The funding for Spitzer and Kepler, and all other US missions, is determined by NASA, and as happens every year, mission teams are eagerly waiting to see what kind of a spending bill and policy directive comes out of the US Congress. Funding bills are proposed by the president, rewritten by the house, and further edited by the senate before they ever get passed. On Friday, the US House of Representatives released HR 5666, a bill that takes everything the president and VP planned and throws it out an airlock. If passed, this plan will kill off the Artemis Program’s fast pass to the moon, as dictated by VP Pence, and mandate NASA plans for Mars instead of the Moon. It also relies on Boeing and the Space Launch System.

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation issued a Sunday night statement: “As written, the NASA Authorization bill would not create a sustainable space exploration architecture and would instead set NASA up for failure by eliminating commercial participation and competition in key programs. As NASA and the White House have repeatedly stated, any sustainable space exploration effort must bring together the best of government and commercial industry to achieve a safe and affordable 21st century space enterprise.”

So far this is just a proposed bill. It still needs to be voted on. 

This is your friendly reminder that we have the ability to sway the opinions of our congress critters, and if you want to see a different future from NASA, it’s time to pick up your phone and make some calls. Dream big, and dream sustainable.

More on this;

House legislators want to hand NASA’s human spaceflight program over to Boeing (Ars Technica)