Space Launch System.jpg

This is an artist's conception of the Block 1 or first configuration of NASA's new Space Launch System. (NASA)

NASA would get $19.1 billion to spend in fiscal year 2018 under a Trump White House budget outline released today. That's a relatively small cut from the $19.3 billion it received this year. (See full NASA breakout below)

The White House budget request supports another year of development for the Space Launch System (SLS) being managed at Alabama's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. It allocates the new deep space rocket and the Orion space capsule $3.7 billion.

Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot said in a statement that the proposal "is a positive budget overall" for the space agency. "As with any budget, we have greater aspirations than we have means," Lightfoot said, "but this blueprint provides us with considerable resources to carry out our mission, and I know we will make this nation proud."

As expected, the budget cuts NASA spending for programs that study the Earth but not as much perhaps as supporters feared. The amount allocated for Earth sciences is $1.8 billiion under the Trump budget, a cut of $102 million or 5 percent from this year. However, those cuts are aimed at missions studying climate change: the ocean monitoring program PACE; the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3; the Deep Space Climate Observatory; and the CLARREO Pathfinder, which measures heat in Earth's atmosphere.

In other categories, the proposed NASA budget includes $1.9 billion for planetary science. That will fund a new Mars rover to launch in 2020 and the Europa Clipper probe to orbit Jupiter's moon Europa.

What the president would eliminate in current NASA spending is the entire NASA education office. That office runs camps and supports internships and outreach to boost the number of women and minorities in STEM fields.

Overall, the budget proposal shows Trump's continued support for NASA. Other federal departments such as Agriculture, Labor and Health and Human Services face much deeper cuts. The budget still must make its way through Congress.

(Updated at 10:30 a.m. CDT to include comments by Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot)

Here is Page 1 of the NASA part of the fiscal year 2018 budget proposal released by the Trump White House on March 15, 2017. The entire outline was posted by the Washington Post from which this page was taken.