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Did President Obama abolish the US space program?

Thursday, November 19, 2020
By Christopher Hutton
NO

The Obama administration kept NASA's annual funding largely consistent with levels of the previous decade, while strengthening efforts to develop commercial space efforts. Funding dipped to $19 billion in 2013 from $22.6 billion in the first year of Obama's term, as long-range exploration efforts were redirected, recovering to $21 billion in his last year in office.

NASA expanded contracts with SpaceX and Boeing to launch commercial payloads into space and ferry crew members to the International Space Station, a service that the U.S. had paid Russia to provide after retiring the space shuttle.

Under Obama, NASA redrafted long-term plans to return human crews to the moon and eventually Mars, cancelling a previous development program in favor of a new spacecraft, Orion, and a more powerful rocket known as the Space Launch System. The first Orion/SLS manned flight is expected in 2023.

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