New White House budget spells trouble for NASA’s SLS rocket

An artist's impression of the Space Launch System on the launch pad in Florida. (credit: NASA)

With a Republican White House and a Democratic House of Representatives, it almost goes without saying that the President's fiscal year 2020 budget request won't get far within Congress. Yet with NASA's budget, there are intriguing hints about the increasingly commercial nature of lunar exploration.

Two sources familiar with the thinking of Vice President Mike Pence-who leads US space policy-have said he is frustrated with the slow pace of the nation's efforts to send humans to the Moon. In particular, he is growing tired of delays with NASA's Space Launch System rocket, which was originally due to launch in 2017 and is now likely delayed until 2021 at the earliest.

Notably, President Donald Trump's budget request calls for a 17 percent reduction in the budget for NASA's Space Launch System rocket, once viewed as the backbone of the space agency's efforts to explore deep space. The president's budget request chips away at the supremacy of the SLS booster in three important ways.

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