NASA Could Get a Raise Next Year to Help Fund a 2024 Human Trip to the Moon

For decades, NASA has been the kid politely asking for a raise in its allowance. Time was NASA’s pocket money was huge. Go back 54 years, to 1966, and the space agency was getting $5.9 billion a year—which would be a tidy $47 billion in 2020 dollars. That represented 4.1% of America’s annual household budget. But in 1966 there was also a bully on the block, whose mailbox at the time read “the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.” They were racing the U.S. to be the first to leave the block altogether and fly to the moon, so the States were willing to spend whatever amount of money it took to beat them there. Then, in 1969, the U.S. did beat them. And that’s when NASA’s allowance began to crash, dropping to $4.2 billion that year, or just 2.3% of the family budget; to $3.2 billion in 1974 (1.2% of the budget), and on down from there. In the current fiscal year, the space agency’s $22.629 billion budget represented just 0.48% of annual federal outlays. But now comes a bump. The scientific community has made no secret of the fact that it finds little to love in the Trump Administration—especially in its rollback of environmental protections. But President Trump has been a champion of space. For example, he revived the National Space Council in 2017, putting back in play a presidential advisory group that had existed intermittently from 1958 to 1973, then again from 1989 to 1993, and often had an influential role in keeping s...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized newsletter Space Source Type: news