Sending astronauts to the moon and on Mars even if it means sacrificing important scientific programs: the White House unveiled its budget on Friday for the famous American space agency, NASA, which it intends to put the diet.
Like many federal departments and agencies, NASA should see some of its heated flagship projects and its budget envelope shrink significantly if this plan was approved by the congress.
Among the major changes is the gradual abandonment of the SLS rocket and the Orion capsule, developed for the Lunar Program Artemis.
These devices, very expensive and whose development has lagged behind, should be left out after the Mission Artemis 3 – which must send astronauts to the Moon for the first time since 1972 – to be replaced by rockets and alumors of private companies, like those of SpaceX D’Elon Musk, a great ally of Donald Trump, is it detailed
The future lunar space station Gatewaydeveloped by the NASA And several other international space agencies and having to be installed in orbit around the moon, it should be purely abandoned.
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The Gateway Lunar Space Station is the first step in the NASA plan and its partners which aims to send humans to space further than ever before. (Archives photo)
Photo : NASA
It would be the same for the long -awaited return to the earth of rock samples collected on Mars, and which possibly contain traces of ancient life.
So many reversals presented by the executive as necessary for the objectives of the NASAwhich aims under Trump to succeed in sending before China, great rival power, men both on the moon and on the red planet.
In all, it is a reduction of approximately 24 % of the budget of the NASA which is proposed by the Executive, with important cuts in its branches dedicated to space and earth sciences, in particular in the funding of certain satellite surveillance programs used for the study of climate change.
According to the Planetary Societyan American organization promoting spatial exploration, this proposal constitutes the greater reduction over one year of the NASA budget in history
. Such cuts will not make not the more efficient agency, but will cause chaos […] and will know American leadership in space
she reacted in a press release.
Donald Trump’s return to power, this time accompanied by Elon Musk, a key player in the space sector, raises major upheavals in the American space program as well as possible conflicts of interest, the probable future NASA Being notably deemed close to the multimillionaire.
