Yesterday was one of the most significant days for NASA. U.S President Donald Trump signed off the biggest funding amount for the space agency for the fiscal year 2017. Called the ‘Nasa Transition Authorization Act 2017′, the bill has allocated a massive $19.5 billion in budget spending for the next one year.
This appropriations bill passed by the U.S government has awarded the space agency its largest pool of operating capital until date. The said budget has been extended to NASA to enable it to maintain a continued focus on deep space exploration and utilization of the ISS (International Space Station) through at least 2024. The bill further continues to mention that NASA has been awarded this budget to:
have a balanced and robust set of core missions in space science, space technology, aeronautics, human space flight and exploration, and education.
Though NASA might be elated with the budget allocations, but the appropriations bill does come with some significant drawbacks. The Trump administration, as expected, has pushed back the space agency’s ambitions to kick start manned missions to the Red Planet, i.e Mars further to 2033. They’ve presently been instructed to continue their search for a habitable celestial body, where a thriving space economy can be established in the 21st century.
With regards to the sweet and loaded budget spending grants, Kara Swisher, the co-founder of tech new publication Recode, sent out a tweet to SpaceX founder Elon Musk. She tweeted that NASA’s largest budget allocation would leave Musk ‘smiling’ as it comes as great news for his private space exploration company.
@karaswisher I am not. This bill changes almost nothing about what NASA is doing. Existing programs stay in place and there is no added funding for Mars.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 22, 2017
But, that’s not exactly how things went down. Elon Musk replied back to her tweet moments after the signing of the appropriations bill and hit back at the Trump administration for allocating budgets for existing projects and leaving Mars out of equation. For those aloof, let me build the ground for y’all by saying that exploring Mars is one of the prominent objectives of Musk and his venture SpaceX. The company eyes a manned mission in the 2020s but Trump has set his eyes on an even prolonged period.
The NASA bill undermines the possibilities of setting up a human civilization on the Red Planet — making us a multi-planetary species. But, Musk still hopes that the administration would soften their stance and introduce reforms for Mars missions in a future bill. Until then, Musk is probably getting back to the drawing board and construction hangers to continue work on building SpaceX rockets and passenger cargoes that’ll one day ferry us into the realms of deep dark space.
@karaswisher Perhaps there will be some future bill that makes a difference for Mars, but this is not it.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 22, 2017
