NASA’s recently announced budget for 2025 allocates more than $1 billion for preparations for a manned flight to Mars. The main focus is on attracting private companies.
Flight to Mars and private companies
US President Donald Trump believes that one of NASA’s most important tasks is a manned flight to Mars, and nothing else. This conclusion can be drawn from the results of an analysis of the recently published budget proposal for space management for 2026.
It has allocated more than $1 billion for preparations for the flight to the red planet. At the same time, a significant part of this amount should go towards implementing a program of commercial services for delivering payloads to Mars. Simply put, some of the tasks are planned to be transferred to private companies, as it was done within the CLPS program, which was part of the Artemis project.
It is expected that private manufacturers will develop spacesuits and life support systems, and NASA will purchase them from them. All of this meshes well with Elon Musk’s ambitious plans to establish a settlement on Mars in the near future.
NASA’s budget cuts
All this is happening against the background of a 25% reduction in NASA’s overall budget. Next year, it will be only $18.8 billion. At the same time, a large number of scientific programs will be subject to cuts. Many scientists also risk losing their jobs.
The Artemis program and the construction of Orion spacecraft for it will be phased out gradually. It is expected that the development of a replacement for it will be carried out according to the same principle applied in the development of the Falcon 9 rocket.
Against this background, a very strange story is unfolding with the appointment of the NASA director. Jared Isaacman, who was nominated for this position and was relatively balanced in his statements, suddenly ceased to be favored by Trump. It is unclear who will now be nominated for this position, but scientists should not expect anything good.
According to phys.org
