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White House FY 2021 R&D Priorities

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
September 3, 2019
Filed under ,
White House FY 2021 R&D Priorities

Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies: Fiscal Year 2021 Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities Full document, OMB/OSTP
“Advanced Military Capabilities: Relevant departments and agencies should invest in R&D to deliver the advanced military capabilities that will help meet emerging threats and protect American security into the future, including offensive and defensive hypersonic weapons capabilities, resilient national security space systems, and modernized and flexible strategic and nonstrategic nuclear deterrent capabilities.
Critical Infrastructure Resilience: Departments and agencies should invest in critical infrastructure R&D that improves resilience to natural disasters and physical threats, including extreme terrestrial events, cyber and electromagnetic pulse attacks, and exploitation of supply chain vulnerabilities. Departments and agencies should prioritize investments in space weather R&D according to the 2019 National Space Weather Strategy and Action Plan2 and, where applicable, pay specific attention to improving research to operations and operations to research capabilities…
… Earth System Predictability: Knowing the extent to which components of the Earth system are practicably predictable – from individual thunderstorms to long-term global change- is vitally important for physical understanding of the Earth system, assessing the value of prediction results, guiding Federal investments, developing effective policy, and improving predictive skill. Departments and agencies should prioritize R&D that helps quantify Earth system predictability across multiple phenomena, time, and space scales. Strategic coordination and leveraging of resources across agencies on research and modeling efforts is needed to accelerate progress in this area. Additionally, agencies should emphasize how measures of and limits to predictability, both theoretical and actual, can inform a wide array of stakeholders. They also should explore the application of AI and adaptive observing systems to enhance predictive skill, along with strategies for obtaining substantial improvements in computational model performance and spatial resolution across all scales.
… 5. American Space Exploration and Commercialization
R&D investments should continue to leverage efforts underway at American universities and in the private sector and focus on ensuring American leadership in space by supporting the Trump Administration’s call for a return of Americans to the Moon’s surface by 2024 and utilizing the Moon as a proving-ground for a future human mission to Mars. Departments and agencies should prioritize in-situ resource utilization on the Moon and Mars, cryogenic fuel storage and management, in-space manufacturing and assembly, and advanced space-related power and propulsion capabilities. Departments and agencies should also prioritize activities that ensure an industrial base for commercial activity in space and that will broadly speed private-sector progress in meeting stated Government goals and furthering the space economy. Finally, departments and agencies should seek opportunities to work with advanced materials, additive manufacturing, and machine learning capabilities that have broad potential applications in space and on Earth.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

3 responses to “White House FY 2021 R&D Priorities”

  1. Donald Barker says:
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    Two paragraphs in section “5. American Space Exploration and Commercialization” are quite small when compared to the other sections, especially regarding focus and goals. Many of the started aspects are highly needed but only in a long-term sustainable and detailed plan. Going to the Moon in 2024 is neither implicitly sustainable or recurring,
    to justify the costs of humans on the Moon, if the questions of exactly WHY we are going and exactly WHAT we will be doing there are not answered. This lack of clarity is the exact reason human spaceflight has only been fling circles around the Earth for the past 50 years. And no matter what they say, Mars is still a perpetual 30 years from today.

    • Bill Housley says:
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      I won’t disagree with you about Moon 2024.

      As to the why, it is to exploit Presidential ego to make progress on envelope expansion.

      The plus side is that of uses Space Act Agreement contracting instead of the cost-plus contracting that bought us the 50 years of going in circles that you described.

      Is the House going to vote to fund a Presidential vanity project? No.

      Will the effort be accelerated anyway? Yes.

  2. Brian_M2525 says:
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    Can anyone go to the Moon if there is no budget?