Budget cuts hit NASA hard
NASA has big dreams, but a shrinking team.
NASA’s acting administrator and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is starting his tenure at the space agency with a big goal: build a nuclear fission reactor on the moon.
Nuclear power is not new to space, according to Planetary Society’s Casey Drier. It's been used to power spacecraft like the Voyager probes or Mars rovers. Nuclear fission on the moon is a logical next step.
“If you want to do anything more than a camping trip to the moon, you will need to stay and somehow have power for the lunar night,” Drier said. “Fission is the most efficient way to provide that.”
Even with the plan of nuclear power on the moon, the Trump administration seems to be pulling away from NASA in an effort to cut costs. The agency faces a proposed 25% cut to its budget, affecting many of its science, technology and nuclear propulsion projects. Additionally, NASA has lost at least a fifth of its workforce within a single year. The agency has been left with its smallest civil servant workforce since 1961, according to an analysis by The Planetary Society.
“When you lose that many people that quickly, do you know how to do things? Do you know how to do things safely? Do you know how to do things efficiently, effectively?” Drier asked. “If the goal is seemingly just to reduce headcount, I guess they're doing it. But what are they sacrificing for that?”
Congress, however, appears opposed to the proposed cuts to NASA’s budget. The Senate completely rejected the Trump administration’s cuts and even increased funding for various science missions, which would save them from cancellation. The House maintained the previous budget for NASA prior to the cuts. Despite the proposed 18% cut to scientific funding, the House version allots more money to the Artemis mission and human spaceflight. Whether those funds will make it to the agency remains unclear.
“We're not popping champagne corks, because we have a very aggressive interpretation of executive power from the budget director at the White House, who says that Congressional appropriations are a ceiling, not a floor, for spending, and that the President, if he so chooses, cannot spend any money appropriated by Congress,” Drier said.
Commercial flight speeds up while Duffy plays catch-up
To keep up with other countries’ plans to put humans on the moon, America’s space program needs nuclear power.
Duffy’s plan for a nuclear power plant on the Moon by 2030 is ambitious, but this idea didn’t come out of nowhere. China has planned to build a nuclear power reactor for the International Lunar Research Station, a joint project between China and Russia. The two nations have planned their reactor to be completed by the mid 2030’s.
Space Policy Analyst Laura Forczyk explained that work on science research at NASA, like the search for water and minerals on the moon, has fallen to the wayside in the wake of the current administration. In exchange, it prioritized exploration and competition with China.
“We are losing this race, if it is a race, because we are definitely behind in what China is doing and plans to do, and this is a way that we can keep up with the plans that they've already enacted,” Forczyk said.
Without a reactor, a combination of solar power was the go-to method for space missions. Using solar panels to power scientific instruments and storing excess power in batteries during the two-week lunar sunlight works during short visits to the moon. It’s the following two weeks of darkness that present a problem.
“We're so used to the sun shining down on the moon that we do solar panels,” Forczyk said. “That's what we're used to, but if we want to stay there long term, if we want to stay there for months, weeks, even, we need some other source of energy, and that's nuclear power.”
Efficiency has been on the administration’s mind, especially with commercial spaceflight. Setbacks and delays were common, caused by the licensing process and regulations through the Federal Aviation Administration. The Trump administration has issued an executive order aimed at creating a faster process to grant launch and landing licenses where previous reformation efforts have failed. The order has garnered bipartisan support.
“I don't think anybody on either side [of the aisle] wants to slow down commercial space flight. I think there's a general understanding that companies like SpaceX and others really need to move forward in order to do what the United States Government wants it to do,” Forczyk said. “What we want to do with the International Space Station, and then going on to the Moon and Mars, we really need to ramp up the way that we do launch here in the United States.”
