complicated. Alabama’s lower cost of living would save the government money, but the defense industry is also well clustered in Colorado due to the military’s space operations that have been there for many decades.

In general I have never quite understood Trump’s desire to do this. I suspect there are some quid pro quo agreements in the background with Alabama politicians: “If you bring the Space Force to Alabama, Mr. Trump, we will back you on your other plans.” Then again, Trump might simply want to punish the increasingly leftist haven of Colorado.

Either way, it is now likely to finally happen. Trump 47 has been moving fast on all his initiatives, and is aided in this by a staff that is largely supportive (unlike during Trump 45).

New Horizons, which had been in active data-collection mode since April, will now remain in hibernation. Pending a final Fiscal Year 2026 budget, the spacecraft may be awoken in late June 2026. This will be the longest hibernation period of the mission so far, surpassing the previous mark of 273 days from June 2022 to March 2023.

But the spacecraft won’t be completely at rest; New Horizons will continue to take round-the-clock measurements of the charged-particle environment in the Sun’s outer heliosphere and the dust environment of the Kuiper Belt using three different onboard scientific instruments. These data will be transmitted back to Earth when New Horizons wakes up. [emphasis mine]

Though the NASA press release puts up an optimistic front, it is very likely that this hibernation period will last significantly longer than planned, due to those budget negotiations. Trump’s budget proposes eliminating all funding for New Horizons, which will mean this hibernation period will be permanent. There will be no money to hire anyone to reactivate it.

Even if the budget is cut, it is probable that NASA management in the future will provide some cash. At the moment there is little for it to observe on a daily basis. All that needs to be done is to turn it on for short periods to download the heliosphere data. Management could simply decide to turn it on once every five years or so.

My headline reflects the sense of utter irrelevance of the FAA in announcing its approval of the launch licence for the tenth test launch of Starship/Superheavy (now scheduled for August 24, 2025) as well as its “closing” of its “investigation” into the failure during test flight nine.

As per the FAA in its statement, “There are no reports of public injury or damage to public property. The FAA oversaw and accepted the findings of the SpaceX-led investigation. The final mishap report cites the probable root cause for the loss of the Starship vehicle as a failure of a fuel component. SpaceX identified corrective actions to prevent a reoccurrence of the event.”

The FAA did not “oversee” SpaceX’s investigation. No one at the FAA has the slightest qualifications for doing so. All its bureaucrats did is sit in and watch, and when SpaceX’s engineers completed their work and “identified corrective actions,” the FAA paper-pushers pushed some paper to rubber stamp those conclusions.

Moreover, unlike during the Biden administration, the FAA did not waste any time or money retyping the SpaceX investigation. They simply approved it as is, and issued the launch license. And they apparently instantly agreed to the schedule proposed by SpaceX. In fact, it appears almost as if SpaceX announced the date before the FAA announced the license approval.

Elections matter. And they would matter less if we had had the sense in the past century to not cede so much power to an unelected federal bureaucracy that is really unfit to do the work we gave them. The goal now should be to take that power away from them, and to do it as quickly as it is humanely possible.

It appears at least when it comes to FAA launch licenses, Trump has made some significant progress towards this goal.