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For the first time in more than six years, both chambers of Congress passed a bill that approves funding for NASA and gives the space agency new mandates [Ed: Link not AdBlock friendly].
The NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017 is a bill that the Senate and House collaborated on for months, and it appropriates $19.5 billion to the agency. (NASA received $19.3 billion in 2016, or 0.5% of the total federal budget.)
When the Senate brought the bill before the House of Representatives for a vote on March 7, "no members spoke against the bill" and it passed, according to Jeff Foust at Space News.
The document asks NASA to create a roadmap for getting humans "near or on the surface of Mars in the 2030s." It also calls on the space agency to continue developing the Space Launch System (SLS) — a behemoth rocket — and the Orion space capsule in order to eventually go to the moon, Mars, and beyond.
It also cancels a mission to capture an asteroid, and calls on the space agency to search for aliens.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:44AM
"If the government wants to send e̶m̶p̶l̶o̶y̶e̶e̶s̶ VOLUNTEERS to Mars,"
FTFY I say that it is perfectly ethical for government to enable it's citizens to attain their dreams. This is not the CoDominium, and NASA isn't the Bureau of Relocation, and there is no Bureau of Population. We aren't rounding up undesirables by the tens of thousands and dumping them on unexplored worlds to fend for themselves. Maybe in a couple hundred years, but not today. Everyone who goes to Mars in your lifetime or mine will be VOLUNTEERS.