NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine testified about NASA missions, programs and future plans before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Wednesday in Washington, D.C. NASA is seeking more than $7 billion in additional funding during the current fiscal year and nearly $28 billion over the next four years.
“If we get to February of 2021 without an appropriation, that’s going to really put the brakes on our ability to achieve a moon landing by as early as 2024,” said Bridenstine.
The House of Representatives circumvented new appropriation bills to avoid a possible government shutdown until December.
“The chief reason to go to the moon is because it accelerates our path to Mars,” said Bridenstine. “We believe it is important for the first person to land on Mars to be an American astronaut and we want to make sure that when we do go to Mars, we go with our international partners. This is about American leadership.”
NASA is working toward a November 2021 unmanned test launch of the Artemis project. Bridenstine reported the rocket is on schedule for an eight-minute test firing in November at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.
He also discussed the space agency’s need for funding to develop private commercial space stations as an eventual replacement for the International Space Station and the development of a global framework to track the growing problem of orbital space debris.
The space station will become too old or outdated to maintain as it is nearly 20 years old.
“If the International Space Station comes to the end of its life and we don’t have commercial space stations, there’s going to be a lot of rockets that aren’t going to get launched,” said Bridenstine.
He said NASA needs global agreements among nations to monitor and mitigate space debris in a more coordinated effort. That will require Congress to fund and authorize outreach, data collection and a data clearinghouse to catalog and track the debris.
Bridenstine advised the congressional committee that the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency recently announced a 50% growth in its budget to provide aid to the Artemis project.