logo
To dumbly go where no space budget has gone before

To dumbly go where no space budget has gone before

Reports that the White House may propose nearly a 50% cut to NASA's Science Mission Directorate are both mind-boggling and, if true, nothing short of disastrous. To make those cuts happen — a total of $3.6 billion — NASA would have to close the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and cancel the mission that will bring back samples of Mars, a mission to Venus and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is nearly ready to launch.
Every space telescope besides the Hubble and the James Webb would be shut down. According to the American Astronomical Society, some cuts would include projects that help us understand the sun's effects on global communications, a potential national security threat.
Casey Dreier, the policy advocate for the Pasadena-based Planetary Society, says, 'This is an extinction-level event for the Earth- and space-science communities, upending decades of work and tens of billions in taxpayers' investment.'
In addition, NASA as a whole would see a 20% cut — just as we are moving forward with the Artemis program. Artemis is NASA's step-by-step 'Moon to Mars' human spaceflight campaign. Artemis II is set to launch sometime next year and will send four astronauts on a lunar fly-by, the first time humans have been in close proximity to another celestial body in more than 50 years. While it seems likely that Artemis will continue in some fashion, a 20% overall agency budget cut won't leave any part of NASA unaffected.
The president promised a 'golden age of America'; his nominee to head NASA promised a 'golden age of science and discovery.' This would be a return to the dark ages.
Taking a blowtorch to space science would also have little effect on the federal budget while setting back American leadership in space — and the inspiration it provides across political divides — by generations.
The Astronomical Society warns that our cutbacks will outsource talent 'to other countries that are increasing their investments in facilities and workforce development.' And, as Dreier points out, spacecraft would be 'left to tumble aimlessly in space' and billions wasted that have already been spent. 'Thousands of bright students across the country,' he wrote recently, 'would be denied careers in science and engineering absent the fellowships and research funds to support them.'
Here's the dollars-and-cents context. NASA's budget since the 1970s 'hovers' between 1% and 0.4% of the federal discretionary spending, according to the Planetary Society's analysis, yet for every dollar spent, NASA generates $3 in the national economy. NASA's giveback was worth nearly $76 billion in economic impact in 2023, supporting more than 300,000 jobs. In California alone, NASA and its associated partners in industry and academia provide more than 66,000 jobs, more than $18 billion in economic activity and $1 billion in state tax revenue. NASA's bang-for-the-buck is astronomical, pun intended.
Cutting waste is one thing. Evisceration is another. When it comes to science — from public health to climate change — the current administration is doing the latter, not the former.
Meanwhile, China continues its space ambitions, with plans for a human lunar campaign and its own 'sample return' mission to the Red Planet. For now, fortunately, the bipartisan support for NASA seems to be holding. Democrats and Republicans in Congress, led by the Planetary Science Caucus, have spoken out against this attack on NASA. And the Planetary Society has engaged thousands of passionate activists to fight this battle.
Humans yearn for connection to the universe — so we watch launches on social media, we follow the tracks of rovers on Mars and we marvel at creation in pictures transmitted from the James Webb Space Telescope. We borrow telescopes from the public library and look to the heavens.
Bending metal — the actual process of making rovers and spaceships and telescopes — drives economic activity. Fascinating results — the data from space science missions — fires the imagination.
We choose to go to space — sending humans and probes — and we pursue knowledge because curiosity is our evolutionary heritage. We explore other worlds to know them and, in doing so, we discover more about ourselves.
If you agree, let Congress know. That may be the only backstop against dumbly going where no budget has gone before.
Christopher Cokinos is a nature-and science writer whose most recent book is 'Still as Bright: An Illuminating History of the Moon from Antiquity to Tomorrow.'
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump birthright citizenship order "unconstitutional," appeals court rules
Trump birthright citizenship order "unconstitutional," appeals court rules

Axios

timean hour ago

  • Axios

Trump birthright citizenship order "unconstitutional," appeals court rules

President Trump's executive order that seeks to end birthright citizenship in the U.S. is "unconstitutional," a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. Why it matters: The 2-1 ruling upholds a nationwide pause on enforcement of the policy, which is likely headed for the Supreme Court. It's the first time an appeals court has weighed in on the matter since the Supreme Court last month limited lower courts ' ability to freeze federal policies — specifically, Trump's effort to eliminate U.S. birthright citizenship. Driving the news: "We conclude that the Executive Order is invalid because it contradicts the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment's grant of citizenship to 'all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,'" per the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' majority ruling. Context: Although the Supreme Court limited lower courts' powers, it left room for broader relief through the filing of class-action lawsuits. The Trump administration has since faced fresh challenges to the policy. For the record: Democratic attorneys general in Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon brought the case against President Trump and agencies including the State Department, Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security. Administration officials named in the suit include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

SpaceX delays launch of NASA TRACERS mission until Wednesday
SpaceX delays launch of NASA TRACERS mission until Wednesday

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

SpaceX delays launch of NASA TRACERS mission until Wednesday

July 22 (UPI) -- The NASA TRACERS mission is set to launch on Wednesday atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket after SpaceX postponed Tuesday's launch due to "airspace concerns." SpaceX officials scrubbed Tuesday's launch at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California just 45 seconds before liftoff. The launch was canceled "due to [Federal Aviation Administration] airspace concerns that created a no-go condition for launch," SpaceX posted on social media. Wednesday's launch is scheduled for 11:13 a.m. PDT with a 57-minute launch window to send NASA's twin Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites into orbit. The TRACERS mission aims to "help understand magnetic reconnection and its effects in Earth's atmosphere." NASA will also send three payloads, the Athena EPIC, the Polylingual Experimental Terminal and the Relativistic Electron Atmospheric Loss, with the mission. The mission's launch window opens at 11:13 a.m. PDT on Wednesday with a 57-minute window from the Vandenberg Space Force Base's Space Launch Complex 4 East. About eight minutes after liftoff, Falcon 9's first stage will land on SpaceX's Landing Zone 4 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, according to SpaceX. "There is the possibility that residents of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura counties may hear one or more sonic booms during the landing, but what residents experience will depend on weather and other conditions," SpaceX officials said.

U.S. appeals court blocks Trump's order curtailing birthright citizenship
U.S. appeals court blocks Trump's order curtailing birthright citizenship

CNBC

timean hour ago

  • CNBC

U.S. appeals court blocks Trump's order curtailing birthright citizenship

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order curtailing automatic birthright citizenship is unconstitutional and blocked its enforcement nationwide. The 2-1 decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals marked the first time an appeals court has assessed the legality of Trump's order since the U.S. Supreme Court in June curbed the power of lower court judges to enjoin that and other federal policies on a nationwide basis. The Supreme Court's June 27 ruling in litigation over Trump's birthright citizenship order limited the ability of judges to issue so-called universal injunctions and directed lower courts that had blocked the Republican president's policy nationally to reconsider the scope of their orders. But the ruling contained exceptions allowing courts to potentially still block it nationally again. That has already allowed a judge in New Hampshire to once again halt Trump's order from taking effect by issuing an injunction in a nationwide class action of children who would be denied citizenship under the policy. The 9th Circuit's majority in Wednesday's ruling said the Democratic-led states that had sued to block the policy - Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon - likewise still were entitled to a nationwide injunction as a more narrow order would not provide them "complete relief." "The court agrees that the president cannot redefine what it means to be American with the stroke of a pen," Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said in a statement. The Trump administration could either ask a wider panel of 9th Circuit judges to hear the case or appeal directly to the Supreme Court, which is expected to have the final word in the litigation. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump signed the order on Jan. 20, his first day back in office, as part of his hardline approach toward immigration. Trump's order directed federal agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of U.S.-born children who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident, also known as a "green card" holder. It was swiftly challenged in court by Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and immigrant rights advocates who argued it violates the citizenship clause of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, long been understood to recognize that virtually anyone born in the United States is a citizen. The Constitution's 14th Amendment citizenship clause states that all "persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." The first judge to block Trump's directive was Seattle-based U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, an appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, who called it "blatantly unconstitutional." The 9th Circuit's ruling upheld his decision. U.S. Circuit Judge Ronald Gould, writing for Wednesday's majority, said Coughenour rightly concluded that Trump's executive order violated the citizenship clause of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment by denying citizenship to many persons born in the United States. Gould said a geographically limited injunction would harm the four states by forcing them to overhaul their government benefits programs to account for how people denied citizenship under Trump's order might move into them. "It is impossible to avoid this harm absent a uniform application of the citizenship clause throughout the United States," Gould wrote. His opinion was joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Hawkins, a fellow appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton. U.S. Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay, a Trump appointee, dissented, saying in his view the Democratic-led states lacked standing to challenge Trump's order, as he warned of the risks of "judicial overreach."

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store