Thanks for covering this. It is so sad what is happening now and what that means for the decades to come. Dismantling systems (including the CDC too) which truely made America great.
Sorry I may have missed this, are these projects canceled because the government is still shutdown? Or they are like actually canceled even once the government is open again?
Ongoing mission operations for all on-orbit spacecraft fall into the “protect property” exemption so people are still operating them. These cuts are unrelated to the shutdown.
The government is shut down because Congress hasn't passed budget and couldn't agree to a plan to continue to fund the government (because why would you do your job *sarcasm*).
If Congress passes President Trump's proposed budget - the cuts will be enacted.
If Congress passes the continuing resolution - funding will remain at current levels, which is it's own kind of frustration 'doing what we've always done' does not realistically address issues at NASA facilities or changing needs. And it's not super comforting because DOGE/Russ Vought/et al have been firing people and cutting programs like USAID and dismantling departments like the Department of Education without Congressional authorization and so far the Supreme Court has been like "shrug." So, if I was going to talk like a young person, I would say it's giving Constitutional Crisis.
Basically, we're in kind of a Schrödinger's Cat situation here where we have to open the box to find out if the funding is cut or not. People I know who work for NASA are acting as though the cuts will go through and trying to minimize the damage and members of Congress (including mine, who is a Republican) say they feel confident that we'll maintain current funding levels. And I guess we'll just...find out when they reopen the government in a couple of weeks.
As someone who visited Johnson Space Center several times when we lived in Houston and who has a kid who wants to be an aerospace engineer and someday return to NASA, I find this so maddening. And it goes back to Beth's More to Say about waste. SO MUCH WASTE. People are so short-sighted. We need to bring back the critical thinking necessary to see long-term benefits instead of just thinking about the here and now.
I will say that I think Members of Congress (in both houses and on both sides of the aisle) seem to get that these cuts are dumb, but the government is closed and so far the administration has just done what they’re going to do because they want to. So the real question is, what needs to happen for Congress to stand up and say, “we are a co-equal branch of government”?
I keep going we're getting close. I'm hoping the protests next weekend are huge. (We can't because we'll be on our way to CA.) Apparently Mike Johnson told Fox that the planned protests are just antifa and leftists 🤦🏼♀️ Is it too much to hope he loses his seat?
It baffles me that we landed on the moon in the 60s and now it’s so hard to do. Like what?! Also, when I go to the Atlantis exhibit at KSC, I cry when the shade opens and you see the actual shuttle. That is some straight up inspirational Americana. I miss the shuttles. 😂
I cried too the first time I saw the Atlantis exhibit— I did not expect to be so emotional. What a loss of other people never had a similar experience!
I did check. So, in the 1960s NASAs budget reached over 4% of the federal budget. We could get to the moon real fast with that kind of spending today. It's just not the priority.
1. NASA gets a very tiny fraction of the funding it got in the 60s
2. More importantly, Apollo had a clear mission that was identified and then focused on. Since the 80s, the human space flight part of nasa has been all over the place: go to the Mars. Kidding, go back to the moon. No, go to the moon as a way station to Mars. Or maybe build an outpost near the moon. The cancellation of Artemis is just the latest in a series of directional changes. When I was a kid, NASA’s big student outreach line was “one of you will be the first person on Mars.” Now when I do outreach, I don’t say things like that because I doubt it’s true.
I’ll also add…
While human space flight has been floundering, space science and earth science missions have been absolutely breathtakingly successful over the last few decades. It’s amazing stuff that really shows what NASA is capable of, even if it’s not “flags and footprints”
Do you do outreach for NASA???? I would LOVE to pick your brain sometime! My daughter wants to be an astronaut (she got a scholarship to Space Camp in Huntsville this year and it was like ROCKET FUEL for her ambition), and I want to encourage her and also feel like "I don't know what's going on here."
Edit to add: I don't specifically want to pick your brain about my daughter's ambition, but it's such a big part of my local economy, and I just like knowing what's going on.
Exactly. And part of my personal perspective is that (not breaking new ground here) Congress is not great at long term planning, and part of the reason this program has been so clunky is that it started with George W Bush as Project Constellation and then they scrapped it, then President Obama shifted priorities (probably in a needed way), the first Trump administration actually really got things on track (which is why it’s especially weird to me that he wants to cancel his own program), and credit to the Biden administration for just staying the course. Some of this “change for the sake of change” is inherently wasteful.
This crew is fundamentally anti-learning. I notice that most of your examples are older things that are still providing interesting and potentially meaningful info. Unfortunately that bears too much resemblance to school and books. They want the new and shiny version that they can just buy.
Although in the case of the lunar exploration vehicle, what do you bet Russia or some other interest didn’t want us to be up there poking around or interfering with them getting there first?
The Mars probe that didn't work was in 1999 (I had to go back that far to find a failure in Mars) and it was a (almost comical) issue where the Boeing Team used standard measurements and the NASA team used the metric system so the systems weren't ready to work together once the probe arrived in Mars.
And the Lunar probe that didn't work last year was landing on a very difficult part of the moon (China and India have crashed probes there). I believe it is the lunar south pole where there is supposed to be water, but there's also lots of craters and it's cold and dark and hard to navigate. So, this was the most successful crash to date because the probe landed safely. Unfortunately it fell over with it's solar panels facing away from the sun, so it can't charge. Is that not the saddest (and most relatable) thing??? If you could just pick it up or turn it, it would start working again...but...no people there.
I guess I could have included a positive call to action. The Planetary Society is really doing the work here to lobby and advocate for NASA in the halls of Congress: https://www.planetary.org/save-nasa-science
On the positive side: there is a lot of really cool work being done by private companies in space right now. I am sure that Elon Musk and other people who feel like NASA is too clunky feel like private enterprise and educational institutions can step in and fill the void from NASA. And they're not wrong.
I was at a local Chamber of Commerce lunch about the future of Space Innovation in my area (near the Kennedy Space Center) and there is a lot of energy, investment and enthusiasm around private science, space tourism, and using some of these private companies to do work that doesn't depend on year-to-year funding battles from Congress, which I think could be good.
If you think about airlines - we have LOTS of choice in the airline industry and yes, government has a role in flight - Air Traffic Control, NTSB, etc. but all commercial flights, aviation, and exploration don't go through the US Government.
I can see a future where government is one of many players in the Space Industry, and NASA serves more of a role of building out capacity, managing Space Ports, and supporting and managing capacity rather than being the only player in the game in a positive way. And perhaps that is right. I just wish that we were making that choice proactively rather than letting gravity pull us down.
Thanks for covering this. It is so sad what is happening now and what that means for the decades to come. Dismantling systems (including the CDC too) which truely made America great.
I’m here for the wastewater write ups! I feel like one of my most fave MTS was in wastewater during Covid
We went to a wastewater plant in my environmental science class in college and it was fascinating
I think about it like multiple times a year and that was multiple decades ago
One of my college professors (environmental eng) worked on a number of water/wastewater projects with NASA and it was ENDLESSLY fascinating!
I’m glad I’m not alone in this!
Sorry I may have missed this, are these projects canceled because the government is still shutdown? Or they are like actually canceled even once the government is open again?
Ongoing mission operations for all on-orbit spacecraft fall into the “protect property” exemption so people are still operating them. These cuts are unrelated to the shutdown.
The government is shut down because Congress hasn't passed budget and couldn't agree to a plan to continue to fund the government (because why would you do your job *sarcasm*).
If Congress passes President Trump's proposed budget - the cuts will be enacted.
If Congress passes the continuing resolution - funding will remain at current levels, which is it's own kind of frustration 'doing what we've always done' does not realistically address issues at NASA facilities or changing needs. And it's not super comforting because DOGE/Russ Vought/et al have been firing people and cutting programs like USAID and dismantling departments like the Department of Education without Congressional authorization and so far the Supreme Court has been like "shrug." So, if I was going to talk like a young person, I would say it's giving Constitutional Crisis.
Basically, we're in kind of a Schrödinger's Cat situation here where we have to open the box to find out if the funding is cut or not. People I know who work for NASA are acting as though the cuts will go through and trying to minimize the damage and members of Congress (including mine, who is a Republican) say they feel confident that we'll maintain current funding levels. And I guess we'll just...find out when they reopen the government in a couple of weeks.
I love candy corn, and I'm so happy to see delicious candy ahead.....for now. :)
Not gonna lie. I am surprised by the results. Delighted I asked
As someone who visited Johnson Space Center several times when we lived in Houston and who has a kid who wants to be an aerospace engineer and someday return to NASA, I find this so maddening. And it goes back to Beth's More to Say about waste. SO MUCH WASTE. People are so short-sighted. We need to bring back the critical thinking necessary to see long-term benefits instead of just thinking about the here and now.
I will say that I think Members of Congress (in both houses and on both sides of the aisle) seem to get that these cuts are dumb, but the government is closed and so far the administration has just done what they’re going to do because they want to. So the real question is, what needs to happen for Congress to stand up and say, “we are a co-equal branch of government”?
I keep going we're getting close. I'm hoping the protests next weekend are huge. (We can't because we'll be on our way to CA.) Apparently Mike Johnson told Fox that the planned protests are just antifa and leftists 🤦🏼♀️ Is it too much to hope he loses his seat?
I mean. Probably his seat is safe, but his speakership? That might be available
It baffles me that we landed on the moon in the 60s and now it’s so hard to do. Like what?! Also, when I go to the Atlantis exhibit at KSC, I cry when the shade opens and you see the actual shuttle. That is some straight up inspirational Americana. I miss the shuttles. 😂
I cried too the first time I saw the Atlantis exhibit— I did not expect to be so emotional. What a loss of other people never had a similar experience!
I did check. So, in the 1960s NASAs budget reached over 4% of the federal budget. We could get to the moon real fast with that kind of spending today. It's just not the priority.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#/media/File:NASA-Budget-Federal.svg
Maggie nailed it.
1. NASA gets a very tiny fraction of the funding it got in the 60s
2. More importantly, Apollo had a clear mission that was identified and then focused on. Since the 80s, the human space flight part of nasa has been all over the place: go to the Mars. Kidding, go back to the moon. No, go to the moon as a way station to Mars. Or maybe build an outpost near the moon. The cancellation of Artemis is just the latest in a series of directional changes. When I was a kid, NASA’s big student outreach line was “one of you will be the first person on Mars.” Now when I do outreach, I don’t say things like that because I doubt it’s true.
I’ll also add…
While human space flight has been floundering, space science and earth science missions have been absolutely breathtakingly successful over the last few decades. It’s amazing stuff that really shows what NASA is capable of, even if it’s not “flags and footprints”
Do you do outreach for NASA???? I would LOVE to pick your brain sometime! My daughter wants to be an astronaut (she got a scholarship to Space Camp in Huntsville this year and it was like ROCKET FUEL for her ambition), and I want to encourage her and also feel like "I don't know what's going on here."
Edit to add: I don't specifically want to pick your brain about my daughter's ambition, but it's such a big part of my local economy, and I just like knowing what's going on.
I’m an engineer for nasa, but I looooove when I get to do outreach work a few times a year. I’d be thrilled to talk to you or her! Feel free to dm me.
And just for legalese… obviously everything I say here is just speaking for myself :)
Just like funding for drug development. How did Operation Warp Speed happen? They threw all the money at it!
Exactly. And part of my personal perspective is that (not breaking new ground here) Congress is not great at long term planning, and part of the reason this program has been so clunky is that it started with George W Bush as Project Constellation and then they scrapped it, then President Obama shifted priorities (probably in a needed way), the first Trump administration actually really got things on track (which is why it’s especially weird to me that he wants to cancel his own program), and credit to the Biden administration for just staying the course. Some of this “change for the sake of change” is inherently wasteful.
This crew is fundamentally anti-learning. I notice that most of your examples are older things that are still providing interesting and potentially meaningful info. Unfortunately that bears too much resemblance to school and books. They want the new and shiny version that they can just buy.
Although in the case of the lunar exploration vehicle, what do you bet Russia or some other interest didn’t want us to be up there poking around or interfering with them getting there first?
The Mars probe that didn't work was in 1999 (I had to go back that far to find a failure in Mars) and it was a (almost comical) issue where the Boeing Team used standard measurements and the NASA team used the metric system so the systems weren't ready to work together once the probe arrived in Mars.
And the Lunar probe that didn't work last year was landing on a very difficult part of the moon (China and India have crashed probes there). I believe it is the lunar south pole where there is supposed to be water, but there's also lots of craters and it's cold and dark and hard to navigate. So, this was the most successful crash to date because the probe landed safely. Unfortunately it fell over with it's solar panels facing away from the sun, so it can't charge. Is that not the saddest (and most relatable) thing??? If you could just pick it up or turn it, it would start working again...but...no people there.
I guess I could have included a positive call to action. The Planetary Society is really doing the work here to lobby and advocate for NASA in the halls of Congress: https://www.planetary.org/save-nasa-science
Is this the bad news brief?
I reach through and I can’t listen. Like a gut punch after surgery, I have Very little bandwidth for the bad news
On the positive side: there is a lot of really cool work being done by private companies in space right now. I am sure that Elon Musk and other people who feel like NASA is too clunky feel like private enterprise and educational institutions can step in and fill the void from NASA. And they're not wrong.
I was at a local Chamber of Commerce lunch about the future of Space Innovation in my area (near the Kennedy Space Center) and there is a lot of energy, investment and enthusiasm around private science, space tourism, and using some of these private companies to do work that doesn't depend on year-to-year funding battles from Congress, which I think could be good.
If you think about airlines - we have LOTS of choice in the airline industry and yes, government has a role in flight - Air Traffic Control, NTSB, etc. but all commercial flights, aviation, and exploration don't go through the US Government.
I can see a future where government is one of many players in the Space Industry, and NASA serves more of a role of building out capacity, managing Space Ports, and supporting and managing capacity rather than being the only player in the game in a positive way. And perhaps that is right. I just wish that we were making that choice proactively rather than letting gravity pull us down.
I intended to write something more inspiring. At least we have candy corn