Trump aims for moon, pulls back on space station, telescopes

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Trump aims for moon, pulls back on space station, telescopes

By MARCIA DUNN AND SETH BORENSTEIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Feb 12, 2018, 6:18 PM ET

The Trump administration wants NASA out of the International Space Station by 2025, and private businesses running the place instead.

Under President Donald Trump's 2019 proposed budget released Monday, U.S. government funding for the space station would end by 2025. The government would set aside $150 million to encourage commercial development and use future savings to aim for the moon.

-snip-

The president proposes shifting large chunks of money from the space station, satellites studying a warming Earth and a major space telescope toward a multi-year $10.4 billion exploration plan aimed at returning astronauts to the moon in about five or six years.

"We're building capability for the eventual human exploration of deep space and the moon is a stepping stone," NASA's acting chief financial officer Andrew Hunter said in a Monday news conference.

-snip-

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/trump-nasa-space-station-2025-businesses-53022817

[Binkie The Clown]

1. I've said it before. We'll never go to the moon again. Ever.

Time is running out. Resources are running out. Livable climate is running out. The economic ability to launch a moon mission is getting less likely every year. The public support for a return to the moon is flagging. (There are those who still think we never went there the first time.)

We're past our prime. Some other country, probably China, may take a trip or two to the moon, but that won't last either. There won't be any moon base, and there certainly will never be a Mars base. We shot our fossil fuel wad and it's all down hill from here.

There won't be any corporate interest in running the space station since there's really no profit in it. And don't tell me "space tourism." Once the two dozen people who can afford it have taken that trip, nobody will be left who can afford it. And one Challenger-style disaster would put permanent end to commercialization of space.

We like to dream of a bright, shiny "Star Trek" future, but it'll more likely be a dark, grimy, "Children of Men" kind of future.

(Yeah, I know. I'm a pessimist.)

[Canoe52]

2. They gonna put a Chic-fil-A franchise in?

[democratisphere]

3. I'll take mine with 2 slices of moon cheese.