More than two months after taking office, President Joe Biden has offered a first look at his budget priorities, and the signs for NASA are generally promising.
The administration today (April 9) unveiled a so-called "skinny budget" for fiscal year 2022, which begins on Oct. 1. Biden's proposed budget requests $24.7 billion for NASA, a $1.5 billion increase from 2021. The skinny budget represents only top-line budget items, a traditional practice for the first year of a new presidential administration because of how the inauguration and Congress' budgetary calendar align.
The 55-page document outlining the skinny budget explains that the Biden administration proposes a total of $24.7 billion in funding for NASA, which would mark a $1.5 billion increase on what Congress allocated to the agency for the fiscal year that began in October 2020.
Perhaps most notably, the new request proposes $6.9 billion for the Artemis program, NASA's plan to land humans on the moon, which the document notes is $325 million more than Congress allocated the program this year.
A theme of Biden's presidency has been the primacy of addressing climate change, and that goal is evident throughout the skinny budget, which claims a $14 billion increase on the current budget for addressing the climate crisis.
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