NASA Mars Missions About To End?

NASA Mars mission has sparked the interest in space explorations in the recent years. However, reports indicated that some legislators have been pushing to stop the funding of the Space Technology Mission Directorate of NASA, which was tasked to develop the required technology to get to Mars.

Doubts regarding the NASA Mars mission are common among the lawmakers, especially for Alabama Republican Senator Richard Shelby. The legislator recently made an effort to redirect the $30 million funding for advanced research in the current budget proposal for projects on the launch of small satellites. At present, the small-satellite market is experiencing improvement in the private sector, which means that the help of NASA is not that needed. Also, the feature appears to be made to benefit the companies that are working in Shelby's backyard.

With the current NASA Mars mission proposed funding of $687 million, $189 million is reported to be subject to the same qualities. Those featured funds would rather go to projects that are connected to the  Mars mission like the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator of NASA, which is an experimental way of landing huge payloads on the surfaces of the planet.  The Decelerator is among the many advanced projects that are having delays due to the budget deficit, according to Daily Read List.

Senator Shelby, having the power over the budget for NASA, has taken advantage of this to promote the Space Launch System, a heavy rocket which is being developed at the Marshall Space Flight located at the legislator's home state. Such agenda has shifted the help from NASA's Mars mission as well as the partnerships with other private organizations like the SpaceX, whose reusable rockets may be developed into a more affordable option to the SLS.

NASA's SpaceX, meanwhile has been successful in spite of the limited help and has already committed to its plan of conquering the Red planet.  If the lawmakers will keep on preventing NASA, it appears that the private company will most likely beat the whole US government to among the most determined goals of the modern time,  Space Trendolizer reported.