The NASA ARM mission is DEAD

[SuperFastJellyfish]

1 hour ago, Robotengineer said:

FH wouldn't work for some of the proposed missions for SLS, but the BFR almost certainly would work (though talking seriously about SpaceX projects with little detail is taboo around here). 

That's ridiculous.  Every thread that talks about anything launch vehicle related ends up being a SpaceX knobslob.  It's gotten to the point where every time there is a SpaceX launch I find myself cheering for it to explode just to watch the fanboys say, 'Elon wanted this rocket to blow up.  I can't believe you guys are calling this a failure.'

Edited June 2, 2016 by SuperFastJellyfish

[fredinno]

38 minutes ago, SuperFastJellyfish said:

That's ridiculous.  Every thread that talks about anything launch vehicle related ends up being a SpaceX knobslob.  It's gotten to the point where every time there is a SpaceX launch I find myself cheering for it to explode just to watch the fanboys say, 'Elon wanted this rocket to blow up.  I can't believe you guys are calling this a failure.'

Yeah, I agree. People talking about BFR at this point are seriously putting the cart before the horse (like Congress :P)

[Robotengineer]

30 minutes ago, SuperFastJellyfish said:

That's ridiculous.  Every thread that talks about anything launch vehicle related ends up being a SpaceX knobslob.  It's gotten to the point where every time there is a SpaceX launch I find myself cheering for it to explode just to watch the fanboys say, 'Elon wanted this rocket to blow up.  I can't believe you guys are calling this a failure.'

Really? So we should just forget that SpaceX is building an SLS class rocket? Just because the old guard pessimists (who hide behind the moniker of 'realism') have to do it their way ('we'd be lucky if we have boots on Mars before we're dead') doesn't mean we have to. I'm not even trying to turn this thread into a SpaceX thread, I only brought it up because @Boovie was making it seem like SLS is the only option for heavy-lift, when it isn't. 

With the 'realistic' outlook, we won't be landing human's on Mars before 2040 anyway, so what will SLS be used for in the 2 decades between when it becomes active and when manned Mars missions become a reality? ARM is off the table, there is the Europa mission, and a few other Cassini style missions floating around, but nothing manned, unless you are going to make up some reason to do a manned mission just to use SLS.

21 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Yeah, I agree. People talking about BFR at this point are seriously putting the cart before the horse (like Congress :P)

SpaceX is working on Raptor right now and it can be assumed they are working on BFR as well.

[SuperFastJellyfish]

9 minutes ago, Robotengineer said:

Really? So we should just forget that SpaceX is building an SLS class rocket? Just because the old guard pessimists (who hide behind the moniker of 'realism') have to do it their way ('we'd be lucky if we have boots on Mars before we're dead') doesn't mean we have to. I'm not even trying to turn this thread into a SpaceX thread, I only brought it up because @Boovie was making it seem like SLS is the only option for heavy-lift, when it isn't. 

With the 'realistic' outlook, we won't be landing human's on Mars before 2040 anyway, so what will SLS be used for in the 2 decades between when it becomes active and when manned Mars missions become a reality? ARM is off the table, there is the Europa mission, and a few other Cassini style missions floating around, but nothing manned, unless you are going to make up some reason to do a manned mission just to use SLS.

SpaceX is working on Raptor right now and it can be assumed they are working on BFR as well.

SpaceX is doing great things for our niche, space exploration.  I have no problem with them at all.  I have a problem with the starry-eyed 'believers' who think Elon's tweets are the word of God.  OCISTLY though.   

[kerbiloid]

They played enough with KSP Asteroid Day and are no more hyped.

[RCgothic]

I know this was a bad mission, but can we stop killing Orion missions please? The launch rate is awful enough as is!

We need to fund things properly! Permanent moon base by 2025! Boots on Mars by 2035! Let's get some proper infrastructure up there!

I cannot believe how hard people are making this. In 1960 we hadn't even put a man in space. Nine years later, moon! And 50 years later we can barely fund four manned missions over a decade? Come on people! This is so frustrating.

Edited June 2, 2016 by RCgothic

[Steel]

47 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

I know this was a bad mission, but can we stop killing Orion missions please? The launch rate is awful enough as is!

We need to fund things properly! Permanent moon base by 2025! Boots on Mars by 2035! Let's get some proper infrastructure up there!

I cannot believe how hard people are making this. In 1960 we hadn't even put a man in space. Nine years later, moon! And 50 years later we can barely fund four manned missions over a decade? Come on people! This is so frustrating.

And all that required was a government willing to invest big time in a long-term skilled jobs programme that NASA represented at the time. The situation isn't the same now and so the government don't want to invest

[Val]

5 hours ago, SuperFastJellyfish said:

That's ridiculous.  Every thread that talks about anything launch vehicle related ends up being a SpaceX knobslob.  It's gotten to the point where every time there is a SpaceX launch I find myself cheering for it to explode just to watch the fanboys say, 'Elon wanted this rocket to blow up.  I can't believe you guys are calling this a failure.'

4 hours ago, SuperFastJellyfish said:

SpaceX is doing great things for our niche, space exploration.  I have no problem with them at all.  I have a problem with the starry-eyed 'believers' who think Elon's tweets are the word of God.  OCISTLY though.   

Ranting about them doesn't add to the discussion either. Dial it down, please.

If the fanboys really annoy you so much, then treat them like flat-earthers. Ignore them. Don't feed them. 

[cantab]

BFR is not quite a paper project, but it's not much better. It doesn't even have an engine yet. It's at the same kind of point in its development as Skylon, though SpaceX have more money than Reaction Engines to make their thing fly.

Falcon Heavy warrants comparison with SLS, 50 tons to LEO is impressive and does open up possibilities, but it's not 70 tons and it sure isn't a hundred. And sure, NASA funding could get FH and BFR developed and built sooner, but then it's not "private enterprise" as such any more. Indeed Falcon 9 was already partly government funded, and that is not at all a bad thing.

It's the idea that I sometimes see expressed or implied that governments can do no right and corporations can do no wrong that aggravates me.

[Basto]

The thing that I find strange is the notion that SLS is in any way innovative. It's old space shuttle hardware slapped together with a new fuel tank. 

Yes it's a heavy lifter but it is so expensive you could launch 5 falcon heavies (or maybe more) for the same price. 

[G'th]

The idea that SLS has to be innovative is kind of strange in of itself. 

NASA doesn't have the budget to be innovative.

[Boovie]

11 hours ago, Robotengineer said:

Really? So we should just forget that SpaceX is building an SLS class rocket? Just because the old guard pessimists (who hide behind the moniker of 'realism') have to do it their way ('we'd be lucky if we have boots on Mars before we're dead') doesn't mean we have to. I'm not even trying to turn this thread into a SpaceX thread, I only brought it up because @Boovie was making it seem like SLS is the only option for heavy-lift, when it isn't. 

With the 'realistic' outlook, we won't be landing human's on Mars before 2040 anyway, so what will SLS be used for in the 2 decades between when it becomes active and when manned Mars missions become a reality? ARM is off the table, there is the Europa mission, and a few other Cassini style missions floating around, but nothing manned, unless you are going to make up some reason to do a manned mission just to use SLS.

SpaceX is working on Raptor right now and it can be assumed they are working on BFR as well.

I'm not saying that the SLS is the only option nor should it be. We need private industry involved in space exploration. However just because private industry is getting involved does not mean that NASA should become reliable solely on that to get to space.

Regarding humans on Mars, that is one great benefit of SLS, but it also allows you to send probes and landers to other bodies in the solar system much more quickly. This allows us to accelerate the rate at which we make discoveries. The more we can go discover, the more public interest we can generate, which in turn puts a larger emphasis on funding space sciences...I think you see where I'm going with this.

Bottom line is that the SLS is not the endgame nor the only option in the short- or long-term future, but is another important piece in the puzzle of space exploration.

[Spaceception]

So... I kinda feel this thread has gone a bit off topic, I get the fact that this is about a cancelled SLS payload, but shouldn't we be focusing on ARM instead?

[fredinno]

21 hours ago, Panel said:

This does not surprise me at all. 

I'm glad that they are pushing for the moon again. I could not find a single thing that asteroid missions would help with reaching Mars. 

Asteroid missions would test out the Deep Space HABs, long durations in deep space,  and be applicable to Phobos missions.

21 hours ago, kunok said:

Being so close to the elections this really means something? the next one can give money again. (Not from usa, i could be wrong)

The president and White House are the main political supporters of this mission. Once they are gone, ARM's prospects seem bleak.

21 hours ago, Spaceception said:

Congress needs to get a grip, space exploration isn't for changing stuff up every year, it's for long term missions, once you fund something, keep funding it!

@Red Iron Crown That isn't too political, is it?

This is one case where cancellation was a good thing. No one liked ARM, except Obama.

21 hours ago, PB666 said:

I had my misgivings about the program, namely i did not think it was going to work, it was too dreamy eyed. And from congresses point of view and distrust of government, what if they screwed up and safe asteroid hits earth. That would be the end of space exploration. 

As for funding next cycle, forget that the HoR will not change. 

If they screwed up, the boulder grabbed was intended to be small to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere without damage. Larger objects, like Skylab, have fallen uncontrolled, into Earth's atmosphere at lower speeds, and no one got hurt.

21 hours ago, Astrofox said:

WHAAAAT?!

Someone! Kickstarter this mission!

And I totally agree with that @Spaceception

I don't like that they change stuff that would make us greater, and more memorable for something good rather than redirect funds to:

[insert thing that makes you cringe here]

After all, this'd be the first time man moved a celestial body into orbit around another.

If you call a boulder a celestial body, than sure.

20 hours ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

im not happy about this, as it would have a nice scientific return, but it will free up more money, which is good. what i really hope they do, is build a deep space vehicle, and fly to NEOs, instead of bringing NEOs here.

Nope, the focus has sifted to the Moon, apparently, according to the article.

20 hours ago, insert_name said:

You mean like OSIRIS-REX, the sample return mission from asteroid Bennu. I know @IonStorm is working on it.

ARM would have gotten tons worth of material, vs the grams of OSRIS-REX. ARM is great in the sense we have a lot more stuff to study.

19 hours ago, tater said:

You know that they abandoned moving an entire asteroid a long time ago, right? The last iteration of ARM had a robot probe taking a small rock (a couple hundred kg?) off the surface of the asteroid, then bringing THAT to the L point (think that was the plan), then they send Orion up to pick up the tiny rock. It is no more moving a celestial body into orbit than any single rock sample collected by Apollo was then put into orbit around the Moon by the LEM.

There is nothing about ARM that could not have been done by a robot, sending people was make-work for Orion, nothing more.

It was actually to a distant retrograde lunar orbit, but close enough.

19 hours ago, benjee10 said:

As it stands, ARM really isn't much use as an extinction prevention mission, particularly not the manned portion which, as previously noted, seems like a needlessly complex way of returning an asteroid sample. A purely unmanned redirection mission with the manned portion being reassigned towards a return to the Moon seems a much more sensible proposition to me.

But they canned both....

16 hours ago, Spaceception said:

I've never really agreed with this mission, I wish they just shot straight for Mars, but they've funded it, they have some hardware, just let them do the mission, and stop wasting money!

The problem with that is that bearing a minimalist strategy like Mars Direct (NASA is not interested in doing such a mission), doing a Mars mission would take more than 8 years of no missions, thus, it is at serious risk of cancellation. That's why "direct to Mars" never really takes off, and a good reason why NASA can't go to Mars any time soon- the "interm" asteroid or Moon missions become the "end goal" as the "Mars Dream" goes further away into the distance...

16 hours ago, Boovie said:

One of NASA's upcoming projects is a mission to Europa. With current technology the travel time to Europa would be about 7 years. With the SLS it would be cut to about 3-4 years depending on the launch window. SLS would not the the end game, as you'd have to keep improving, but it would allow us to more easily and quickly explore the entire solar system and beyond. We need the SLS.

As of now, it's about smart spending, but I do want to throw this out there: if NASA's budget today was equivalent to what it was in the days of the Apollo missions, it would be approx. $100 billion. Instead of nitpicking what we fund and don't, let's throw NASA (more or less) that level of funding so that we can expand and explore the solar system and beyond.

But building an entire rocket just for a few robotic missions is not worth it. Sending probes to the outer solar system on SLS is less the end goal, and more "let's use what we have!".

Good luck on that budget part.

16 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

I think they should have at least made a program to try and capture a small roid. The extra stuff isn't necessary. 

But if we put a station at EML-1, we could take the roid there. And send some equipment for prospecting?

Only problem is that neither NASA nor Congress has proposed prospecting. I'd imagine it's because extracting water out of hydrated rock, and bulilding a space smelter is well above NASA's capabilities right now.

I would send a mission to the Lunar Poles to mine water first. At least that would fit inside a discovery budget.

14 hours ago, Robotengineer said:

FH wouldn't work for some of the proposed missions for SLS, but the BFR almost certainly would work (though talking seriously about SpaceX projects with little detail is taboo around here). 

You know why it's taboo? Because we know sh"t about it. You might as well be arguing about the planned OrbitalATK EELV being cheaper than ULA's Vuclan. At least we have information of its basic layout.

And BFR, in any case, is too big. SLS Block 1B send 100T to LEO. BFR sends 100T to MARS TRANSFER. It's OP for any lunar missions, and arguably even early mars missions.

[benjee10]

1 minute ago, fredinno said:

But they canned both....

As of yet, nothing has been canned. It's just a proposal to can the proposal. I really hope they do, but at the moment, it's still going. 

Personally I feel like NASA should be focusing more on developing payloads than launch vehicles. After all, launch vehicles are the closest things to being mass produced in spaceflight, which makes sense to go private, whereas payloads tend to be either unique and mission-specific or at least manufactured at lower quantities than the actual rockets that launch them would be. 

[fredinno]

12 hours ago, Robotengineer said:

Really? So we should just forget that SpaceX is building an SLS class rocket? Just because the old guard pessimists (who hide behind the moniker of 'realism') have to do it their way ('we'd be lucky if we have boots on Mars before we're dead') doesn't mean we have to. I'm not even trying to turn this thread into a SpaceX thread, I only brought it up because @Boovie was making it seem like SLS is the only option for heavy-lift, when it isn't. 

With the 'realistic' outlook, we won't be landing human's on Mars before 2040 anyway, so what will SLS be used for in the 2 decades between when it becomes active and when manned Mars missions become a reality? ARM is off the table, there is the Europa mission, and a few other Cassini style missions floating around, but nothing manned, unless you are going to make up some reason to do a manned mission just to use SLS.

SpaceX is working on Raptor right now and it can be assumed they are working on BFR as well.

Technically, BFR is well above SLS payload capacity.

And there was the Gateway Station being floated around Boeing and NASA for the majority of the SLS program. Lunar missions have been canned so far to allow for Mars by 2039.

9 hours ago, RCgothic said:

I know this was a bad mission, but can we stop killing Orion missions please? The launch rate is awful enough as is!

We need to fund things properly! Permanent moon base by 2025! Boots on Mars by 2035! Let's get some proper infrastructure up there!

I cannot believe how hard people are making this. In 1960 we hadn't even put a man in space. Nine years later, moon! And 50 years later we can barely fund four manned missions over a decade? Come on people! This is so frustrating.

Truth be told, there are more manifested SLS missions- the SLS originally had 2 missions- ARM and EM-1. Now, there are 3 test missions for SLS, and 1 operational mission to send Europa Clipper to Jupiter.

7 hours ago, cantab said:

It's the idea that I sometimes see expressed or implied that governments can do no right and corporations can do no wrong that aggravates me.

Unless you're ULA, LockMart or Boeing. Then, you're worse than the Kraken.

[Robotengineer]

6 hours ago, cantab said:

BFR is not quite a paper project, but it's not much better. It doesn't even have an engine yet. It's at the same kind of point in its development as Skylon, though SpaceX have more money than Reaction Engines to make their thing fly.

Falcon Heavy warrants comparison with SLS, 50 tons to LEO is impressive and does open up possibilities, but it's not 70 tons and it sure isn't a hundred. And sure, NASA funding could get FH and BFR developed and built sooner, but then it's not "private enterprise" as such any more. Indeed Falcon 9 was already partly government funded, and that is not at all a bad thing.

It's the idea that I sometimes see expressed or implied that governments can do no right and corporations can do no wrong that aggravates me.

That is not what I was implying at all. I was simply stating that due to the cumbersomeness of NASA, the institutions it relies on (Congress), and the fact that it doesn't build everything in-house tends to not work in NASA's favor. Public-private partnership is a good middle ground between the two that allows SpaceX to get a cash infusion and NASA to get the benefits of the vehicle at a fraction of the cost of doing it in-house. 

1 hour ago, Boovie said:

I'm not saying that the SLS is the only option nor should it be. We need private industry involved in space exploration. However just because private industry is getting involved does not mean that NASA should become reliable solely on that to get to space.

Regarding humans on Mars, that is one great benefit of SLS, but it also allows you to send probes and landers to other bodies in the solar system much more quickly. This allows us to accelerate the rate at which we make discoveries. The more we can go discover, the more public interest we can generate, which in turn puts a larger emphasis on funding space sciences...I think you see where I'm going with this.

Bottom line is that the SLS is not the endgame nor the only option in the short- or long-term future, but is another important piece in the puzzle of space exploration.

NASA seems to have had no problem relying solely on the Russians for ISS trips. I can understand why you would want to diversify your options, but it doesn't really make sense to invest 18 billion dollars in a rocket that would only speed up transit times for probes (plus, the accelerated rate of discovery comes with more probes, not necessarily the time it takes to send them somewhere, and good luck getting Congress to pay for the SLS launch as well as the probe). I think public interest is generated by actually breaking new ground, not revisiting the same planets with different tools. SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are actually breaking new ground (or perhaps just appear to be breaking new ground). It's also hard to get excited about missions that are 20 years in the future.

[cantab]

4 hours ago, fredinno said:

I would send a mission to the Lunar Poles to mine water first. At least that would fit inside a discovery budget.

*Any* sort of ISRU pilot mission is something I could get behind. Space agencies around the world have been doing and are still doing great pure science, but I think it's time to move to the next step. Prove we can get water on Luna or make rocket fuel on Mars, and pave the way towards not just visiting but living there.

[Frozen_Heart]

I'm not even the slightest bit surprised.

And oh look one less mission for the SLS. That thing is being cancelled a bit at a time. It is never intended to do anything and after a launch or two will be cancelled fully.

[ProtoJeb21]

Sure, the ARM mission may not have been the best, but redirecting asteroids would serve us some use. This would include practice for defecting PHAs and mining space rocks. I don't like how the postponed the test flight for the CST-100 Starliner, which would've been the Russian's big break (I'm sure they're getting really tired of transporting U.S. astronauts to the space station aboard their own rockets). But at least the government is starting to take the Europa mission seriously!

I really hope that the SLS and manned Mars missions aren't cancelled by Congress, or our species will die off quicker. Let's hope none of the presidential candidates have a grudge against NASA, or things will go badly...

[Also, I have no plans to continue talking about the 2016 election or its candidates]

[benjee10]

4 minutes ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

Sure, the ARM mission may not have been the best, but redirecting asteroids would serve us some use. This would include practice for defecting PHAs and mining space rocks. I don't like how the postponed the test flight for the CST-100 Starliner, which would've been the Russian's big break (I'm sure they're getting really tired of transporting U.S. astronauts to the space station aboard their own rockets). But at least the government is starting to take the Europa mission seriously!

As already noted, ARM is useless as practice for defending against asteroids and does nothing that an automated sample return wouldn't do for a lower cost. Plus I should think Russia is dreading the day NASA stops purchasing Soyuz seats from them; if you're NASA, a ride on a Soyuz goes for about the same it costs to launch an entire Falcon 9. 

[fredinno]

18 hours ago, Robotengineer said:

That is not what I was implying at all. I was simply stating that due to the cumbersomeness of NASA, the institutions it relies on (Congress), and the fact that it doesn't build everything in-house tends to not work in NASA's favor. Public-private partnership is a good middle ground between the two that allows SpaceX to get a cash infusion and NASA to get the benefits of the vehicle at a fraction of the cost of doing it in-house. 

NASA seems to have had no problem relying solely on the Russians for ISS trips. I can understand why you would want to diversify your options, but it doesn't really make sense to invest 18 billion dollars in a rocket that would only speed up transit times for probes (plus, the accelerated rate of discovery comes with more probes, not necessarily the time it takes to send them somewhere, and good luck getting Congress to pay for the SLS launch as well as the probe). I think public interest is generated by actually breaking new ground, not revisiting the same planets with different tools. SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are actually breaking new ground (or perhaps just appear to be breaking new ground). It's also hard to get excited about missions that are 20 years in the future.

But how much NASA and how much private? That is the question.

And the time it takes to send probes places DOES matter, since it means it takes that much longer to get the data, plan, and lobby for new missions.

Granted, it's nice you said something about breaking new ground, since the only real locations for planetary probes to "break new ground" are high delta-V/transit time locations, like the Jupiter Trojans, Uranus, Neptune, Kuiper Belt, etc. that benefit the most from a HLV like SLS.  Also, human missions that "break new ground" benefit the most from SLS, since it's a lot easier to build, say a Lunar Orbital Station, that are "new".

 

And the entire SLS infrastructure was originally JUPITER DIRECT and Constellation, merged. Both were for manned missions to the Moon- only the destination has been changed, and now we have this situation. Turns out NASA and manned Mars missions is a bad combination.

18 hours ago, cantab said:

*Any* sort of ISRU pilot mission is something I could get behind. Space agencies around the world have been doing and are still doing great pure science, but I think it's time to move to the next step. Prove we can get water on Luna or make rocket fuel on Mars, and pave the way towards not just visiting but living there.

They have an ISRU experiment to extract O2 from the Martian atmosphere on Mars 2020, but I think it's safe to say ISRU lags in NASA priorities.  

I think piggybacking on human missions (Orion/SLS) is the only real way we'll get it. Humans need ISRU to be used as much as possible.

17 hours ago, Frozen_Heart said:

I'm not even the slightest bit surprised.

And oh look one less mission for the SLS. That thing is being cancelled a bit at a time. It is never intended to do anything and after a launch or two will be cancelled fully.

Once the ISS dies, NASA will have no "Jobs program" at all. Plus, SLS/Orion consistently gets higher budgets every year. Congress is the string-puller, and NASA would have to do what they like.

 

I think a lot of people WANT the SLS/Orion program to die, because they have some false premise that NASA and SpaceX are somehow competitors.

Spoiler: They're in completely different businesses, and cutting one side of the NASA budget will NOT add money to the other. This has been shown empirically- and is largely due to the fact NASA does not have a fixed budget that they can decide what gets what.

People on all sides of NASA support need to stop fighting against each other, because they think "freeing up" one part of the budget works. It rarely does. 

Unity, not division.

16 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

Sure, the ARM mission may not have been the best, but redirecting asteroids would serve us some use. This would include practice for defecting PHAs and mining space rocks. I don't like how the postponed the test flight for the CST-100 Starliner, which would've been the Russian's big break (I'm sure they're getting really tired of transporting U.S. astronauts to the space station aboard their own rockets). But at least the government is starting to take the Europa mission seriously!

I really hope that the SLS and manned Mars missions aren't cancelled by Congress, or our species will die off quicker. Let's hope none of the presidential candidates have a grudge against NASA, or things will go badly...

[Also, I have no plans to continue talking about the 2016 election or its candidates]

Did you actually LOOK at the latest ARM plans?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_Redirect_Mission

Then tell me how useful something like that actually IS.

And Russia is dreading the day when NASA stops buying Soyuz from them, because that means they suddenly have a whole lot less money to work with, and they'll have to put even more programs (likely Soyuz-V, their Space Station, and/or PPTS) on the chopping block. Honestly, at that budget, they would be well off being able to maintain their current commitments.

[HebaruSan]

14 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Spoiler: They're in completely different businesses, and cutting one side of the NASA budget will NOT add money to the other. This has been shown empirically- and is largely due to the fact NASA does not have a fixed budget that they can decide what gets what.

People on all sides of NASA support need to stop fighting against each other, because they think "freeing up" one part of the budget works. It rarely does. 

Unity, not division.

Can anyone speak to how many US federal agencies operate like this, with individual line items allocated by Congress? Is it most of them or just a few? Regardless of your individual program preferences, a single chunk of money for NASA to allocate autonomously according to broadly defined priorities (promote domestic aerospace industry, service some LEO payloads, develop manned space presence, do planetary science) should at least result in more continuity, as it's more difficult to change broad goals than the specifics of budgets. I wonder whether that reform would be possible.

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:

Can anyone speak to how many US federal agencies operate like this, with individual line items allocated by Congress? Is it most of them or just a few? Regardless of your individual program preferences, a single chunk of money for NASA to allocate autonomously according to broadly defined priorities (promote domestic aerospace industry, service some LEO payloads, develop manned space presence, do planetary science) should at least result in more continuity, as it's more difficult to change broad goals than the specifics of budgets. I wonder whether that reform would be possible.

You wish. But then NASA would be able to cut a lot of pork, in and outside of the HSF budget. And that's not what Congress wants.

And I'm fairly certain most federal agencies operate with individual items allocated by Congress. At least the DOD and NOAA do.

[cubinator]

Quote

Most of that increase will go to fund a mission to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

That's definitely a better destination than some boulder.