Sending astronauts back to the moon is one of the top space priorities of President Trump.
But his administration wants to accomplish that without giving NASA
additional money, and it won’t occur until after he leaves office, even
if he wins re-election.
Instead, it aims to give the private sector a greater role, according to a budget proposal to be released on Monday.
The
administration is also looking to end American payments for the
International Space Station by 2025. The space station is currently
scheduled to operate through 2024, but the expectation was that it would
be extended through at least 2028.
According
to excerpts from NASA documents obtained by The New York Times before
the budget’s release, the administration will propose $19.9 billion in
spending for the space agency in fiscal year 2019, which begins on Oct.
1. That is a $370 million increase from the current year, the result of
the budget deal reached in Congress last week and signed by Mr. Trump.
The budget numbers were confirmed by a person who was not authorized to talk publicly about them.
In
future years, the administration would like NASA’s spending to drop to
$19.6 billion and stay flat through 2023. With inflation, NASA’s buying
power would erode, effectively a budget cut each year.
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A NASA spokesman said he could not discuss the budget proposal until it was released.
The
proposal is just an opening bid. Congress decides the final spending
numbers, sometimes adjusting them or ignoring a president’s priorities.
But an administration’s wishes are often incorporated.
NASA’s budget will be announced at a moment when the agency has no permanent leaders to carry out the new directions. Mr. Trump nominated Jim Bridenstine,
an Oklahoma congressman, to be the next administrator, but the Senate
has not yet confirmed him. Whether the administration has the votes to
confirm him remains uncertain. This is by far the longest period in
NASA’s history without an administrator.
Additionally, no one has been nominated for the No. 2 position, deputy administrator.
The
Trump administration has also established a National Space Council, led
by Vice President Mike Pence, to coordinate space policy between
military and civilian agencies. The council held its first public meeting in October, and is to meet again this month.
The
Trump administration is also looking to trim the budget of NASA’s earth
science directorate, which includes climate research and cancel several
spacecraft like the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem
mission. The nearly $1.8 billion budget for that part of NASA would be
about 6.5 percent lower than what was enacted for fiscal year 2017. The
Trump administration also wants to end education programs. Similar
proposals last year were disregarded by Congress.
The
astrophysics division would be cut by 12 percent, but overall, the
budget would give an increase to NASA’s science directorate, primarily
for robotic planetary missions.
Rumors of the intent to end space station financing were recently reported in The Verge and other outlets, drawing strong criticism from some lawmakers, including key Republicans.
“I
hope that those reports prove as unfounded as Bigfoot,” Senator Ted
Cruz, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on
Space, Science and Competitiveness, said on Wednesday during a Federal
Aviation Administration conference on commercial space transportation.
He
decried “numbskulls” at the Office of Management and Budget in the
White House for coming up with the idea. “As a fiscal conservative, you
know one of the dumbest things you can do?” he said. “Canceling programs
after billions in investment when there is still serious usable life in
it.”
The
same conference was attended by Scott Pace, the executive secretary of
Mr. Pence’s space council. While he did not discuss details of the
budget, Mr. Pace suggested that money needed to be freed up for new
initiatives.
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