MnAstro Forums

Crap! Here we go again.

Jim Bridenstine will step aside as NASA chief when President-elect Biden takes over, even if he's asked to stay on:

https://www.space.com/nasa-chief-briden ... dent-biden

I know, it makes sense. I see it in business world all the time. When the guy that picked you moves on, that's usually a good sign for you to head to the door. It's just, Bridenstine was doing so well, and we had forward progress with Artemis, the SLS, and commercial space.

Space travel has always been a political football: a new administration takes the helm and it's out with the old. We saw it with Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton,... There is always a reshuffling of programs and priorities. Hope it will be for the best.

I thought SLS was done? Or was that the orion capsule thing?

The Orion Spacecraft was part of the Constellation Program which would use rockets based on shuttle technology for getting astronauts to low Earth orbit (on an Ares I rocket) and out to the Moon (on an Ares V.) It was started under the Bush (43) administration, but canceled under Obama.

The Orion spacecraft survived the cut, however, and got moved to the Artemis Program, which began under Trump. Artemis will use the Space Launch System (SLS) which is a large Saturn V class rocket to get astronauts and payload out to the Moon. It uses four RS-25 space shuttle main engines (LH2 / LOX) and two solid rocket boosters, similar to the shuttle SRB's, but with an additional segment for a 25% increase in thrust.

It is currently scheduled for a month-long, unmanned mission to orbit the Moon (called EM-1) currently scheduled for November, 2021. The hope is to get astronauts to lunar orbit in 2022, followed by a landing in 2024. Hope that survives the administration change.

Just dreaming here, but wouldn't it be nice if we had a constitutional amendment that NASA was guaranteed a minimum of, say, 1% of the Federal budget? In that way NASA could be guaranteed funding for stability of long range planning for both manned exploration and the sciences. NASA's budget in the last couple decades has always hovered around 0.5% of the budget.

After all, what other Federal agency inspires enough pride in our citizens to wear agency-logoed shirts and jackets?

NASA's priorities are set by the President and funded by the political will of Congress. The NASA administrator's job is to implement those priorities. Elections have consequences.