Proposed Federal budget for 2016 includes $19.3 billion for NASA →

This amount is not only more than what the space agency got last year, but more than the Obama administration asked for. This is big news, as Loren Grush explains:

With the budget, NASA scores a big win for its commercial crew program — the initiative that tasks private companies with building and operating spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The legislation provides $1.24 billion for commercial crew, the same amount requested by the Obama administration. That makes this the first time that Congress has matched the administration’s requests for the program.

With these funds, it’s possible that the first launches under the commercial crew program could actually take place in 2017 as intended.

The commercial crew program will take astronauts to the low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station in vehicles built and launched by companies like Space X.

The budget will also keep the Space Launch System (SLS) funded. SLS is the vehicle NASA is building to take astronauts into deep space and Mars.

The spending bill will be voted on Friday.