The Senate's NASA budget bill appears to be pushing back plans by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, shifting priorities for space agencies while also expanding funding for climate warnings and other “science” research.
NASA Transition Authorization Act The law, an early copy obtained last week by Politico, rarely makes a budget proposal of $25.4 million along the previous year's lines.
Senate aides told Politico that NASA's bills that primarily maintain the status quo are cautious.
via Politics:
The focus was intentional, Senate aides familiar with the plan said they were given anonymity to discuss the bill prior to their release. The extreme changes in NASA will carry out the risk of silence of labor, wasted money and Stymie's progress on missions that could take decades, the person said.
With Musk's support from SpaceX recently rescued a pair of NASA astronauts who were tied to space by Boeing and Joe Biden, the Trump administration has outlined an ambitious plan for space exploration.
In his remarks to Congress, President Trump has pledged to land human astronauts on Mars, a Musk's long shared target. Doge Chief also wants to dispose of NASA's Artemis program. This is a planned mission to the delay-plagued moon and will orbit the International Space Station prior to NASA's proposal date in 2030.
According to Politico, the Trump administration is also looking at cutting NASA's $7.4 billion science mission budget. NASA's senior climate advisor has already been fired along with agency DEI staff in the Trump administration's cuts.
The changes to NASA to bring it along in line with Donald Trump and Elon Musk's vision do not appear to have made it into a Senate bill that is overseen by Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA).
Senator Cruz said in announcing the bill, “As chairman of the Commerce Committee, I am committed to refocusing NASA's core priorities efforts. I defend space exploration and secure American leadership in the final frontier. The space industry is essential to the economy of a lonely nation, showing off the history of Texas and the entire nation. I will work with my colleagues on this bipartisan bill that allows commercial space ventures to flourish, and I will take the first step to building a US-led low-Earth orbital economy, bringing America back to the moon and ensuring we are first on Mars.”
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News, which covers the issues of freedom of speech and online censorship.
