Trump to Cut NASA's Climate Change Budget, Shift Focus to the Moon

Now that President-elect Donald Trump is meeting with his transition committee, NASA is more than ever, prepared to welcome the new leader. However, speculations are circulating saying that Trump threatens to decrease the agency's climate change budget to shift focus on the moon and the solar system.

Reports say that Donald Trump will cut NASA's budget to fund missions that will send humans on the edge of the Solar System and to the moon. Although it may sound appealing, that the new leader is actually interested in deep space explorations, it is despondent to hear that the president-elect might still think climate change is a hoax due to this move.

Some changes will also be experienced by NASA as it is said to be reduced to "a logistics agency concentrating on space station resupply and politically correct environmental monitoring," said Bob Walker, one of Donald Trump's space policy adviser in an interview with Telegraph. "We would start by having a stretch goal of exploring the entire solar system by the end of the century," Walker added.

The new administration wants NASA to focus on space programs instead on Earth-based climate change programs. Although again, it is enticing to see the new president thinking of space explorations, NASA will definitely not be happy with what looks like Trump's intentional disregard to the pressing issues of climate change.

But NASA is adamant in saying the Earth-based programs is entirely beneficial to human life. "Nasa's work on Earth science is making a difference in people's lives all around the world every day. Earth science helps save lives," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA science administrator said in a statement.

Since Trump's advisers already mentioned a possible lunar mission, experts around the world say that Trump may indeed send humans to the moon under his administration. "It is very plausible to speculate that the new administration will insert a mission to the lunar surface, probably international in character, as a step on the way to Mars," John Logston, a science policy analyst said in a statement.

NASA received $1.92 billion this year. However, there is no percentage revealed as to how much of the agency's climate change budget will be sacrificed.