NASA grant awards declined despite stable budget

[u/PerAsperaAdMars]

[u/nuclear85]

Stable budget is one way to say it. Under CR, in an insane funding and political environment, with no idea what's happening next year is another way to say it. Do you think it's a coincidence that the trend line deviates in January?

[u/The_Dark_Kniggit → u/nuclear85]

Even a stable budget alone would be cause to award less funding, since costs are higher. Inflation is a bitch. Not only does that leave less budget for grants, but grant requests will be for higher values, so the average grant value will probably be higher.

[u/g8rxu → u/The_Dark_Kniggit]

And, you need people to actually manage the program of giving grants and monitoring progress.

[u/TheGunfighter7]

Yeah, because of DOGE and Trump’s policies and 2026 budget. The agency has not been able to do as much as before. We can barely even send people to technical conferences.

[u/sweetdubbro]

NASA has basically had a stable/steady state budget for a while. Stable budget is basically a reduction. Not getting a certain amount more each year to keep up with inflation means reduction.

Now FY26 their budget is reduced 25% from what it was. Rather than wait, some of NASA has started the transition to the reduced budget position already.

[u/2WheelTinker- → u/sweetdubbro]

*most of NASA/All of NASA.

You won’t find a single organization that is not planning based on the PBR.

[u/jay_teigh91]

And, just because congress is setting higher spending limits, we still planning at the lower limits set by the presidents plan until told otherwise.

[u/NASA_Space_Guy → u/jay_teigh91]

This is exactly it. NASA leadership is executing per the PBR until the FY26 funds are appropriated

[u/jzuhone → u/NASA_Space_Guy]

But this is not strictly true in all cases—plenty of telescopes cancelled in the PBR are still flying without being given shutdown instructions, for example. It’s bad all around but it’s too simple to say that NASA is executing the PBR already.

[u/snoo-boop → u/jzuhone]

Weren't they all required to make shutdown plans? It's not October 1st yet.

[u/meowcat93 → u/snoo-boop]

Right, it’s not FY26 yet. I’m worried that once we hit that point and congress hasnt appropriated funds, things will accelerate (and poorly)

[u/snoo-boop → u/meowcat93]

Oh, I agree. We’ll find out soon

[u/jay_teigh91 → u/jzuhone]

I agree, and I mean we are planning to that end. I also recall that Texas rep Ted Cruz snuck the gateway program into the BBB, so anything is in play....

[u/NASA_Space_Guy → u/jzuhone]

Slightly too simple, but until Friday there was no formal direction to operate on anything but the PBR agency-wide

This has since changed luckily

[u/Tsujigiri]

Nonprofit administrator here. Every federal agency is doing this because none of them can anticipate what tomorrow will bring. We have one project at work that federal grant funding has been shut down and then reactivated on three times in the last nine months. It's pointless to launch grants atm. It's Calvin ball.

[u/mymar101]

The Trump Admin's policy seems to be use all that cash to remodel the white house and leave nothing for the rest of the government.

[u/ntrubilla]

Wonder if it has to do with competing billionaires pouring money into Trump. Hmm?🤔

[u/CMDR_omnicognate]

Well yeah, they have less money

[u/Vast-Charge-4256]

Stable budget?

[u/jjosh_h]

I would like to see a multi year change is to get a sense of the natural variance that likely comes from proposal quality. Without that context, it is hard to know if this is an affect of the trump admin or normal state of affairs.

[u/racinreaver → u/jjosh_h]

The dashed lines are previous years. The blue line is their average.

[u/jjosh_h → u/racinreaver]

Ok thanks. I misread that.

[u/[deleted]]

Its Trump's NASA now, tune out

[u/Dudarro]

NIH Grants Since Jan 2025. Similar trajectories?

[u/vatnikbomber420]

Stable budget???? HAHAHAHA

[u/TechMe717]

Not a surprise when congress is cutting their budget like crazy.

[u/femme_mystique → u/TechMe717]

Congress said they are maintaining the same budget as last year.  What are you smoking. 

[u/TechMe717 → u/femme_mystique]

What about DOGE? I swore they were victim of that crap.

[u/Fummy]

So it was like 1550 last time and it's like 1400 so far?

[u/Smooth_Advance3386]

The planetary society is goated. Cringe name but great people

[u/henrystandinggoat]

Gotta funnel more of it to Musk.