After years of taking the side of political initiatives, and not focusing on outer space, NASA is finally getting back to what they do best: science. The Trump Administration recently has proposed a huge shift in NASA's funding, slashing out various scientific programs to put more focus on establishing American presence on the moon. It is a reversion back to exploration and national strength, which we have not seen in decades.
It is a necessary bit of cuts as NASA has become a major part of the bloated bureaucratic state. All told, it is a 24 percent cut to their budget, reducing it from about $24 billion to $18 billion. Embedded in there are slashes to the Science Mission Directorate, Earth science research, and funding for the International Space Station.
NASA expert Vincent Mirolli says this brings back a focus on just specific things, after the agency stretched itself too far.
"The were trying to do seven different areas of hard science...by tearing down all their different endeavors, it will allow them to focus on a few things, and do them really well," he says.
After all, that was the original mission of NASA. Space exploration, getting to the moon before the soviets, and reaching the limits of human exploration. But the agency has lost sight of that, especially after President Obama grounded the space shuttle program. Granted, the space race died down a bit after the 1980s.
But there is a new Russia in the space race. It is China. The Asian country has been making moves in space exploration, among many other things, for years. They have made it their goal to beat America in anything and everything. Beating China to the moon is a new race, and we need to act quickly.
"We are not going to be able to do that if China has already claimed the entire moon, like they have the South China Sea," says Mirolli.
Chinese government sources have said Beijing wants to conduct a crewed lunar landing by 2030 and are looking at the Moon's south pole. Which is an area rich with water ice. From there, they can essentially claim control like they did in the South China sea, which would hurt American security.
"They could exclude the U.S. and our allies from establishing colonies and bases on the Moon," says Mirolli. "So, I see the various space centers focusing on the exploration and helping us establish a foothold on the Moon."
That would also mean more focus on the Johnson Space Center in Houston, which has been the main hub for NASA since its inception.
Mirolli adds that while this change will take time, as all good things do, it is a good first step toward getting NASA back to its true roots.
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