NASA declines dumb request from Donald Trump

NASA declined a request from Donald Trump to send an astronaut inside a new type of deep-space rocket that will send a capsule to orbit beyong the moon. The reason? It would add nearly a billion dollars in costs to the mission.

According to The New York Times:

In February, at the request of the Trump administration, NASA began studying whether it was possible to add crew for the first flight of its Space Launch System, a heavy-lift rocket under development for deep space missions.

On Friday, the space agency announced it would not. During a conference call with reporters, Robert M. Lightfoot Jr., the acting NASA administrator, said the change was technically feasible, but that the additional cost, time and risks outweighed the benefits. “It really reaffirmed the baseline plan we have in place is the best way to go,” he said.

Putting astronauts on the first flight would have added $600 million to $900 million to the $24 billion price tag, Mr. Lightfoot said, and delayed the launch until probably the first half of 2020.

So let me get this straight: Trump, not knowing anything about space missions, simply asks for an astronaut on a potentially dangerous mission. But NASA says "too expensive."

I'm under the impression NASA already knew Trumps request was dumb, but they didn't say anything for a couple of months in order to avoid getting their funding cut.