NASA under President Trump – CNN


The space agency is usually treated by a scientist, former astronaut or otherwise dishonest person in public, and many legislators, astronauts and missionaries feared that Brydenstein’s appointment to NASA and the states to bring humans back to the moon and its orbit Can.

In the last two years on the job, Bridenstein has repeatedly sought to position himself as a bipartisan leader, and has managed to gain widespread respect from the space community. Many deputies also say their political experience has been a bonus, allowing them to better promote NASA’s interests on Capitol Hill.

Some analysts and experts told CNN Business that, in their view, Brydenstein has done a good job of navigating a very complex situation – his boss, while balancing the need to pursue the president’s wishes, while also trying to keep NASA away from hyper. In the political arena of the party.

Money for the moon

Probably the biggest part of getting space news in the last four years was the shocking announcement by the Trump administration in 2019 that the United States would return astronauts to the moon in five years. The announcement made by Vice President Mike Pence at the National Space Council meeting was so unexpected that even some NASA employees were taken by surprise. Bridenstein told CNN last year that he had prior knowledge of the announcement, but just a month earlier, in February 2019, NASA was still considering its goal of landing on the moon by 2028.
Since 2024 will be Trump’s last year as president if he is elected for a second term, NASA’s plan to accelerate lunar landing plans was seen as largely political. And that was left to Bridenstein for bilateral support for the mission and would persuade Congress to fund the program, which is expected to cost અંત 30 billion or more on top of the space agency’s $ 20 billion annual budget.

Yet, legislators are not ready to put a fork on the cash requested by NASA.

“He has tried to persuade Congress that there is a legitimate reason for humans to have a deadline to land on the moon by 2024,” said Laura Seward Forzick, a space policy consultant and consultant at Astralitic. “Yet, he couldn’t.”

Part of the issue is that, for two years, Congress has been demanding a detailed break from the required budget to NASA, but recently the space agency will only be able to estimate the ballpark, Forzic said.

But funding isn’t flooding yet, and yet As the 2024 deadline turns out to be unrealistic, Bridenstein has spent the past two years putting NASA’s space agency on a plan for how to bring humans back to the moon – and that plan has won many supporters and critics.

The place of commercialization

The latest iteration of NASA’s lunar ambition, known as the Artemis program, has been suppressed more and more than a one-sided innovation mission: Bridenstein and Pence have repeatedly said that the next lunar landing will be made with the goal of creating a “continuous presence.” On the moon, pave the way for astronauts to keep going again and again. Ultimately, they say, people can live and work on the moon, collect lunar ice for rocket fuel, or research the lunar environment and prepare to bring a human presence to Mars.

But for now, most of the technology needed to complete the first Artemis lunar landing does not exist. Significantly, NASA still needs a lunar lander, a vehicle that will take astronauts from astronauts to the lunar surface. Worst of all, the current plan for how NASA will develop does not have widespread technical support.

Instead of handling the design and development of in-house lunar landers, Bridenstein is pushing commercial companies to create their own lunar lenders, with financial support from NASA. And while companies will technically own the final vehicles, NASA may choose which lunar lander to use for the Artemis program.

It’s an idea that shuts down NASA’s other flagship program, the Commercial Crew Initiative, which turned NASA’s traditional launch program on its head. Instead of developing in-house rockets and spacecraft, the agency did everything from the early Mercury rocket program of the 1960s to the retirement of the space shuttle, with NASA contracting virtually everything to private corporations that only provided astronauts. Essentially, NASA only bought tickets for the flight, although taxpayers have funded most of the development costs of the new spacecraft.

Under President Barack Obama, the program began as an effort to develop a cost-effective way to transport astronauts from the International Space Station. The commercial crew program reached its climax earlier this year, when the SpaceX crew dragon spacecraft carried two NASA astronauts to the ISS and back.
Some members of Congress, however, are reluctant to consider the commercial crew program the best blueprint for making a moon lander. The House Bilateral Bill calls on NASA to take full ownership of the lunar lender used for the Artemis program, noting that it would give the public a “discreet understanding” of how taxpayer dollars are spent.
Democrats expressed this disappointment when, earlier this year, Bridenstein went ahead with plans to keep the lunar lander a commercial endeavor. He donated nearly એક 1 billion to Jeff Bezos Blue Origin, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Alabama-based Dynamics, each of which lined up to design and develop their own lunar landings and compete with each other for NASA contracts.

More recently, legislators have also pushed back on NASA’s lack of transparency about the program.

Even if Bridenstein could not win the congress, Forzac considers the commercial crew contracting style a huge victory that saves money and leads to the creation of exciting new technologies. And he applauds Bridenstein’s decision to stick with the model.

“I’m carrying a card, a pin-holding member of the Bridenstein Fan Club.” Overall, it gives his two years at the helm of NASA an “A-“.

ISS and international collaboration

The International Space Station has hosted astronauts from NASA and dozens of other partner countries for over 20 years, a physical recognition of global cooperation in space.

But a football-l-field-size orbiting laboratory will not last forever. It is currently scheduled to end service in 2024, although this could be extended to 2028. And Bridenstein’s plan to gradually extend the operation of the space station to the private sector has received pressure from Congress, and only a little discussion has begun in the space community about it. The future of spaceflight should include how much corporate corporate branding and private interest should be involved.

Public opinion polls show that Americans are excited about commercial companies exploring space, but they are also skeptical about the idea that NASA should take a back seat.

The remaining retirement of the space station has also raised big questions about how the United States will continue its partnership with other spacefaring nations.

ISS is NASA’s primary mechanism for international collaboration, said Brian Weed, program planning director of the nonprofit Secure World Foundation, which promotes cooperative space research. “And there were a lot of questions about what came next” after the station’s service ended.

But Bridensta did a “great job” of strengthening the Artemis program as one that would become an international collaborator. Japan and the European Space Agency have already signed up as partners that will help create the necessary hardware. And seven countries, in addition to the United States, have signed NASA’s Artemis Accords, announcing Bridensta as a set of principles to put humans back on the moon, including feeding commercial companies mining and selling resources in space.
Weiden said the documents are a step in the right direction, ensuring that there is no rapid dynamic return to the moon without careful consideration of road rules. But the document is still very contradictory to international law.

Countries that have tense relations with the United States have not signed NASA’s Artemis plan.

The head of Russia’s space agency has criticized the program for being “US-centric.” And, Weiden said, “the single biggest cheerleader is associated with China.”
Weiden said he recognizes that Bridenstein’s ability to engage with China on direct space exploration is hampered by Hawking language in American law. But that’s something, Weeden said, if the U.S. aims to make space exploration a collaborative and peaceful endeavor.

Still, overall, Weiden said he believes NASA is moving in a great direction under Bridenstein. And notably, many of the policies are a continuation of the space policies implemented by the previous administration.

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