The future of NASA and space programs

Ethan Siegel, NASA's columnist, astrophysicist and writer, in his publication on Medium, describes the current state of affairs at NASA, the history of spending on space exploration and how difficult it will be in the near future for the entire industry, even though it seemed would have been obvious successes in the past. And let the success of SpaceX does not overshadow the eyes.



In particular, Ethan cites several amusing graphs showing the obvious fact - funding for space programs has stagnated since the 60s and the moment of the landing of a man on the Moon. Then, financing costs amounted to about $ 5 billion per year, but given the change in the exchange rate, it is easier to present it as a percentage of all relevant (discretionary) government spending: 20% of the total. Today - 3%.





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According to the interlocutor of Ethan, Dr. John Logsdon (Dr. John Logsdon), and this level of funding is already good. Today, NASA's annual budget is $ 18 billion — enough to stay afloat, but not enough for serious space projects.



American taxpayers do not want to pay for space, and his research, although according to the results of public opinion polls, the majority believes that the current expenditures of the state in the item “NASA” are “from a quarter to a third” of the corresponding expenses.







What does all this mean in practice?



For example, that a manned mission to Mars is impossible in the visible future.

And that, while the whole world is concerned about the issues of "colonization" of the Moon, the United States cannot take part in this process.



In addition, many ambitious projects are being postponed:

1. LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna), which was supposed to do astronomy of gravitational waves, will not be collected until the end of the decade
2. Athena (Advanced Telescope for High-Energy Astrophysics) - the next-generation X-ray observatory, will not start until 2028, and even after, in fact, will be entirely under the control of ESA (European Space Agency)
3. WFIRST - mission to search for dark energy, will not fly at least until 2024
4. Exoplanetary science , ready to make a step on the level of technology development now, is postponed with the launch of the telescope. James Webb to 2018

The first week of January is the annual convention of the American Astronomical Community. This year, a general decision was made not only to show society and politicians how NASA would look like with sufficient funding, but also independently, personally, each of its participants, to find time to convince people that the whole world needs " best »HUBBLE, Chandra, LIGO and KEPLER.