FEDERAL FUNDING/NASA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The White House is requesting an additional $1.6 billion ‘down payment’ for next year to help finance its ambitious goal of returning American astronauts to the moon in 2024. But it declined to say where the money would come from. The budget amendment, sent to Capitol Hill Monday [5-13-19] night, is in addition to the $21 billion already requested by NASA for the fiscal year that begins in October…Yet the NASA chief could not provide an estimate of what the effort will cost over the next five years, nor did he explain what government programs would have to be cut to finance the effort. He did stress, however, that the additional funding would not come at the expense of NASA’s science missions, which have been fiercely protected by lawmakers in the past.”
–Jacqueline Klimas, “Trump seeks new ‘down payment’ for moon mission,” Politico, May 13, 2019 8:10 pm