NASA / Photo: DPA Picture Alliance / Alamy / Alamy / Profimedia
Sending astronauts to the Moon and Mars means the sacrifice of important scientific programs. On Friday, the White House presented the budget for NASA's American Space Agency. The executive proposes to reduce the NASA budget by about 24%, with major discounts in its branches of spatial and earth sciences, especially in terms of financing certain satellite monitoring programs used to study climate change.
Like many other departments and federal agents, NASA will see some of its emblematic projects over the head, and its budget will be significantly reduced if the plan will be approved by Congress, writes news.ro.
According to The Planetary Society, an American organization that promotes spatial exploration, this proposal is “the biggest reduction in NASA budget for one year in history.” These discounts “will not make the agency more efficient, but will cause chaos (…) and will undermine the American leadership in space,” a statement said.
Major changes include the gradual elimination of the SLS rocket and Orion capsule, developed for the Artemis monthly program.
These devices, which are very expensive and whose development remained behind with the program, should be left aside after the Artemis 3 mission – which should send astronauts back a month for the first time in 1972 – to be replaced by private landing rockets and ships, such as those of Elon Musk, Donald Trump.
The future Gateway monthly space station, developed by NASA and several other international space agencies and to be installed on the orbit of the Moon, should be completely abandoned.
The same would be valid for the long-awaited return of the rock samples collected on Mars, which could contain traces of ancient life.
All these inversions are presented by the Executive as necessary to achieve NASA goals, which, under Trump's leadership, aims to succeed in sending people to the Moon and the Red Planet before China, the great rival power.
Donald Trump's return to power, accompanied by Elon Musk, a key actor in the space sector, has aroused fears about major disturbances in the American space program and possible conflicts of interest, because the probable future director of NASA is considered a close relative of the multimiliardar.
