President Trump’s proposed budget calls for some big cuts but NASA’s budget has been cut by less than one percent. NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, which employs some 1550 government workers and about 1600 private contractors, appears to escape largely unharmed.
NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot told his employees that the Trump budget cuts some programs but overall it tells them “keep going.” He mentioned several of the projects that will continue at Glenn like the testing on a supersonic plane and the solar powered electric rocket engine. The budget kills the Asteroid Redirect Mission which is partly designed to save the planet from an asteroid collission. But Lightfoot says that program wouldn’t die completely.
"While we’re ending the Asteroid Redirect Mission moving forward we will take those technologies from solar electric propulsion – probably the best example- and move forward those and actually morph those into a different mission.”
The budget also eliminates programs aimed at measuring global warming and NASA’s education office but Lightfoot wants the administration to continue to inspire –what he calls - the Mars Generation.
“It’s what we do. We do it through our missions. We do it through the many ways of the work that excites that and encourages the discovery by learners and educators going forward.”
Lightwood said they would announce a new crew of astronauts in the coming weeks – 18,000 people applied. Congress will have the final say on the budget.