Skip to playerSkip to main content
  • 11 hours ago
Bipartisan concerns are raised over NASA's proposed budget. While some argue the cuts will cripple the agency's ability to fulfill its mission, others point to past fiscal mismanagement, like the ballooning cost of the Mars Sample Return mission, as a reason for a strategic shift.

Category

🤖
Tech
Transcript
00:00The Office of Management and Budget's proposed budget for fiscal year 2027 requests $18.8 billion for NASA, roughly a
00:1023% cut from amounts appropriated by Congress in fiscal year 2026.
00:16I simply do not believe that this budget proposal is capable of supporting what President Trump himself has directed the
00:24agency to accomplish over the course of his two terms, nor what Congress has directed by law.
00:31These reductions do not exactly send a welcome home message to the Artemis II crew or to the NASA workforce,
00:38for that matter. A slashing space and earth science, aeronautics, and space technology, while our society increasingly depends on space
00:48assets and services to function, that's just not a winning strategy.
00:52Under the previous administration, NASA, with the support of Congress, rightfully canceled the Mars sample return mission that was conceived
00:59to cost up to $4 billion and in just a few years ballooned to over $10 billion, with $2 billion
01:04in taxpayer funds that have already been spent.
01:07This is not good capital allocation or execution, and adding dozens of other in-formulation or life-extended science missions
01:14alongside it does not necessarily make things better.
01:17American exceptionalism is being challenged in the high ground of space. To win, we cannot establish programs that are designed
01:23to be too big to fail, but at the same time, too costly to succeed.
01:27Nor should it be throwing more money at the problem, but rather fixing the problems and concentrating resources on the
01:33mission and delivering outcomes.
Comments

Recommended