Trump's first budget is out. Here's a look at how NASA fared
Posted by Jason Davis
16-03-2017 7:08 CDT
Topics: Space Policy
The Trump administration released its first federal budget this morning.
The 62-page document covers fiscal year 2018, which begins on Oct. 1. It’s known as a "skinny" budget—not because of its cuts to discretionary spending, which are significant—but because first-term presidents have had less time to fill in all the details of their future policy plans.
Two pages are dedicated to NASA. Here are the highlights:
- NASA's top line is $19.1 billion, meaning the agency has, overall, escaped large-scale cuts.
- The Asteroid Redirect Mission is canceled.
- Orion, SLS and ground systems stand to receive $3.7 billion, which is in line with proposed 2017 congressional levels.
- Public-private partnerships are endorsed as the foundation of future U.S. civilian space efforts, but there is no further guidance. The Moon-versus-Mars destination debate is not mentioned.
- Planetary science stands to get $1.9 billion, which is higher than 2017 Obama and congressional levels.
- The Europa Clipper mission is funded (without a specific dollar amount), but the separate lander mission will not receive any funding.
- Earth science only gets $1.8 billion. That's about a 13 percent cut from 2017 Obama levels, and in between proposed House and Senate 2017 levels.
- Some Earth science missions would be canceled: PACE, OCO-3, DSCOVR Earth-viewing instruments (no more pretty pictures of Earth?), and CLARREO Pathfinder.
- The office of education would be eliminated, owing to it performing functions that are "duplicative of other parts of the agency."
Today’s budget release is only one step of the overall process. Both houses of Congress will weigh in on the bill, make changes, and send a final version back to the president for a signature. Additionally, Congress has yet to solidify a budget for fiscal year 2017, having passed a series of continuing resolutions to fund most of the government at 2016 levels.
decrease by 25 percent.
We’ll have more analysis on this in the weeks to come.
Here are some selected budget numbers. All figures are in millions of dollars. 2017 Obama request numbers includes mandatory and required spending.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
Europa Clipper concept
NASA's Europa Clipper mission would launch as early as 2022 and assess the habitability of Europa, paving the way for a future separate lander mission.
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