Secondo Berger - quindi da prendere con tutte le cautele del caso - girano voci di un possibile taglio del 50% al budget del Science Mission Directorate.
Multiple people familiar with the White House proposal said cuts to NASA’s “Science Mission Directorate” could be as high as 50 percent. These sources emphasized that no decisions are final, and there are some scenarios in which the cuts to NASA’s science programs would be less. But the intent is to slash science.
Un taglio di questa entità potrebbe comportare l’abbandono delle Voyager, di Curiosity e Hubble.
Scientists told Ars that NASA would be forced to make difficult decisions, likely including shutting off extended missions such as the Voyager and Curiosity probes on Mars, and possibly even the Hubble Space Telescope. It might be possible to save missions in later stages of development, such as the Dragonfly probe to Saturn’s moon Titan, and the NEO Surveyor mission to search for hazardous asteroids. But it would be impossible to start meaningful new missions to explore the Solar System, potentially setting back planetary exploration a decade.
Il taglio sembrerebbe in linea con quanto scritto da Russell Vought in un budget “fantasma” del 2023.
The proposed cuts are being driven by Russell Vought, the recently confirmed director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, which sets budget and policy priorities for a presidential administration. In some sense, the budgetary decisions should not come as a surprise, as they are consistent with what Vought proposed in a “shadow” budget for fiscal-year 2023 as part of his Center for Renewing America.
Edit.
Le voci sembrano confermate anche da Planetary Society che ha già lanciato un appello e da un docente di Planetary Science della Washington University.
Edit.
Arriva anche l’American Astronomical Society.