White House warns Congress about Artemis fundingby Jeff Foust — November 7, 2019
The White House's Office of Management and Budget warned Senate appropriators in a letter last month that without funding increases for exploration R&D programs, like lunar landers, NASA won't be able to get humans back to the moon by 2024. Credit: NASAWASHINGTON — The White House warned Congress in a recent letter that without funding increases for its exploration programs, NASA won’t be able to achieve the goal of landing humans on the moon in 2024.
The Oct. 23 letter from Russell Vought, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, addressed overall issues with appropriations bills that Shelby’s committee had approved in recent weeks, including the Commerce, Justice and Science (CJS) bill that funds NASA.
“The Administration appreciates the Committee’s continued support for space exploration, reflected in the $22.8 billion provided in the bill for NASA,” Vought wrote in the letter, first reported by Ars Technica.
He took issue, though, with the funding provided for exploration research and development, which includes work on lunar landers and the lunar Gateway.
“However, the $1.6 billion provided for exploration research and development (R&D) is insufficient to fully fund the lander system that astronauts would use to return to the Moon in 2024,” he wrote. “Funding exploration R&D at the $2.3 billion level requested in the FY 2020 Budget is needed to support the Administration’s goal of returning to the Moon by 2024.”
The $1.64 billion included in the Senate bill for exploration R&D is slightly higher than the original administration request for $1.58 billion released early this year. However, in May the White House requested an additional $1.6 billion in funding for NASA to achieve the goal of returning humans to the moon by 2024. That included $1 billion for lunar landers and $132 million for exploration technology, but a cut in Gateway funding of $321 million. Those changes increase the total exploration R&D request to more than $2.3 billion. (...)
https://spacenews.com/white-house-warns-congress-about-artemis-funding/