Trump’s defunding of NASA would be catastrophic

“This may be the most mysterious future that NASA has faced, perhaps since the end of Apollo,” says Casey Dryer. Dreyer is the head of the space policy of the Planetary Association, a non -profit institution calling for exploring and studying space.
On July 10, the Senate Credit Committee met to discuss the budget for federal trade, justice and the proposed science for the year 2026. While funding for NASA represents about 0.3 percent of the total annual spending by the federal government since the beginning of 2010, President Trump has called for a decrease of 24 percent throughout the year to the agency’s customer. On any scale, his plan will be devastating.
It has been modified for inflation, it will leave NASA with the smallest operational budget since then since the Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to travel to space in 1961. In this process, he will spoil the agency’s science budget by about half, which led to the end of 55 continuous or planned tasks. NASA will also leave with its smallest workforce in 70 years. All this, at a time when the agency was assigned to return to the moon and bring the first people to Mars.
“There is no historical precedent for this level of one year, which are random and exciting discounts. In one year, a third of all active science projects. [The Trump administration is] The suggestion to turn off the tasks that not only perform good science, but also the unique science that is indispensable. This is also not that they can invest money in some radical new scientific efforts. Dryer said: No, the money has ended, it is definitely the biggest threat to NASA science activities in the history of the Space Agency. “
Dreier does not exaggerate when he says that some tasks will be impossible to replace them. One of the victims of Trump discounts will be the new prospect probe. In 2015, New Horizons gave us the best look at Pluto at all. Four years later, it made the fly in the history of mankind. Since things are standing, it is the only active spacecraft in the Kuper belt, a region of our solar system that scientists do not understand well. Even if NASA will start working on a substitute today, it will take a generation to reach that car where there are new horizons at the present time. NASA costs about 14.7 million dollars annually to continue to operate the investigation, which is part of $ 29.9 billion of additional financing that has been allocated to finance ice enforcement and detention in the recently approved tax bill.

Another task is impossible to replace it is Osiris-Apex. If the name looks familiar, it’s because Osris-Apex is a continuation of the successful Osris-Rex trip in NASA. In 2020, the 101955 Bennu spacecraft, the old asteroid, visited the size of the Empire State building, and a sample of the Reagate (rocks and dirt) collected from its surface using unprecedented technology.
After OSRIS -RX successfully returned the sample to Earth, NASA decided to extend the mission of the spacecraft and fly to another asteroid, 99942 Apophis. In 2029, Apophis will pass around 19,600 miles from Earth. It will be the closest approach to any aspect known as its size. NASA said the extension would add 200 million dollars to a task that already cost it estimated at $ 1.16 billion.
“This project is a penalty for restoring the dollar to an existing spacecraft. It is the only American spacecraft that will be in Abu Dais once in a generation an opportunity to study the asteroid that barely misses us,” Dryer said. “This seems important to know.”
While almost every aspect of American life is superior, the potential cancellation of dozens of NASA missions may seem far away, but inflation in the agency’s science budget will have a ripples on societies throughout the United States.
“NASA is a job engine in the country, and for every job in NASA, there is a lot that was created in the private workforce,” said Bethani Eman, a professor of planet science at the California Institute of Technology. It also works on the Board of Directors of the Planetary Association.
Professor Oman’s claim supports NASA data. In 2023, the agency used 17823 full -time civilian employees in the country. By supporting the private sector in NASA, it was identified, in that year, the agency’s missions were responsible for maintaining 304,803 jobs in all fifty states and Colombia province. In other words, for each full -time reward for NASA, NASA supports at least 16 jobs in the private sector. “Space science has been widely supported and affects nearly three quarters of each region in Congress in the country,” Dryer said. “It is not just a red or blue thing.”
After the Senate meeting last week, politics from both parties said that they would retract President Trump’s budget discounts in NASA. On Tuesday, the sub -committee approved the Credit Committee in the House of Representatives on Trade, Justice, Science and Related Agencies a draft financing law that would provide NASA with a total budget of $ 24.8 billion for the year 2026, or the same amount that was allocated this year. In the previous week, the corresponding sub -committee in the Senate approved its NASA financing bill.
The two versions differ on critical details. The Senate legislation maintains the budget of the agency’s science at $ 7.3 billion, while the parliament’s version seeks to reduce it by 18 percent to 6 billion dollars. Separately, the house calls for a 23 percent reduction in the budget of the National Science Corporation. NSF finances a lot of astronomy research in the country.
“What I hear from legislators is that they understand how important NASA is in the industry. They understand how important NASA is universities regarding training, and providing granting training the next generation of the spacecraft,” said Professor Eleman, who was in the Capitol Hill last week. The House of Representatives and the Senate will need to reach an agreement on the bill to move forward.
Even with the presence of many legislators in favor of maintaining the NASA budget, the flat budget is still a reduction in financing when the inflation calculates. Moreover, NASA was already negatively affected by the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce.
According to reports Politico Posted on July 9, 2,694 NASA employees agreed to leave the agency through early retirement, acquisition or deferred resignation. Among these individuals, 2,145 workers in higher positions and 1818 employees who work in the fields of missions such as Human Spaceflight and Science. “As soon as the workforce disappears, it loses a lot of institutional knowledge,” Dryer said. The employees who agreed to leave represent about 15 percent of the NASA 2023 workforce, which is 17,823. With the deadline on July 25 for early retirement, voluntary semester and deferred resignation that is close, this number is likely to grow. The priorities of NASA’s transformation in the Trump administration also led to uncertainty among the agency’s contractors.
According to the former NASA employee and the creator of NASA Keith Court, the workforce discounts already affect the employees. “During the forty years, I participated in NASA in one way or another, I have never seen the morale very bad,” he said. “Is NASA amputable? [like Elon Musk] He stands on the stage with leaflets. This is not the way to operate the government, and it is definitely not the way to create the machines needed to explore the universe. “
Whatever happens after that, Dreier worries the possibility that there will be corrosion in NASA’s general support. It refers to a survey published by Pew Research. In 2023, the organization found that monitoring asteroids that could hit the Earth and track changes to the planet’s climate are the two activities that the Americans wanted to set NASA’s priorities on other mandate. On the contrary, sending human astronauts to the moon and Mars was less important to the public.


The home version of NASA’s 2026 budget will enhance the agency’s exploration budget by 25 percent to $ 9.7 billion. On the Trump tax bill, Senator Ted Cruise (R-TX) included a language that provided NASA with $ 4.1 billion for fourth and fifth trips from the SLS missile-The car aims to transport NASA’s first astronauts to the moon before the private sector alternatives such as Fortx is ready to fly.
With the Trump administration and the payments of the Moon and Mars house as priorities, Dryer says, “It is irony to double the activities of the private sector already – Spacex says it will send humans to Mars – and to give up the things that NASA is doing only.
In fact, the NASA budget that sacrifices scientific research will be instead of Mars tasks that invest in the things that the audience says is the least important.
“I am concerned that they are away from what the public expects to do their space agency, and as a result, it will undermine the public investment of NASA,” he said. “NASA is usually associated with the first or most popular federal agency. People wear NASA shirts. No one wears a portion of the inner shirt coming out of the gap. It is rare and enemy, and they risk it. It is not only the future of the agency at risk, but in the future of the relationship between the public with that.”
When asked about the comment on this story, Bethani Stevens, the NASA press secretary, noted a letter from the acting director Janet Petro NASA in an artistic attachment that she published along with the president’s budget request.
“We must continue to be designers responsible for taxpayers dollars. This means making strategic decisions – including expanding the scope of inactive efforts or stopping their incompatibility with the priorities of our exploration in the moon and Mars,” Petro wrote.
NASA’s final budget for 2026 remains months of completion. After a vote on Tuesday, the two funding projects will move to the full credits committees for the Senate and the Council to vote and additional reviews. Only after that each member in each room will have a chance to vote in this regard. In front of the Congress until September 30 to complete the credits process before the depletion of funding in 2025. President Trump can also decide the veto against the bill if he is not in line with his priorities.
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2025-07-17 15:30:00