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Trump presidency may jeopardize NASA’s plans regarding the Mars mission and its connections with other space stations.
STATES CHRONICLE – It is well-known that NASA has been preparing for a Mars mission for quite a while now. Apparently, Trump presidency is supervising and scrutinizing the plans of NASA’s scientists. The mission is to the eye of the new president, becoming a primordial goal set by the American space administration. Nevertheless, NASA has sealed in the Red Planet mission before the beginning of the US Presidential election.
Regarding the positive outcome NASA received from the Obama presidency, they were expected to obtain the same results if Hillary Clinton was the one to win the election, being bound to continue the initiative launched by Obama. Now, the unexpected victory of Donald Trump has caused NASA to tremble, possibly being forced to rethink its position.
Thus, NASA needs to postpone the settlements they had with Russia and the European Space Agency (ESA) to delay the joint space travels. Based on the declarations of Keith Cowing, the former NASA personnel, the victory of Hillary Clinton would have been very helpful, being anticipated because the Democrats are more likely to encourage the space program.
After Trump winning, the uncertainty infiltrated soon after the elections. Apparently, many advisers were left behind, being excluded from the President-elect’s circle. NASA assumed that those people might have been their supporters. Thus NASA coped with doubts at that point. Nevertheless, there appeared Christopher Shank who acted upon the transition group, bringing a ray of hope. The former senior policy employee at NASA has also been a member of the House Science Committee of the US Congress.
Since Shank is part of Trump’s team, it is clear that he will observe NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) which will be bound to send astronauts to the Red Planet. Even though Shank is there to boost NASA’s confidence, it could also be precarious because SLS has been carefully analyzed because of the sky-rocketing budget. Estimating that the launch system will release four projects starting with 2018 until 2026, this program is bound to be extremely expensive.
The SLS was criticized due to the progress obtained by Elon Musk with SpaceX unveiling the fabrication of its Heavy Falcon rocket. Lori Garver, who was part of Obama’s transition team back in 2008 and she became NASA’s Deputy Administrator in 2009, has argued that the cancellation of the SLS program will be Trump’s best decision.
Image courtesy of: wikipedia
