Marshall manages the new Moon effort and tested components for NASA’s new super rocket, called the Space Launch System or SLS. $8.1 billion dollars are being earmarked for NASA’s Artemis program to send astronauts to the lunar surface. The goals set by the White House could mean a larger investment for work being done or managed by Alabama’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. For taxpayers’ sake, America’s space agency should stop shooting for the moon and try getting its spending under control.President Joe Biden is seeking to increase NASA’s budget to $27.2 billion next year. Regardless of the future missions that NASA chooses to undertake, the agency should work with lawmakers, watchdogs and independent auditors to ensure that initial budget estimates are not too rosy. Besides, robotic exploration can be done at a fraction of the cost, and without the risk of radiation to astronauts devoid of Earth’s atmospheric protections. Robotic probes exploring new worlds would be a much better idea. The next trip to the moon seems to be more of a silly competition with China or Russia rather than a quest for scientific knowledge. Too, it’ll cost double the originally-projected amount. Again, the mission is delayed - the Space Launch System tasked with bringing humans to the moon is roughly three years behind schedule. Depending on the report cited, another voyage to the moon could cost taxpayers anywhere from $53 billion to $86 billion (after adjusting for inflation from initial reports). back to the moon, and, right now, NASA doesn’t have enough funding for that. And its spending is even about to surge “bigly.” The Trump administration is determined to bring the U.S. But, still - NASA’s 2019 budget of $21.5 billion is one of the highest since the Apollo Program (after adjusting for inflation). Judge Andrew Napolitano: The surveillance state tramples our Fourth Amendment rightsĪt the very least, taxpayers can take solace in the fact that these expenditures aren’t that big compared to the rest of federal budget. In 2008, former NASA science chief Alan Stern warned in a New York Times op-ed that “A CANCER is overtaking our space agency: the routine acquiescence to immense cost increases in projects.” NASA’s go-to star searcher was supposed to cost $200 million when it was proposed, but, by the end, costs ballooned to more than $1 billion. The Hubble Space Telescope itself followed a similar fiscal path. In popular discourse, a proposal that precedes available technology is called a “pipe dream” - these are fun to have, but shouldn’t be dependent on the taxpayer’s dollar. In a 2018 report, NASA’s inspector general pointed out that NASA has a persistent, reckless culture of misplaced optimism, which prevents it from soberly assessing costs on the novel technologies it dreams up. After proposing the project, NASA had to invent 10 technologies in order to even make the JWST viable. The latest estimates (but probably not the last) have the telescope launching in 2021 and costing $9.7 billion - a 177 percent increase. One of the chief culprits behind exploding cost figures is the James Webb Space Telescope, which was originally supposed to cost upward of $3.5 billion and launch by 2011. According to a report released in May by the Government Accountability Office, NASA’s major projects have veered nearly thirty percent over budget, as average launches are typically delayed by over a year. You wouldn’t know it unless you checked it out for yourself, but NASA has a serious spending problem. But NASA is less than forthcoming about its mounting cost overruns and schedule delays - which are costing taxpayers billions of dollars and jeopardizing future missions. For example, on June 3, Pennsylvania students had “an opportunity to speak live with a NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station.” The agency also lets taxpayers know that NASA is pro-small business, and willing to hand out dollars to startups to develop solar panels. Americans can read news releases brimming with all sorts of interesting announcements. For a government website, NASA’s homepage is an exciting place.
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