The ARM program - there was no space for a cobblestone from an asteroid in the NASA budget ...

How Trump cut NASA's budget exactly on one cobblestone with an asteroid ...

Long ago, we did not receive new reports about NASA plans for the ARM program ( Asteroid Redirect Mission - asteroid redirection mission).

In a NASA article last year , I announced new dates for the ARM program, I described the postponement of the ARM program, the resistance to this program in the US House of Representatives and the flight options of the Orion spacecraft to the cobblestone parked on the Moon.

And in the article “ Roads to Mars” go through the Moon ... (in the section Project with an asteroid ) the scientific and financial criticism of this ambitious and unusual project was described.
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Since then, doubts about the need for the ARM program have grown both among academics and among US lawmakers.



In our press, this news of NASA about the struggle for the ARM program and against it did not arouse much interest. Indeed, even among people interested in space, many simply do not know the details of the program ARM.

And here are the unexpected (or rather expected after the arrival of the new US president - about the expectations in connection with the arrival of Trump see: Donald Trump Cosmos ) crucial news: the ARM program is canceled . In US sources, news about the abolition of the ARM program appeared on March 16, here is an example: Trump's 2018 NASA budget offers Trump's proposals on the 2018 NASA budget.

Now the ARM program is no longer just shifting the launch times of the automatic tugboat from 2019 to 2021, and the astronauts flying dates from 2024 to 2026 - the flight itself behind the cobblestone to the asteroid is canceled.

This is clearly written in the proposal of Trump, as the president of the United States, about the NASA budget for 2018. The 62 page document is not entitled without a pump:

“America First.
A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again »
America first.
Budget proposals to make America great again.

On page 43 of this official document of the White House , the fate of ARM is written: To
budget card, multi-billion-dollar asteroid
Redirect Mission. NASA will investigate approaches for reducing the costs of exploration
missions to enable a more expansive exploration program. - To adapt to growing development spending, the Budget abolishes the multibillion-dollar ARM program. NASA will explore approaches to reducing the cost of research missions to reach an expanded space exploration program.

What approaches will be investigated and what is the “expanded” program in the document does not say.

The current NASA administrator Robert Lightfoot (Robert Lightfoot) has already made a response statement on the new budget. The general style of the statement is as follows: the details will be in May, but we are already looking at the new budget positively. About the fate of ARM, it is said in particular: “We remain committed to the next manned missions to deep space, but we will not pursue the implementation of the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) project with this budget. But this, however, does not mean that the hard work of groups already working on ARM will be lost. We will continue our efforts to develop solar batteries and ion electric engines (solar electric propulsion), benefiting from these efforts for future space transport initiatives. I personally participated in the work of the ARM project team and in their progress over the past few years, and I am especially proud of their efforts to promote this project. ”

The program of the Orion manned spacecraft and the SLS missiles remains in the main tasks and a considerable 3.7 billion dollars is allocated for this. Where on this ship the American astronauts will fly (once ARM is closed, it means it’s definitely not to the cobblestone near the Moon) is not yet specified, but it’s necessary to bring the Orion to working condition according to the new budget faster.

In general, the NASA budget in 2018, due to the wishes of the Trump administration, will be reduced by 0.8% compared to the 2017 budget and amount to $ 19.1 billion. Of course, this is still a proposal from the US administration that was not approved in Congress. But, given the republican majority there, it will not be difficult to hold such a proposal through the US parliament.

In the American media, it is also mentioned that in the new budget, programs for remote study of the Earth have been cut (still, private contractors perform such tasks cheaper). So all the Earth exploration programs in 2018 will receive $ 102 million less (total 1.8 billion), and 4 programs will be canceled: PACE = Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite previously planned for 2022; Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 - an experiment with observation of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere from the ISS (International Space Station); another experiment on the ISS - Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) in the region of 2020; Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), a joint mission of NASA-NOAA, the spacecraft of which is already operating at the Lagrange point L1 of the Earth-Sun system. Although about the last experiment, not everything is clear - in addition to exploring the Earth, this device simply warns earthlings about the approaching solar storms in 15-20 minutes (being 1.5 million km closer to the Sun). Judging by the rumors, Trump is not against such programs going through other agencies, and NASA would focus on exploring the cosmos, and not the Earth from outer space. In the comments, they write: The President believes that there should be other organziations (ie NOAA, EPA, etc.). It seems that Trump simply does not like that NASA has become too many fans of the global warming ideology due to industrial greenhouse gas emissions and Trump wants to cut off their wings at least at NASA (so that they won't produce new evidence to support their theory).

The multi-billion dollar project of an automatic probe for landing on Europe and Europe covered with ice and ocean (the moon of Jupiter) has been cut off. However, in the budget of 2018, there remains 1.9 billion dollars for other automatic missions: the spacecraft repeatedly flying around Europe (possibly with access to its orbit) and one more mars rover on nuclear power sources (without solar batteries), scheduled for departure in the region of 2020.

One of the nasty $ 110 million cuts is that the Office of Education will be closed at NASA.