Some of NASA's facilities are considered inefficient and outdated, but plans to streamline NASA have faced many obstacles in Congress.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has a long history of fulfilling the American space ambitions. The agency has built 38 rocket test stands in 6 areas across the country, with construction and refurbishment costs reaching hundreds of millions of dollars. However, most of these test stands have not been operational for a long time.
In September, NASA’s inspector general said that only 10 test stands would be operational by 2026, partly due to the increasing number of private companies involved in spacecraft construction. The rocket stand saga is just one of NASA’s long-standing problems, with facilities deteriorating but not enough funding to properly maintain them, while Congress is reluctant to cut them for the sake of jobs, according to Forbes .
Donald Trump (right) and former US Vice President Mike Pence watch the launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in May 2020.
Now that President-elect Donald Trump is returning to the White House with a view to cutting government spending, the plan to streamline NASA is expected to be realized. In addition, Mr. Trump's upcoming government companion is billionaire Elon Musk, founder of the aerospace company SpaceX and will manage the Government Efficiency Oversight Committee.
Giant machine
Republican space policy insiders say the Trump administration may be able to tackle a difficult task: closing some of NASA's 10 major field centers, something that has been politically impossible for decades.
In the US, NASA has 5,000 buildings and structures worth a total of about $53 billion, covering more than 54,000 hectares across all 50 states, with most of the facilities concentrated in 10 field centers. The cost of maintaining all of these facilities is increasingly burdening NASA, as half of them were built in the 1960s to serve the Apollo missions - taking astronauts to the moon.
NASA says 83% of its infrastructure is older than its expected lifespan. The cost of deferred maintenance has ballooned to more than $3.3 billion and is increasing by $250 million a year.
Casey Dreier, of the Planetary Society, a non-profit organization that specializes in space policy, said that NASA's sprawl across the United States was a deliberate strategy by former NASA Administrator James Webb to maximize political support for the agency, according to Forbes . NASA's 10 field centers previously operated independently and tended to compete with each other for jobs, leading to overlapping systems across locations.
Among the field facilities are Glenn Center (Ohio), Ames Center (North Carolina) and Langley Center (Virginia), all of which predate 1945 and are under consideration for merger. In addition, Stennis Center (Mississippi) has many unused rocket test stands. The four facilities employ about 15,000 civil servants and temporary workers. As of 2023, NASA will have more than 19,700 civil servants and about 50,000 temporary workers.
NASA’s efforts to downsize have often been blocked by Congress, which tends to protect jobs in their districts, and the cuts have been relatively small over the years. Since 2010, NASA has only given up about 64 hectares of land in divestment plans.
NASA spokeswoman Jennifer Dooren said the agency is working on a strategic roadmap that includes divestment over the next 20 years as it addresses "challenges posed by significant shortfalls in maintenance and construction budgets."
Donald Trump speaks at NASA in Florida in May 2020
What can Trump do?
Experts say that to overcome congressional opposition, Mr. Trump may need to push hard for a proposal similar to the one applied to the military, which is to establish a bipartisan commission like the Base Restructuring and Closure Commission - created by Congress to coordinate the closure of five US military bases between 1988 and 2005. However, NASA's case will be difficult to compare with the military, which is much larger and can compensate.
In the short term, the Trump administration could consider cutting NASA’s budget, with the creation of the Department of Oversight of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamey, to examine where government spending is inefficient. Trump has also appointed billionaire Jared Isaacman, a close friend of Musk, to head NASA.
In addition, space industry experts predict that Mr. Trump will push NASA and the US Department of Defense to sign more contracts with private companies outside, instead of using their own capital to maintain capabilities. One example given is the removal of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which costs $4 billion per launch, and replacing it with SpaceX's Starship rocket. However, once again, the issue of jobs, such as for employees developing SLS, will become an obstacle for lawmakers to pass.
“Everyone acknowledges that NASA doesn’t need 10 field centers,” a person who worked for Trump during the NASA transition in 2016 told Forbes . “The question is how tough is the president going to be.”
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/cho-ong-trump-giai-bai-toan-tinh-gon-nasa-185241211103348713.htm
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