Tough Times Ahead

Keith’s note: I tossed out some tweets out today on @NASAWatch about the layoff and budget situation. The President’s FY 2025 budget will drop on 11 March. It is not going to have much – if any – good news. Mostly bad news that will pit one part of NASA against another. Lots of things will be cut – to the point that some rather draconian decisions will need to be made. Whatever happens please don’t give up on your space dreams.

• When the FY25 budget request from the White House drops we’ll all be seeing that exploration i.e. #Artemis has a much higher priority than does science at #NASA Its not just math but also what @NASA 9th floor sees as priorities and what issues they have to face on Capitol Hill.
• NASA budget math: Look at #Mars Sample Return & what they got ~$600m has to come from somewhere assuming no more bad news. But there will be bad news when WH FY25 budget request drops. MSR $ will have to come from somewhere like Dragonfly/Earth Science or no MSR. Its math folks.
• While the folks at @NASAJPL got hit first with layoffs first they will soon be coming to @NASAGoddard and since civil servants will likely be involved it’ll be time for a #RIF. Again this is budget math folks. If the money ain’t there then @NASA can’t spend it.
• Meanwhile we have #ISS ops to pay until 2030 then $1-2 billion to dump it into the ocean. Meanwhile fund @Axiom_Space &/or @OrbitalReef &/or @Starlab_Space LEO space stations while also building #Gateway lunar space station and & human missions to the Moon at $2-4 billion a pop.
• Strange thing is – @NASA loves to talk about all that science goodness that humans will do on the Moon and Mars yet they are going to cut a lot of that off at the knees. What will the #Artemis crews do when they get there? Flags & footprints?