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[Timoric]

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[IronTiger]

Probably not anytime soon as it's still one of a kind with existing facilities that can't be done by moving offices...it's plausible imagining a physical downscaling though

[Luminare]

Unless their was a massive slash in NASA's budget which would only happen if it was absolutely necessary as cutting an institution like NASA would be political suicide and the party that does it would loss Texas in future elections. Plus Congressmen and Senators wouldn't allow it. As a matter of fact NASA was approved a raise in their budget, and while it was mostly to cover for inflation a raise is a raise meaning that it is important enough to keep. NASA's partnership with SpaceX and other Private Space corporations insures that it will have a continuing future. While Elon Musk is building his new stuff down near Brownsville guess who has the proper facilities to train astronauts....Johnson Space Center. They are continuing to upgrade the campus and have recently added a couple new buildings which are, I believe, LEED Platinum....not cheap. It's not a matter of if, but a matter of when the campus goes into full scale redevelopment in order to become part of the new and ever growing Space Industry. Yes, they do most of their launches in Florida or elsewhere, but a big part of their operations is here. I believe we had a space thread somewhere here that got into great length about all of this.

[felt38]

Very unlikely.  First of all, there IS human spaceflight going on all of the time on the ISS.  We always have at least 2-3 U.S astronauts on board.  JSC is in charge of the Orion Spacecraft, ISS cargo resupply contracts for Dragon and Cygnus, future ISS crew resupply (CRS) contracts, and is the center for NASA science on lunar and Mars rocks, many of which are stored at JSC.  The U.S. astronaut corps, their training, and mission control organizations are headquartered there.  More importantly, the entire Texas congressional delegation would fight closure of JSC vigorously.  You would effectively have to kill NASA human spaceflight to kill JSC.

 

Despite what you state, human spaceflight is receiving the same level of funding as it did during the Space Shuttle program, most of which is being directed toward ISS, SLS (a rocket which will be several times more powerful than anything existing today), and Orion.  Human spaceflight also has the support of congressional delegations in Florida and California where NASA centers and human spaceflight contractors reside.

[plumber2]

I sure wish we had a congressional delegation that actually cared about proper funding, instead of ones that just spout off the latest Tea Party chant whenever they get in front of camera or crowd.  Even though Sheila Jackson Lee thinks we landed on Mars, she still listens and votes for her constituients when it comes to jobs and NASA funding.