Trump has officially signed a bill that will fund NASA billions of dollars so that they can explore Mars. The bill has been pending and was officially signed today. Trump and NASA will be sending people on Mars hopefully by 2030s.
This is the first funding bill in a long time for NASA. Trump just signed a $19.5 billion in funding for NASA, Washington Post reported. The bill was part of Trump's plan and budget blueprint that was released last week. There will be no budget cut for NASA unlike other science and medical agencies. Trump's administration has fully supported NASA's long-time goal of sending people on Mars in place of other sciences huge budget loss.
The construction of Space Launch System and the Orion crew will be funded continuously by the Congress. Trump and his administration have voiced ever since his campaign that NASA should focus outside Earth and in Mars, IGN stated. "Should be a multi-mission space agency and should have a balanced and robust set of core missions in space science, space technology, aeronautics, human space flight and exploration, and education," the bill has specifically said.
Other specifications of the bill were astronauts will get a lifetime healthcare. NASA is also required to pay for its own monitoring, diagnosis and treatment of any health problems related to spaceflight for all former astronauts. NASA has been doing those things except the curing of the astronauts after finding out their diseases.
On the other hand, NASA will also be boosting the private space companies. They might allow more commercial space flights in the future like with the SpaceX. NASA is really for space exploration and not within Earth, said Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. This new bill will probably cut the budget of Earth science-related things that NASA does but it will stay true to what it was built for, deep space exploration.
