Latest news with #ScienceMissionDirectorate
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What will happen to VIPER? NASA shifts into reverse on canceled moon rover
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. It seems NASA's ice-hunting VIPER rover won't be hitching a ride to the moon as a part of a private sector partnership, as the space agency had previously sought. The Volatiles Investigating Polar Explorer Rover (VIPER) has had a rocky, uncertain year. NASA announced its cancellation last summer over budget concerns, then opened a solicitation request for private sector partnerships in an attempt to get VIPER to the moon at no additional cost to the government. On Wednesday (May 7), NASA announced the cancellation of that search, and thanked the companies that submitted proposals. 'We appreciate the efforts of those who proposed to the Lunar Volatiles Science Partnership Announcement for Partnership Proposals call,' NASA's Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Nicky Fox said in the statement. "We look forward to accomplishing future volatiles science with VIPER as we continue NASA's Moon to Mars exploration efforts.' VIPER is designed to hunt for water ice deposits near the moon's south pole — an area of interest to NASA, as it plans to establish a permanent presence there as a part of the Artemis program. VIPER was designed to help assess potentially life-supporting resources ahead of those future crewed installations. Originally, VIPER was slated to land on the lunar surface aboard Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic's Griffin lander, as a part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. Griffin is expected to launch to the moon later this year, but will now be carrying Astrolab's FLIP moon rover instead. Last July, NASA said that the VIPER cancellation would save the space agency about $84 million in development costs, in addition to its initial $250 million estimation and more than $250 million in projected over costs. Now, with NASA no longer seeking partnerships for VIPER in the private sector, it is unclear how the rover will get to the moon. Related stories: — NASA unveils landing site on the moon for ice-hunting VIPER rover — VIPER back from the dead? NASA asks US companies to partner on ice-hunting moon rover — NASA picks 9 companies to develop Mars 'commercial services' ideas The Trump administration's recently released "skinny budget" proposes to reduce NASA's funding by 24%. More than half of that cut would come from the Science Mission Directorate, painting an unclear future not only for VIPER but a slew of other missions as well. In the meantime, VIPER is fully assembled and ready to launch, save its need for a lander to ferry it to the lunar surface and a rocket to launch it into space. "The agency will announce a new strategy for VIPER in the future," NASA said in Wednesday's statement.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Contributor: 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.' Read more: Mars rocks are a science prize the U.S. can't afford to lose 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. Read more: Earth 1, asteroids 0: The next generation of planetary defense takes shape at JPL 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. Read more: Saturn's moon looked like a snowy Utah landscape in my mind. The reality is just as compelling 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." If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
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.'
Chicago Tribune
20-04-2025
- Science
- Chicago Tribune
Editorial: The Webb Telescope is making incredible discoveries. It may go dark.
The political news these days is enough to make some Chicagoans wish they were a million miles away. But consider this: Even in the depths of space, there's no escape from politics. The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope is literally parked 1 million miles away. In the nearly three years since it became operational, 'Webb,' as it's called, has made some incredible findings. Webb uses infrared scanning to show how stars and galaxies form, and to study the atmospheres of distant planets. Its capabilities complement the aging Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits Earth at an altitude of only 340 miles or so. Among other discoveries, Webb has uncovered the slow-motion process of a star engulfing a planet and provided data about an asteroid traveling at high speed in our direction (It will miss us). You might think any U.S. president would view this as an asset. Alas, like so much of the country's ongoing scientific research, Webb is at risk of being defunded. President Donald Trump's administration has removed NASA's top scientist and proposed a nearly 50% budget cut to the agency's Science Mission Directorate, which oversees planetary science, astrophysics research and more. The White House reportedly is pushing to scrap the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a wide-view instrument undergoing final testing and assembly that is scheduled for launch within two years. Next-generation satellites meant to improve human understanding of the planet are on the chopping block as well. While NASA's proposed budget retains some funding for the Hubble and Webb telescopes, they could become practically useless given the cuts planned for the agency's science staff. Pointing these gadgets at the right targets to obtain useful data is no simple feat. Without a critical mass of scientists 'the science from these instruments stops,' Daniel Holz, astrophysicist at the University of Chicago, told us. 'It's just not viable if these cuts go through anywhere near what's proposed. There is no bare-bones mode to run these highly complex, state-of-the-art facilities.' The Trump administration's planned cuts at NASA are being repeated at other agencies employing scientists to do everything from vetting new prescription drugs to predicting hurricane landfalls. Similarly, Trump's pressure campaign on elite universities uses federal research funding as leverage, in some cases threatening to destroy years of work by disrupting long-term studies. While this page supports fiscal responsibility and eliminating wasteful spending, the latest moves have an ulterior motive. They are aimed at gaining control over institutions likely to push back against Trump's agenda by citing inconvenient truths: Climate change is no hoax, vaccines save millions of lives and sweeping tariffs amount to a huge tax hike on American consumers and businesses. Of course, politics has always influenced federal spending, especially at NASA. Just a few years ago, some on the left protested the telescope, claiming namesake James Webb discriminated against gay people when he headed the space agency in the 1960s. Now advocates on the right appear determined to eliminate climate-related research. Big cuts at NASA would play into the hands of America's rivals across the globe. China and Europe are working aggressively to overtake the American lead in science and technology, and actively recruiting top scientists who feel under siege in the U.S. On a practical level, attacks on scientific research could undermine the nation's ability to cure diseases, upgrade defense systems, or make computers and phones work better in the future. Critical risks — even world-ending threats — would be more likely to go unmitigated without the science to accurately assess them. Along with researching gravitational waves, Holz heads the Science and Security Board at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists responsible for setting the legendary 'Doomsday Clock,' which ticks closer to midnight as the risk of Armageddon increases. The clock, based at the University of Chicago, lost much of its relevance when the Cold War ended. Unfortunately, it's relevant again today, and stands at the closest point to doomsday in its 80-year history. When the Bulletin started, Holz explains, the overriding threat was nuclear war between the U.S. and Soviet Union. These days, additional factors push the world closer to the brink. To the extent climate change leads to mass migration and conflicts over resources, for instance, it makes all-out war more likely. A man-made pandemic or misuse of artificial intelligence could lead to the same outcome. Last fall, Holz's board decided to move the clock one second closer to midnight, announcing in January that the world was only 89 seconds away. Since then, he said, the group has been following the administration's actions and it's alarmed by the broad and deep attacks on science. The board reserves the right to change the clock at any time, Holz said, not just annually. Anyone interested will need to stay tuned, but we're willing to bet that if the clock moves any time soon, it will be moving closer to doomsday.
WIRED
12-04-2025
- Science
- WIRED
Proposed NASA Budget Cuts ‘Would Decimate American Leadership in Space'
Eric Berger, Ars Technica Apr 12, 2025 4:00 AM The approximate 20 percent budget cut could force the closure of the Goddard Space Flight Center and would see projects such as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope scrapped. This week, as part of the process to develop a budget for fiscal-year 2026, the Trump White House shared the draft version of its budget request for NASA with the space agency. This initial version of the administration's budget request calls for an approximately 20 percent overall cut to the agency's budget across the board, effectively $5 billion from an overall top line of about $25 billion. However, the majority of the cuts are concentrated within the agency's Science Mission Directorate, which oversees all planetary science, Earth science, astrophysics research, and more. This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by WIRED's parent company, Condé Nast. According to the "passback" documents given to NASA officials on Thursday, the space agency's science programs would receive nearly a 50 percent cut in funding. After the agency received $7.5 billion for science in fiscal-year 2025, the Trump administration has proposed a science top-line budget of just $3.9 billion for the coming fiscal year. Detailing the Cuts Among the proposals were a two-thirds cut to astrophysics, (down to $487 million), a greater than two-thirds cut to heliophysics (down to $455 million), a greater than 50 percent cut to Earth science (down to $1.033 billion), and a 30 percent cut to Planetary science (down to $1.929 billion). Although the budget would continue support for ongoing missions such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, it would kill the much-anticipated Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, an observatory seen as on par with those two world-class instruments that is already fully assembled and on budget for a launch in two years. "Passback supports continued operation of the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes and assumes no funding is provided for other telescopes," the document states. Other significant cuts include ending funding for Mars Sample Return as well as the DAVINCI mission to Venus. The budget cuts also appear intended to force the closure of Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland where the agency has 10,000 civil servants and contractors. The Passback Process The cuts are in line with what Ars Technica exclusively reported last month, that the Trump administration was considering a massive 50-percent cut to NASA's science programs. Publicly, some officials downplayed these concerns. As recently as this week, NASA's acting administrator, Janet Petro, characterized this reporting as "rumors from really not credible sources." However, science policy experts have been more alarmed, characterizing such cuts as an "extinction level" event for what is seen as the crown jewel of the space agency. Nearly all of NASA's most significant achievements over the past 25 years have been delivered by the science programs, including feats such as the Ingenuity helicopter flying on Mars, New Horizons swooping by Pluto, and Cassini's discovery of water plumes on Enceladus. This passback document represents just the opening salvo of the process to establish a federal budget for fiscal-year 2026, which begins on October 1 of this year. The budget is produced by the White House Office of Management and Budget, which is overseen by Russell Vought, who has long made his anti-science budgeting priorities clear through his Center for Renewing America. The Trump administration nominee to lead NASA, private astronaut Jared Isaacman, said during a confirmation hearing this week that he strongly supported NASA's science programs. It is unlikely that Isaacman was involved in drafting this document, as he has not yet been confirmed by the US Senate. Nominees, typically, are excluded from policy prior to confirmation. After receiving passback documents, NASA usually has 72 hours to review the materials and then submit appeals and justification for changes. Any modifications are then incorporated into a final document that becomes the "President's Budget Request" for the next fiscal year. It is not clear when the Trump administration plans to release this budget request, a public document. It could happen within the next four to six weeks. Congress Will Likely Fight Back Following this, the White House will work with Congress to actually set the budget. The US House and Senate each have separate appropriations committees that consider (or not) the White House priorities in establishing a final budget that the president must then sign into law. Fierce opposition to some of these NASA cuts is likely in Congress. "This massive cut to NASA Science will not stand," Representative George Whitesides, a California Democrat, told Ars. "For weeks we have been raising the alarm about a rumored 50 percent cut to NASA's world-leading science efforts. Now we know it is true. I will work alongside my colleagues on the Science Committee to make clear how this would decimate American leadership in space and inflict great damage to NASA centers across the country." One concern, however, is that should the budgeting process be delayed—as is often the case with the federal budget—the White House could force agencies to make operational plans based on the president's budget request once the new fiscal year begins on October 1. Again this will depend on negotiations with Congress, but, using a process called impoundment, some Trump officials believe it may be possible to turn the budget request into an actual budget for all intents and purposes. This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
