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    How NASA Would Struggle Without SpaceX if Trump Cancels Musk’s Contracts

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    If President Trump cancels the contracts for Elon Musk’s private spaceflight company, the federal government would struggle to achieve many goals in orbit and beyond.In 2006, a small, little-known company named Space Exploration Technologies Corporation — SpaceX, for short — won a NASA contract to ferry cargo and supplies to the International Space Station.At that moment, SpaceX had not yet launched anything to orbit and would not succeed until two years later with its tiny Falcon 1 rocket. But since then, the Elon Musk-founded company has become the linchpin of all American civilian and military spaceflight.It started in 2010 with the launch of the first Falcon 9 rocket. By 2012 the launcher was sending cargo to the space station.NASA money helped finance the development of the Falcon 9, and SpaceX capitalized on the NASA seal of approval to entice companies to launch their satellites with SpaceX.It became the Southwest Airlines of the rocket industry, selling launches and hauling satellites into orbit at a lower price than most other rockets then available.That story repeated during the Obama administration when SpaceX won a contract to take astronauts to the space station, which it did for the first time in May 2020 during the first administration of President Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump to Withdraw Musk’s Ally as Nominee for Top NASA Job

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      Jared Isaacman was a close associate of Elon Musk, whose SpaceX company has multiple contracts with NASA.President Trump on Saturday said that he planned to withdraw his nomination of Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and close associate of Elon Musk’s, to be the next NASA administrator, days before Mr. Isaacman’s expected confirmation to the role by the Senate.Mr. Trump in recent days told associates he intended to yank Mr. Isaacman’s nomination after being told that he had donated to prominent Democrats, according to three people with knowledge of the deliberations who were not authorized to discuss them publicly. Mr. Trump said on social media on Saturday that he had conducted a “thorough review of prior associations” before deciding to withdraw the nomination.Mr. Trump added that he would “soon announce a new Nominee who will be Mission aligned, and put America First in Space.”The U-turn was the latest example of how Mr. Trump uses loyalty as a key criterion for top administration roles, and came at a fraught moment for the space agency. NASA has so far been spared the deep cuts that have hit the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and other federal research agencies. But the Trump administration’s budget proposal for 2026 seeks to slice the space agency’s budget by one-quarter, lay off thousands of employees and end financing for a slew of current and future missions.The Trump administration also wants to overhaul NASA’s human spaceflight program, ending the Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule initiatives after the Artemis III mission that is to land astronauts on the moon in 2027 and adding money to send astronauts to Mars in the coming years, something that had been a priority for Mr. Musk.People inside and outside NASA had hoped that Mr. Isaacman’s arrival as administrator would help provide stability and a clearer direction for the agency, which has been operating under an acting administrator since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s term.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      NASA Picks 3 Companies to Help Astronauts Drive Around the Moon

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      The agency’s future moon buggies will reach speeds of 9.3 miles per hour and will be capable of self-driving.NASA will be renting some cool wheels to drive around the moon.Space agency officials announced on Wednesday that they have hired three companies to come up with preliminary designs for vehicles to take NASA astronauts around the lunar south polar region in the coming years. After the astronauts return to Earth, these vehicles would be able to self-drive around as robotic explorers, similar to NASA’s rovers on Mars.The self-driving capability would also allow the vehicle to meet the next astronaut mission at a different location.“Where it will go, there are no roads,” Jacob Bleacher, the chief exploration scientist at NASA, said at a news conference on Wednesday. “Its mobility will fundamentally change our view of the moon.”The companies are Intuitive Machines of Houston, which in February successfully landed a robotic spacecraft on the moon; Lunar Outpost of Golden, Colo.; and Venturi Astrolab of Hawthorne, Calif. Only one of the three will actually build a vehicle for NASA and send it to the moon.NASA had asked for proposals of what it called the lunar terrain vehicle, or L.T.V., that could drive at speeds up to 9.3 miles per hour, travel a dozen miles on a single charge and allow astronauts to drive around for eight hours.The agency will work with the three companies for a year to further develop their designs. Then NASA will choose one of them for the demonstration phase.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More