Trump Admin May End NASA Funding for ISS by 2025
The Trump administration plans to end "direct" federal funding of the International Space Station to free up funds for lunar exploration goals, as reported by Loren Grush at The Verge .
From article, (SAThe Trump administration plans to end "direct" federal funding of the International Space Station to free up funds for lunar exploration goals, as reported by Loren Grush at The Verge.A draft budget proposal from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) leaked to The Verge and other publications states a space exploration objective as, "Ending direct federal government support of the ISS by 2025 and transitioning to commercial provision of low Earth orbit (LEO) capabilities."
The official budget proposal will be released February 12, delayed from February 5 due to the three-day government shutdown earlier this month. Congress will then review the proposal and has final say on the federal budget.
NASA spends about $4 billion annually to support the International Space Station and its astronauts living there, and the agency spent nearly $100 billion over more than a decade to construct the station.. Funding for the station was approved by the Obama administration through 2024, though the provision left the door open to continue U.S. federal funding for the station into 2028. The Trump administration and the newly-formed National Space Council, however, have shifted the focus of NASA's human spaceflight program to a return mission to the moon and establishing a small space station in the vicinity of the moon, known as the Deep Space Gateway.
The bottom line is that NASA does not have the funding to pay for the enormous Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the Orion crew spacecraft, the Deep Space Gateway (DSG), and continue funding the ISS. With the end of the station's service life approaching, the White House wants NASA to turn its attention to SLS and DSG as the agency pivots to a focus on lunar exploration.
The budget draft also makes it clear that the White House wants public-private partnerships to be a continued goal of NASA. "Transitioning to commercial provision of low Earth orbit (LEO) capabilities" could be an indication that the administration wants to offer private companies the opportunity to continue funding and running ISS operations after 2025.
The International Space Station, started in 1998 and completed in 2011, has become a valuable hub for commercial ventures to test technologies in space. Microgravity science experiments from researchers around the world also fill the orbiting space station, and international space agencies use the station to study the effects of long-term habitation in space. NASA's primary partner on the ISS is Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, and astronauts from Europe, Canada, and Japan also live and work on the ISS. If NASA pulls its support for the station, it is unclear how these international partners will respond regarding continued ISS operation.
In addition, NASA's commercial crew program is working to launch astronauts to the ISS on SpaceX and Boeing spacecraft, but neither company is expected to deliver the first astronauts to the ISS until late 2019 or early 2020. Pulling government funding for the ISS by 2025 could limit the value of these commercial crew vehicles, which have been optimized for ISS launches.)
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