Exoplanet: C’mon, I wanted to be called the “Coolest Planet ever” not “Coldest.”
ETA:
Trump wants to fire quarter of NASA budget into black hole – and not in a good way
[…]
[Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society] pointed out the proposed budget cuts, adjusted for inflation, would leave the agency with about the levels of funding it had in the early 1960s, when the Mercury missions were still trying to get astronauts into orbit.
The most notable increase in support goes to human space exploration, which gets an extra $647 million in pursuit of landing humans back on the Moon, and eventually Mars for the first time. But with NASA’s in-house Artemis hardware proposed for retirement after just three missions, and deep cuts targeting the propulsion tech needed to reach the Red Planet, don’t hold your breath for any success, in this vulture’s opinion.
The budget document leans heavily on the commercial sector NASA nurtured and helped spawn – cough, SpaceX – to pick up the slack from the cuts; the agency will be kept clear of areas “better suited to private sector research and development.”
Although Elon Musk – the billionaire SpaceX supremo, DOGE head operative, and President Trump’s éminence grease – is ostensibly stepping back from guiding government, this draft budget is particularly good news for him, his rocket biz, and his long-held, under-delivered ambitions to send people to Mars.
i’ll be looking at the moon…
but i’ll be seeing yoooo…
Soon in space:
