How NASA’s proposed budget cuts could jeopardize the future of space exploration

There is a tremendous effort underway at NASA to send humans to Mars and return astronauts to the Moon, which also includes flying Canadian Jeremy Hanson on Artemis II early next yearMeanwhile, every other research program at the space agency is facing cuts.

The US administration has Proposed a 24 percent Cutting This would be NASA’s smallest budget before human space flight programs. Started in 1961, The proposal specifically calls for space science funding to be cut by 50 percent, and the workforce reduced to one-third of its current level.

And while these proposed cuts have not been approved by Congress, a recent report The US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation says the space agency started implementing the cuts anyway thousands of scientists let go already various facilities around us

Goddard Space Flight Center, where both the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes were built, has already closed its Physics Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University, laid off hundreds of employees, and – if the cuts continue – will be planned 41 Cancel planned or already active events Including climate change or green energy.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, which builds and manages robotic spacecraft that visit every planet in the solar system, Also being forced to downsizeAnd has already laid off hundreds of employees.

Such research facilities also create satellites that look toward Earth, Providing us with information on weather forecasting, storm tracking, ice loss in the Arcticand more. In fact, much of what we know about global changes occurring on Earth is thanks to orbiting satellites and the scientists who analyze their data.

Scientific robots can operate for years in the harsh environment of space, and can be sent on one-way missions to remote areas of our solar system. These robots and the scientists who design, build and fly them are the real inventors.

But now these eyes of our planet and beyond are in grave danger.

It seems that NASA’s future is being driven by politics rather than science. In the same spirit of competition between the US and the Soviet Union that had led to the Apollo missions to land men on the Moon in the 1960s, The current administration wants to defeat the Chinese Through the Artemis program.

From a monetary standpoint, sending humans into space is far more expensive because they are heavier, require a lot of resources like air, food, and water, and you have to bring them back alive.

In other words, the technology of human spaceflight is entirely about survival. Human missions are often about pushing the limits of our patience, and creating heroes in the process.

The current goal is to land people on the south pole of the Moon and create a colony where they can live and work.

The primary task will be to search for the ice, which is believed to be hidden in the shadows beneath the craters, which never see sunlight. Ice on the Moon is a valuable resource, as it can provide both drinking water and rocket fuel in the form of hydrogen and oxygen.

Returning to the Moon will require a lot of resources and money. For upcoming missions, NASA will fly its giant Space Launch System rocket, which is not reusable, and costs more. $4 billion US Per launch.

Privately financed Starship is another contender, but it is still years away from being ready. SpaceX still needs to prove that it can not only reach the Moon, but land and return home again in one piece. That spacecraft still has to make one complete orbit around Earth.

Once on the surface, a settlement needs to be built, mining equipment installed, ice processing facilities built, not to mention regular visits from Earth to restock food supplies and replace crews.

When all this is established, and everyone is well fed and happy living on the Moon at huge expense, will there be any money and expertise left for astronauts to conduct scientific research while they are there?

big conceptual projects like generational starship Or building a radio telescope Scientific expertise will be required on the far side of the Moon, but it is that knowledge that is slowly being phased out from NASA research centers.

Once scientists are let go, they take their scientific knowledge with them, and that knowledge is not easy to replace.

Despite this, some NASA scientists are being urged on by the European Space Agency, and $1.7 billion has been set aside in the new Canadian budget To attract scientists To come to this country, then perhaps those future moon colonists will receive their new instructions from Canada.