The MESSENGER has run its course and NASA is on its next adventure. Or is trying to be. At the Kennedy Space station in Florida, Charlie Bolden of the NASA administration announced plans for raising their budget of about a half-billion more. This is believed that it would provide NASA with the necessary resources to continue to advance in America’s bipartisan space exploration plans. The 2016 budget begins October first and the NASA 2016 budget could very well benefit humankind.
The ongoing programs will hopefully keep the United States in the lead when it comes to space exploration and discoveries. On February second, Charlie Bolden spoke to Congress at the Kennedy’s Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building. Bolden focused on recent progress such as NASA’s spaceship named MESSENGER successfully orbiting and capturing pictures and information about Mercury. It’s important to focus on the success that NASA has been having to increase the NASA 2016 budget.
President Obama is proposing $18.5 billion for NASA considering the significant investments that the space program has made over the past six years. NASA’s 2016 budget believes this will further help with their discovery and journey to Mars that Bolden says will happen.
Not only will this budget help further the plan for Mars, but it will also help with Orion. Orion is a spacecraft built to be able to take humans further than they could ever dream. Like the spacecraft that is currently orbiting around space with Scott Kelly on board, Orion will serve as an exploration vehicle. Not only that but Orion will carry the crew to space, provide emergency abort capabilities if needed, keep the crew comfortable during space travel as well as a safe re-entry.
The $18.5 billion NASA 2016 budget increase is $500 million more than what NASA had last year. It’s firmly believed that a budget increase would keep NASA on the right tracks to Mars. Not only will the budget help NASA get to Mars but it will also help fund a developing mission. NASA plans to make a trip to Jupiter’s moon, Europa.
The NASA 2016 budget will significantly help develop humankind in a way that NASA wishes to up until the year 2030. With the increase in budget comes sacrifice though. Although a trip to Mars is definitely in the works, Opportunity, the rover currently checking Mars out for the people down below, is showing its age. There has been recent problems with Opportunity’s flash memory and an increase in budget may be the end of Opportunity.
Although Opportunity’s mission was originally planned to stop this year, NASA found more money to fund it and keep it going. With the NASA 2016 budget, they should get an allowance of less than $5.3 billion. The money will go to science missions as well as the development of the James Webb Space Telescope which is expected to launch in 2018, helping the Hubble Space Telescope.
