RIP to These NASA X Accounts, as U.S. Science Falls Off a Cliff

Gizmodo

a day ago

NASA is axing at least 23 X accounts run by the agency's Science Mission Directorate (SMD), citing a need to 'strategically reduce' its digital footprint. The move comes in the wake of President Donald Trump's proposed funding cuts that could kill numerous research programs.
NASA operates more than 400 social media accounts, 300 of which belong to SMD. It's fair to say that's a bit excessive. The agency believes its effort to consolidate these accounts—which began in 2018—will improve its social media impact through more cohesive messaging. Some followers, such as spaceflight photographer John Kraus, are welcoming the change. Kraus described the consolidation as 'long overdue.' But others disagree, arguing that shuttering these accounts will further limit public access and attention to research in Trump's America.
'In my view the core strength of social media is letting individual voices and their quirks find their individual audiences,' Harvard University astronomer Jonathan McDowell tweeted Tuesday, June 10. 'Making a bland uniform corporate account to replace individual [NASA] voices is a mistake.'
The agency says the public won't lose access to social media updates about all the affected SMD programs, but their accounts will either be archived, merged into larger, thematic accounts or NASA's flagship channels, or rebranded to 'better align with strategic framework.'
The NASA X accounts (formerly Twitter) that have been or are soon to be archived serve as critical outreach platforms for specific research programs, spacecraft, rovers, satellites, and other scientific initiatives. These are just some of the ones being nixed:
Perseverance Mars rover: @NASAPersevere
Curiosity Mars rover: @MarsCuriosity
Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft: @NASAVoyager
Commercial crew program: @Commercial_Crew
Exploration ground systems: @NASAGroundSys
International Space Station research: @ISS_Research
Space Launch System (SLS): @NASA_SLS
Orion spacecraft: @NASA_Orion
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS): @NASA_TESS
Goddard Institute for Space Studies: @NASAGISS
A few of these accounts, such as the Curiosity Mars rover's X page, have millions of followers. 'Don't worry, my mission isn't going anywhere,' Curiosity's account assured fans on Monday, but the same can't be said for all of these programs.
Trump's 2026 fiscal budget request proposes to cut NASA's funding by nearly 25% in one year—one of the largest percentage cuts proposed in the agency's history. This includes a 47% cut to the agency's science program, a move that would 'decimate' NASA, according to the Planetary Society.
If approved by Congress, the budget would kill at least 41 active and planned space missions. Voyager's funding, for example, would shrink from $7.8 million to $5 million in 2026, then drop to zero in 2029, the Washington Post reported. The Mars Sample Return (MRS) mission, which intends to return samples of the Red Planet's surface dutifully collected by NASA's Perseverance rover over the last few years, is also on the chopping block. The funding cuts would ultimately retire the Orion capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket, too, according to Ars Technica.
The International Space Station (ISS) is already feeling the funding squeeze. The Center for Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS)—which operates the ISS National Lab—recently canceled an upcoming space station research conference due to 'the current regulatory and budgetary environment.'
The proposal also includes sweeping staff cuts that would reduce NASA's workforce by roughly one-third. 'That would represent the smallest NASA workforce since mid-1960, before the first American had launched into space,' Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, recently told Space.com. 'This is the extinction-level event we were warning people about,' Dreier added.
With NASA's scientific future thrown into question, it's easy to see why the outreach rollback has struck a nerve with some, but this isn't the only federal science agency facing big changes to its online presence. Climate.gov, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website for its Climate Program Office, is expected to shut down after most of its staff were laid off on May 31, The Guardian reports. Affected staff told the publication that they believe the cuts were aimed at restructuring public-facing climate information.
While NOAA and NASA face distinct challenges, both agencies are undergoing major changes that signal a shifting landscape for publicly available science—just when we need it most.