Trump's NASA budget cancels Europa lander and Asteroid Redirect Mission
Source: The Verge
Trump's NASA budget cancels Europa lander and Asteroid Redirect Mission
by Loren Grush Mar 16, 2017, 9:09am EDT
The president’s budget request for NASA is out, and it looks like the space program won’t be dealing with as many of the extreme cuts that other federal agencies are facing next year. Released this morning, the request would give NASA $19.1 billion for fiscal year 2018, roughly $200 million less than the $19.3 billion the agency received for 2016. The request keeps NASA on more or less the same path the agency’s been on for the last seven years, though it does propose a few big shakeups — including some fairly harsh cuts to NASA’s Earth science and education programs.
In a statement, Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot said the proposal “is in line with our funding in recent years, and will enable us to effectively execute our core mission for the nation, even during these times of fiscal constraint.”
Some notable missions are canceled under the request, including NASA’s contentious Asteroid Redirect Mission — an initiative to robotically retrieve a piece of an asteroid and bring it into the vicinity of the Moon. However, Lightfoot emphasized that much of the solar propulsion technology developed for the mission could still be carried forward to future projects. “I have had personal involvement with this team and their progress for the past few years, and am I extremely proud of their efforts to advance this mission,” Lightfoot said.
A mission to land on Jupiter’s moon Europa is also canceled, though a mission to fly by the icy world, known as the Europa Clipper mission, made the cut. Meanwhile, the proposal doesn’t call for any major changes in focus for NASA’s human exploration program. There’s no language about a return to the Moon, so the agency is still ostensibly on a “Journey to Mars” for now.
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Read more: http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/16/14942200/nasa-budget-plan-trump-administration-cuts
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And he ran out of Earth science stuff to cut, so this was next.
Too bad. I'd love to see samples taken of that red crap on top of the ice... 
And yeah, I enjoyed that movie, too. For years it was like "They got that thing about us still fighting with the Russians, wrong!"
... now, maybe, not so much. 
I'll bet Trump would love to drop a few rocks on his enemies.
