Trump administration cuts NASA funding where it would benefit 'big oil'

         Just this week the white house made a budget proposal that cancels NASA's asteroid redirect Mission, and four earth science mission in development. These missions would have allowed for humanity to start developing asteroid mining and monitor climate with advanced sensors, but that data is against the interests of a capitalist backed Trump regime, with Rex Tillerson as the secretary of state, we're probably not going to get the truth from much-needed satellites.  the 19.1 billion budget for NASA cuts about one percent of the agency's budget.

The canceled projects predictably are against the interests of Oil and Energy industry:
an eco-research satellite that would have monitored levels of Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite that would have given scientists data and more accurate weather reports was canceled. The Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) Pathfinder and Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) 3 instruments for the International Space Station, and "DSCOVR earth-viewing instruments," a reference to the Earth observation instruments on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR),, launched in 2015

This is the flagrant weaponization of corporate interest against all people of earth, and these projects would have helped us pay attention to our own atmosphere and our own planet's future like many critics of NASA funding argue we should.

Despite these downsides of the budget, there is a renewed interest in Mars 2020 rover mission and the Europa Clipper mission, allowing us to keep exploring our red neighbor and search for life under Europas icy shell and sample microbes coming up from its underground ocean of water.
Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, alluded to the lack of funding for a Europea lander mission in a briefing with reporters March 15. His statement shows a lack of professionalism, "I think we changed one of the missions to a moon at Saturn or Jupiter, but I can't remember the details on that," he said. Europa is a moon of Jupiter.

The administration also cut a satellite restoration project. Other agencies suffered losses. the EPA suffered a 31 percent loss of funding while the State Department was cut 28 percent. This is all while the economy is doing well and the cost of things rises at normal inflation levels. In this climate you'd expect a raising of funding levels to meet inflation.

Instead of rising funding, these programs will at least be maintained: The Joint Polar Satellite System, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, weather satellite programs, but money will be siphoned away from JPSS or joint polar Follow-On program that funds development because the administration isn't worried about a gap in polar coverage. But that's just it, a gap in polar coverage would benefit the industries that put out gasses harmful to the Ozone layer that keeps your skin from peeling off in the sun and allowed life to flourish on earth.
We need to be critical, but the outcry has been muted at best as every branch of government that wishes to do good is plagued by the administration's maneuvers in it's member's interests.


Via spacenews.com