NASA, Trump and budget
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Draconian budget and staff cuts could mean another Challenger disaster, warn current and former NASA employees.
A key source told Ars that the recent budget action in the House and Senate indicates that legislators are taking the impoundment threat from the Office of Management and Budget seriously. Their best weapon in this fight would be to pass a budget on time, and they appear to be trying to do so.
The departures are playing out as NASA and other government agencies contend with significant cuts to funding and personnel.
"Though the House and Senate have much still to debate on full-year appropriations, this much is clear: Congress is rejecting the full extent of the unprecedented, unstrategic, and wasteful cuts to NASA and NASA science proposed by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget," the Planetary Society said in a statement.
NASA has had a difficult early summer, between a proposed budget that would eviscerate the space agency’s science programs and President Trump’s sudden withdrawal of billionaire private space traveler Jared Isaacman from the nomination to be administrator of NASA. Even so, there are signs that NASA’s fortunes may be looking up.