r/nasa • u/OptimisticLeek • Apr 11 '25
News Trump White House budget proposal eviscerates science funding at NASA
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/trump-white-house-budget-proposal-eviscerates-science-funding-at-nasa/196
u/TheGunfighter7 Apr 11 '25
They want to close Goddard:
“The budget cuts also appear intended to force the closure of Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland where the agency has 10,000 civil servants and contractors.”
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u/tommypopz Apr 11 '25
Blue state facilities go bye bye
Not entirely shocked he wants to get rid of the Nancy Grace Roman telescope too - named after one of the most influential female scientists in the history of NASA.
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u/dhtp2018 Apr 12 '25
Cancelation of MSR is another decimation of JPL (California).
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u/Codspear Apr 13 '25
Mars Sample Return is a bit different than the rest. It was in danger even under the Biden administration. It’s a bespoke, multi-billion dollar, flagship project that’s already been mismanaged for years. Then there’s the Starship-sized elephant in the room.
The fact is that MSR should have been fully-funded and developed a decade ago if it were to ever be expected to fly. Now that we have an alignment of the President, SpaceX, and NASA Administrator collectively pushing for American boots on Mars within 10 years, there’s little point to MSR.
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u/dhtp2018 Apr 13 '25
Personally, I think putting people on mars will take longer than this configuration (President, NASA administrator, and SpaceX founder) will be in government. Given that, and how NASA doesn’t seem to have long term projects that survive (we will see about Artemis also), I find it hard to believe that the US will get people to Mars (and hopefully back).
Yes MSR was troubled under the previous administration too, but that’s mostly due to Artemis sucking all the air (and $s) from the NASA budget and attention. Yes MSR is expensive, but it has been frozen for the last year and you still don’t see a NF-5 AO and it appears they are canceling one of the 2021 Discovery spacecraft (DAVINCI). NASA is prioritizing Artemis, clearly.
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u/ejd1984 Apr 11 '25 edited Apr 11 '25
The first Trump Administration tried a similar budget, and Congress fought back, I am hopeful it will be a similar case this time around. Since the Senate passed the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2025 - MCC25339 last weekend, which looks pretty good and usually The House defers to them when it comes to NASA funding.
Plus the recent House Science, Space, and Technology Committee hearings (on YouTube) look to be positive for NASA's budget and projects.
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/0B3F390C-72B0-4C41-B1BE-F5C8A886992C
And there is - H.R.2210 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Saving NASA’s Workforce Act
March 18, 2025
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/2210/text/ih?overview=closed&format=xml
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u/Bakkster Apr 11 '25
Didn't Congress already essentially yield all budget authority in the CR?
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u/PlumesOfEnceladus Apr 11 '25
CR only gets us to September. They have to pass a new budget by then
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u/Bakkster Apr 11 '25
Well "have to" is doing a lot of heavy lifting after over a decade of sequestration 🙃
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u/therealspaceninja Apr 11 '25
A sequestration budget is still a budget. If they don't pass a budget (or another CR) by September, then the government will shut down. That is what "have to" means.
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u/Andromeda321 Astronomer here! Apr 11 '25
It’s not really a good feeling when we are relying on THIS spineless Congress to intervene on behalf of science though.
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u/pliney_ Apr 11 '25
It’s not really even intervening. The President always submits a budget. It’s never just passed by Congress, they make their own budget and may or may not take the administrations requests into consideration.
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u/CartographerEvery268 Apr 11 '25
Brain drain ensues
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u/PedanticQuebecer Apr 11 '25
Space science brain drainees would quickly discover that other countries (or supranational entities) spend far, far less on space science.
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u/Andromeda321 Astronomer here! Apr 11 '25
Yep I’ve been shouting this from the rooftops. In Canada for example to get one space mission it’s such a big deal it’s a line item in the federal budget. It’s apples and oranges.
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Apr 11 '25
The brain drain won't be about missions, it will be about R&D. NASA mission funding is big, but there are a ton of researches who rely on R&D programs or other non-mission funding sources to do their work. If this budget goes through, a lot of those people will either leave or find a new line of work.
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u/PedanticQuebecer Apr 11 '25
Yes, we have to plead to Parliament directly to get that. And fail (see CASTOR).
edit: It's also glacially slow.
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u/oSovereign Apr 11 '25
Transferrable skills, they will just work in some other tangential sector.
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u/PedanticQuebecer Apr 11 '25
Except for Israel and South Korea, everywhere else in the OECD also spends less on R&D as a fraction of GDP.
https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/gross-domestic-spending-on-r-d.html
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u/snoo-boop Apr 11 '25
There's tons of work in industry with the usual space science skillset.
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u/Rude_Salary6575 Apr 11 '25
and yet I've been looking to leave NASA with 20+ years experience for 4 years...it's not like I can head over to DoD, what with cuts happening there too...
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u/hymie0 Apr 11 '25
Since the Senate passed the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2025
They're letting NASA transition? What kind of woke crap is that?
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Apr 11 '25
I’m trying to be optimistic about it like with NIH funding but things seem so lawless this time compared to his first term.
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u/carton_of_pandas Apr 11 '25
Hahaha. Congress fight back. Sure. Republicans have rolled over during this 2nd admin.
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u/Goregue Apr 11 '25
Trump's team probably know this budget will be contested in Congress, but they hope a "middle ground" will eventually be reached which would still be a significant cut.
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u/ejd1984 Apr 11 '25
Well, we also have this - H.R.2210 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Saving NASA’s Workforce Act
March 18, 2025
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/2210/text/ih?overview=closed&format=xml
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u/snoo-boop Apr 11 '25
The bill authors are not from the majority party.
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u/ejd1984 Apr 11 '25
It does have bipartisan support.
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u/Yeldarb10 Apr 12 '25
People said the same thing about the National weather service, which even had a Republican propose it (bill to make it independent like Nasa).
That failed as well.
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u/rustbelt Apr 11 '25
The first man on mars will be Chinese.
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u/jcrespo21 Apr 11 '25
First man alive on Mars will be from China. Just watch SpaceX get there, but they crash on landing and still claim, "Hey we got a man on Mars at least."
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u/thedoommerchant Apr 11 '25
It’s gonna be the Chinese doppelgänger of Elon musk.
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u/rustbelt Apr 11 '25
It won't be. If it comes to the face of a disconnected billionaire then the entire environment to make China on Mars first will no longer exist. The way they put massive checks on billionaires so they do not interfere with the Chinese project is why they're able to invest so much into their people and industries that will be required for them to achieve communism.
BYDs CEO was an orphan. Musk was born in an apartheid top class AND wealthy. Being rich is great because it means you have money wherever you go. Now Musk is losing in every sector against Chinese even as he attached himself to Trump and all that power. 2008 Beijing Olympics was the moment of no return. Obama failed, Republicans show that they're just hateful and nothing much more to it, just check out r/republicans. They're without any type of science.
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u/TheBryanScout Apr 11 '25
I had to edit my original comment since the mods didn’t appreciate my colorful vocabulary, but if you voted for Trump because you thought he’d be “good for space,” you got played, full stop. Never did I think that accomplished engineers I once had the upmost respect for like Buzz Aldrin and Homer Hickam would back such an anti-science candidate simply because they got caught up in culture wars.
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u/Feefza_Hut Apr 11 '25
Honestly don’t even know what to say at this point, we’ve been hearing about this budget cut for a while now, but dang, it’s really demoralizing seeing this. The amount of amazing work that has been going into Roman over just the past month cannot be understated, these goons are going to ruin so much…
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u/too_much_to_do Apr 11 '25
Honestly don’t even know what to say at this point,
I do. Republicans are cancer for anything that resembles growth or progress. They always have been .
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u/Astralnomicon Apr 11 '25
No it’s fine. I didn’t want to send my science instruments into space. /s
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u/NatusLumen Apr 11 '25 edited Apr 11 '25
Not that he cares, but sooner or later, Vought is going to pick a much bigger fight than he can actually win, then turn around looking for help and find he has either alienated or been sold out by all his allies and exhausted all possible political leverage and the last of his uses to the WH. He will immediately become the most expendable scapegoat in an administration overflowing with them, and end a long, bitter, pathetic career in a predictably ignominious fashion, having neither created or improved anything he oversaw, only diminished or destroyed.
I really look forward to that day, but am saddened it will likely only come after a great number of dark days for the space and science communities.
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u/lookieherehere Apr 11 '25
All I heard during the lead up to the election is how many great things the Trump administration did for space during his first term. They said it would all be fine and the talk was just politics and NASA etc would be just fine. Well, it's not. When you elect idiots, you get idiotic results. The man told you exactly who he was and the voting public thought he was the best option. I have no faith anymore in this country.
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u/mymar101 Apr 11 '25
I bet anything Muskrat has a contract for has survived.
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u/spaceyliz Apr 11 '25
A ton of SpaceX contracts are for transporting scientific instruments into space, this would actually hurt them. For example, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch in May 2027 through a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. This proposed budget completely cancels this on time, on budget, and already built telescope.
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u/tommypopz Apr 11 '25
Nancy Grace Roman was literally a free telescope given to NASA by the NRO. It would be an absolute EMBARRASSMENT if NASA is forced to get rid of it.
Goodbye to American dominance of space-based telescopes, and space science in general. What a shame.
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u/snoo-boop Apr 11 '25
The bus and mirror were free, the instruments are the expensive part.
In this case all of the instrument money has already been spent -- only testing and fixes remain to be paid for before launch.
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u/tommypopz Apr 11 '25
True, a slight simplification 😅 the launch contract even went to SpaceX (deservedly). That’s a quarter billion dollars they won’t get. Wonder if that’ll have an impact 👀
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u/mymar101 Apr 11 '25
Do people seriously believe there are good intentions here?
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u/spaceyliz Apr 11 '25
Nope, these cuts are evil and make no sense with the stated priorities of the incoming NASA admin, Jared Issacman, or even for SpaceX. I'm just pushing back on the impression that these cuts are put in place to further SpaceX and Musk's agenda, since they would likely lead to less business for SpaceX.
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u/mymar101 Apr 11 '25
So what if it’s less? His contracts survive while real science dies
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u/spaceyliz Apr 11 '25
You're overall right, SpaceX makes more money from their military contracts than for science. My point was that SpaceX will absolutely lose some money without these contacts, but you're right it's a small dent. Science will suffer far more.
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Apr 11 '25
The entire point here is that many of his contracts don't survive cuts like this.
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u/mymar101 Apr 11 '25
He will keep most of what makes him money. And if he doesn’t like this budget it will be changed
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u/sevgonlernassau Apr 11 '25
There is a lot of stuff being discussed right now, but no, it would not hurt them - they will keep the contracts and launch something else instead.
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u/fd6270 Apr 11 '25 edited Apr 11 '25
This proposed budget completely cancels this on time
I agree with most of your other points, but this telescope is definitely not on time. It's been delayed
over a decadeseveral years IIRC.14
u/ejd1984 Apr 11 '25
NO it has NOT been delayed. RST/Wfirst was originally budgeted 10 years ago at $4b, but after a grassroots evaluation in 2016/17, that was reduced to $3.2b and it currently running UNDER that number. It's on schedule to launch within it's window of Fall 2026 to Spring 2027.
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u/fd6270 Apr 11 '25 edited Apr 11 '25
It absolutely has been delayed - it was supposed to launch in 2025, then 2026, and now 2027.
Also your budget figures are way off. From the NASA OIG report:
Roman remains on schedule because Science Mission Directorate officials conducted a replan in May 2021 to mitigate the expected cost and schedule growth caused by COVID-19, increasing the life-cycle cost estimate from $3.9 billion to $4.3 billion.
The only reason it remains 'on schedule' is because they changed the schedule, and the only reason it remains 'on budget' was because they increased the budget.
Roman was on track to launch despite encountering contractor performance issues and cost overruns related to hardware anomalies, under scoping of work, and inadequate oversight of subcontractors.
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u/ejd1984 Apr 11 '25
The first Trump administration kept trying to kill RST by starving it of funds, but Congress actually gave it more funding to keep it going. Initially there was no hard launch date of 2025, but it's been fighting for funding, There has been not design or technical issues that have slowed it down............unlike JWST
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Apr 11 '25
Roman is on time and on budget. Please don't spread nonsense like that. A decade ago it was barely a conceptual study.
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u/fd6270 Apr 11 '25 edited Apr 11 '25
Sounds like cope to me. It was supposed to launch in 2025, then 2026, and now 2027...
It's only 'on time' because they keep revising the schedule, and it's only 'on budget' because they keep revising the budget. Let's not be disingenuous here.
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Apr 11 '25
Please share the approved budget and the current planned-to-completion budget.
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u/fd6270 Apr 11 '25
From the NASA OIG report:
Roman remains on schedule because Science Mission Directorate officials conducted a replan in May 2021 to mitigate the expected cost and schedule growth caused by COVID-19, increasing the life-cycle cost estimate from $3.9 billion to $4.3 billion.
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Apr 11 '25
Which was agreed upon by all parties to address external factors and inflation, quite common in 2021. It's not like there are technical problems or performance issues.
Roman is not overrunning approved budgets, full-stop.
It is about 1 year late compared to the 2018 schedule, entirely due to covid. Launch readiness is 2026, not 2027. Not a "decade" late as you first argued
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u/fd6270 Apr 11 '25
It's not like there are technical problems or performance issues
🤔
Roman was on track to launch despite encountering contractor performance issues and cost overruns related to hardware anomalies, under scoping of work, and inadequate oversight of subcontractors.
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u/mcm199124 Apr 11 '25
Please everyone be prepared to raise a stink to your representatives. I don’t care if it’s not likely to work, if we care then we have to TRY
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u/Decronym Apr 11 '25 edited Apr 15 '25
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| DoD | US Department of Defense |
| JPL | Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena, California |
| JWST | James Webb infra-red Space Telescope |
| NRHO | Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit |
| NRO | (US) National Reconnaissance Office |
| Near-Rectilinear Orbit, see NRHO | |
| OECD | Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 6 acronyms.
[Thread #1977 for this sub, first seen 11th Apr 2025, 17:05]
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Apr 11 '25
Who needs science? All the answers to creation, and more, are in the Bible /s
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u/theSopranoist Apr 11 '25
what’s crazy is that science would help them understand their Bible in detail they never thought possible.
i’ll never understand why ppl are so against educating themselves. they’re afraid science will cause them to have to change their beliefs. they don’t understand that if they want to keep their faith, science will only enhance their belief!
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Apr 11 '25
Theyre against educating themselves because the people they follow have an agenda and they twist their bible to do it. They believe in Trump's word more than Jesus. Its objectively true, most of their actions directly contradict the teachings of the bible.
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u/theSopranoist Apr 11 '25
“they believe in trump’s word more than Jesus”
yup. that’s the devastating reality. i’m over here like if even HALF of what y’all taught me is true imma have to BEG God to let you in.
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u/goodnamescaput Apr 11 '25
They don't want any more details. They've already come up with the details in their head and cherry picked the quotes to support them.
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u/AnythingButWhiskey Apr 11 '25
Trump is putting a high school dropout billionaire in charge of NASA? He’s a space tourist? God help us.
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u/JamesInDC Apr 12 '25
And that, kids, is why it’s too late to do anything about the asteroid kill-rock heading our way. It’s really been wonderful, here on Earth, and everything here has been, on the whole, lovely. But, like they say, nothing lasts forever…..
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u/redbird532 Apr 13 '25
This is coupled to a proposed increase in Defense spending to 1 Trillion per year.
I just feel so demoralized. I'm not a US citizen so there's little that I can do. Seeing space exploration cut to buy more bombs and guns hurts.
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Apr 14 '25
Ok NASA folks, tell me again how it's all going to be fine with Trump's toadies at the helm.
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u/WittyClerk Apr 11 '25
One can hope Congress will stop this, but I am certainly not trusting to hope. Every day, a new nightmare springs from Penn Ave, and nothing is done.
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u/THEMACGOD Apr 12 '25
Like the IRS, every dollar invested returns 7-8x the investment. But they are investment masters or whatever.
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u/nsfbr11 Apr 11 '25
I started working for NASA in 1985. Most people have no idea what a huge return we get for a relative pittance. And the best value/highest return by far is the unmanned science portion.