The Republican Party is known for railing against excess spending and climate change research, so it may have come as a surprised to some that the GOP-led Congress has proposed giving NASA more money than the Obama Administration had requested for the space agency, according to a report from the Verge.
Earlier this week, Congress released its massive omnibus spending proposal, and in it, legislators have proposed giving NASA nearly $19.3 billion for next year—$800 million more than the Obama Administration’s budget request and $1.27 billion more than the space agency got in 2015.
The Republican-led infusion of cash might be explained by the fact that many private companies tied to space exploration stand to benefit. NASA is currently relying on companies like SpaceX to deliver supplies up to the International Space Station, and this budget signals that those private-public partnerships will only get bigger.
NASA is also relying on the Russian and European space programs to send its astronauts up to the ISS. Given the current tenuous relationship between the US and Russian governments, NASA’s dependency on our Eurasian neighbors is less than ideal.
We can go to Mars now!
If this proposed budget passes, many of NASA’s top-billed initiatives are expected to get off the ground. NASA’s next-generation rocket system, The Space Launch System (SLS), will get $2 billion, which is $300 million greater than what the program obtained for 2015 and $644 million higher than the administration’s ask for the program.
Furthermore, NASA’s Orion crew capsule, which would sit atop SLS and carry astronauts into space, will get $1.27 billion. That program has been plagued by setbacks, partly due to budget restrictions. The first crewed test flight of the Orion was originally slated to happen no later than August 2021, but that flight will now happen before April 2023.
NASA’s Science division would receive about $5.6 billion, which is nearly $300 million more than what the Obama administration asked for. Tucked inside that funding increase is $175 million for a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, a top candidate for life in our Solar System. The bill directs NASA to send both an orbiter and lander to the Jovian moon before 2022.
The budget proposal will be voted on today, before legislators leave Washington DC for the holidays.
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Feature Image: Thinkstock
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