NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine discusses the fiscal year 2021 budget proposal during a State of NASA address, Monday, Feb. 10, 2020, at Aerojet Rocketdyne’s facility at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
Credits: NASA/Joel Kowsky

President Donald Trump wants to raise NASA’s budget to $25.2 billion for the fiscal year beginning in October, an increase of 12% over the current year’s funding.

Nearly half of that total would fund activities directed toward getting humans first to the moon, then to Mars. The budget request includes $3.3 billion for human lunar landers, part of NASA’s Artemis program that aims for a lunar landing in 2024. The new documents also cut several long-targeted programs and introduce a new mission that would study ice on Mars.

These details come from materials released today (Feb. 10) by NASA and the White House Office of Management and Budget. The materials are part of the administration’s overall budget request, an annual submission to Congress that lays out the president’s vision for the federal government and begins the budgeting process. NASA’s full materials packet is available here.

“This is a 21-century budget worthy of 21st-century space exploration and one of the strongest NASA budgets in history,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said during a State of NASA event unveiling the budget. “If the president’s support for NASA wasn’t clear before, it sure is now.” Under Trump, NASA’s annual budget has increased from about $19 billion during his first year to $22 billion for the fiscal year that began in October, according to The Washington Post.

President Donald Trump speaks during his State of the Union address on Feb. 4, 2020. (Image credit: WhiteHouse.gov)

Space exploration got a couple of shout-outs in President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night (Feb. 4).

During the nearly 80-minute speech, Trump touted the recent establishment of the Space Force — the first new U.S. military branch to be stood up since the Air Force in 1947 — as one of his administration’s key accomplishments thus far.

“In the gallery tonight, we have a young gentleman,” Trump said. “And what he wants so badly — 13 years old — Iain Lanphier, he is an eighth-grader from Arizona. Iain, please stand up. Iain has always dreamed of going to space. He was the first in his class and among the youngest at an aviation academy. He aspires to go to the Air Force Academy, and then he has his eye on the Space Force. As Iain says, ‘Most people look up at space; I want to look down on the world.'”

We’ll soon see what kind of funding he has in mind; the White House is expected to unveil its 2021 federal budget request on Monday (Feb. 10).

Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins and Neil Armstrong’s son Rick Armstrong join U.S. President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Vice President Mike Pence as they commemorate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing in the Oval Office at the White House July 19 in Washington, D.C.
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY

The United States is at a crossroads. For the first time in more than half a century, we could cease to be the leading power in space. The momentum of the Chinese program and its increasing outreach to other countries means that within a decade the United States could lose militarily, technologically and economically in space. That outcome would be catastrophic.

President Donald Trump understands how real this threat is and has begun to revitalize America’s commitment to space.

On the Fourth of July, he asserted, “I want you to know that we are going to be back on the moon very soon, and someday soon we will plant the American flag on Mars.”

The Artemis project is not the Apollo project 50 years later. It is something profoundly different.

Imagine that the first woman and man on the moon stay for three weeks (50 percent longer than all six Apollo visits combined). Imagine that their 21 days are spent assembling prepositioned materials to create a work and living space comparable to an Antarctic scientific research station. Imagine that they were joined by a second crew just before they returned to Earth so the new development had permanent habitation.

That kind of permanent development is what Trump has in mind.

The president has launched America on a Moon-Mars Development Project that will change the future of the entire human race.

Americans’ views about landing an astronaut on Mars have shifted, with a majority now favoring the idea for the first time since 1969 and 1999, when majorities opposed the idea.

The latest figure comes as President Donald Trump has committed to a manned Mars mission. In his Fourth of July speech, the president said, “We’re going to be back on the moon … and, someday soon, we will plant the American flag on Mars.”

Gallup first asked Americans about attempting to land astronauts on Mars in 1969, shortly after the U.S. accomplished the same feat on the moon. At that time, just 39% were in favor and 53% opposed. A subsequent update on the 30th anniversary of the moon landing found public opinion had changed little, with 43% in favor and 54% opposed to going to Mars.

The recent increase in support for putting an astronaut on Mars is consistent with Americans’ more positive views of the U.S. space program, just ahead of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.

As was the case 20 years ago, support for a manned Mars mission is highest among young adults aged 18 to 29 (65%) and lowest among adults aged 65 and older (46%). But support has increased substantially among older adults — as well as younger adults, to a smaller degree — thus boosting the national average.

Mars should be the next destination for humankind. Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock.com

I then see the decline in scientific education in the U.S., the decline in interest in the sciences and statistic after statistic showing American high school students ranking below the international average in mathematics and science proficiency. Is it surprising, then, that NASA is having trouble in every step of its meager plan for landing humans on the Moon again?

I cannot help but think that all this would change should the U.S. challenge itself with a Moonshot once again. And no, a return to the Moon won’t do. A real Moonshot isn’t a single mission, but a decades-long plan that educates generations, challenges its scientists and engineers, ignites the imagination and aspirations of its children, and once again glues the eyes of humanity on the livestream of that first footstep on Mars.

The Moonshot we need will have humanity establishing its first off-world colonies. It will send the first spacecraft to the distant stars. It will, more importantly, restore the United States to the forefront of science and technology. Fifty years after that first giant leap for mankind, it is finally time to take not just the second leap, but each and every leap that we’ve prevented ourselves from taking for five long decades.

Jim Bridenstine became NASA administrator in April 2018. He says that before the space agency can send humans to Mars, it has to get them back to the moon.
Olivia Falcigno/NPR

In the past year or so, scientists have discovered more evidence for liquid water under the surface of Mars. They’ve found complex organic compounds — the building blocks of life. And they’ve found that methane levels in Mars’ atmosphere vary with the seasons.

“Each of these things adds up to say that the probability of finding life on a world that’s not our own is going up,” says NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “And Mars, I think, is that best opportunity in our own solar system to find life on another world.”

The former Republican congressman from Oklahoma became the head of NASA in April 2018. Since then, he has had a lot to do to get ready for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, but he’s making sure the agency continues to look forward for its next mission: a crewed mission to Mars.

But before humans can go to Mars, they have to get back to the moon.

“It just so happens that the moon is a proving ground, so we can go to the moon and we can learn how to live and work on another world,” says Bridenstine. “How do we retire the risk? Prove the technology and then take all of that to Mars.”

Lunar Gateway

NASA and the White House will ask Congress for an extra $1.6 billion for fiscal year 2020 in order to accelerate human missions to the Moon and return people to the lunar surface by 2024. The space agency is requesting these funds in addition to the $21 billion budget that the president already requested for NASA. That’s according to a new tweet from President Trump on Monday, who claimed that NASA will be going back to space in a “big way.”

The funding proposal is laid out in a new budget amendment that NASA officials have been crafting for the last two months, along with input from the White House. The additional funds are meant to help NASA meet Pence’s challenge of sending astronauts back to the Moon within the next five years. During a speech at a meeting of the National Space Council in March, Pence said that NASA’s original goal of sending humans to the Moon by 2028 was “just not good enough,” and that the space agency would pull off this new deadline by “any means necessary.”