That’s NASA’s estimate of how much additional funding it would take to get back to the moon by 2024 (doing it The NASA Way, of course). Eric Berger has the story.
In fact, I'd go further and say we could do it with no budget increase at all. Just take the budget currently being devoted to SLS and spend it on things we actually need to get back to the moon.
NASA has now spent fourteen years and tens of billions of dollars relearning how to build a huge unaffordable rocket that it doesn't need. https://t.co/N3XLgmz623
The Don Pedro hydropower project, just west of Yosemite National Park, has been churning out carbon-free electricity for nearly a century. As the Tuolumne River flows from the Sierra Nevada to the Central Valley, it passes through Don Pedro Dam, spinning four turbine generators.
None of the electricity is counted toward California’s push for more renewable energy on its power grid. A new bill advanced by state lawmakers last week would change that — and it’s being opposed by environmental groups, who say it would undermine the state’s landmark clean energy law by limiting the need to build solar farms and wind turbines.