6 days ago
Trump budget would trigger ‘extinction-level event' for NASA
The Trump administration wants to take NASA's budget back to a time before the 1969 moon landing.
The proposed White House budget released late Friday would slash about a quarter of the agency's spending and reduce NASA's top-line budget to one of its lowest levels in 60 years when adjusted for inflation.
Much of the $6 billion cut from the current $25 billion annual budget would be achieved by decimating research — in particular NASA's work on climate change.
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The White House proposal also would target entire satellite programs for elimination and dramatically curtail U.S. cooperation with foreign science agencies. The number of NASA employees would be cut by about a third, from more than 18,000 down to fewer than 12,000.
NASA's science division would bear the brunt of the blow. Its budget would be cut from $7.3 billion to $3.9 billion, with major cuts to programs that monitor and process the ways human-caused global warming is transforming America and the world.
The proposal is an 'extinction-level event' for one of the world's leading science agencies, said Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, which advocates for research and exploration in space.
'It's unprecedented, it's a fundamentally different science program than what we've had for the last few decades, and one that I frankly think is a narrower and less ambitious representation of our national goals,' he said, 'And frankly, it abandons a lot of our joint efforts with our key allies in the process.'
Dreier added that cutting climate-related monitoring of the planet will have immediate and negative effects on a broad range of industries, especially agriculture.
The cuts will hit communities across the country too, as NASA's science division funds work in every state as well as roughly 80 percent of the nation's congressional districts, according to the Planetary Society.
Some parts of the proposal would save a relatively small amount of money at the cost of impairing U.S. efforts to understand the way global warming is changing the planet, critics say. The White House proposal would cut off invaluable streams of data that have been collected during Democratic and Republican administrations.
The satellite division would be hard hit too, and those cuts appear aimed at any instrument that tracks human-caused climate change — even though they provide other useful data as well.
For instance, the Surface Geology and Biology mission — slated for elimination — keeps tabs on methane and carbon pollution but also uses sophisticated instruments to hunt for critical minerals.
Also on the chopping block: the next generation of the LandSat satellite program. LandSat tracks the ways global warming is altering Earth, but it also provides data on water levels and distribution.
Trump has not staffed the National Space Council, which provides guidance to the White House and federal agencies as well as the U.S. Space Force — though he may do so soon. It's not clear if the budget is largely the product of the White House Office of Management and Budget or if it was crafted with input from NASA.
White House and NASA officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Most years, White House budget plans are treated as either a rough draft or a messaging document — as the presidential proposals are often dramatically altered by congressional appropriators.
But this year could be different, as congressional Republicans have shown little willingness to break with the White House at the start of President Donald Trump's second term.
Even if Republicans do attempt to undo some part of the White House plan for NASA, OMB Director Russ Vought has said his office may simply ignore congressional action and impound funds it does want to spend, which likely would draw a legal challenge.
The proposed NASA cuts come at turbulent time for the space agency.
The Trump administration recently withdrew its first pick for NASA administrator. That's because White House officials were angry that Jared Isaacman — an ally of Elon Musk — had donated to some Democrats including Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, a former astronaut, according to reporting from The New York Times.
Trump criticized Isaacman for his 'prior associations.'
On Tuesday, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said a new nominee for NASA chief would be named soon.
'The president wants to ensure that all of his nominees are aligned fully with the America first mission of this administration,' she said.
Trump has long dismissed climate science, but during his first term NASA maintained a relatively robust research portfolio into the ways humanity is altering the planet by burning fossil fuels.
But his latest budget proposal takes a sledgehammer to climate research, observers say.
It's also unprecedented to cut fully functioning satellites in orbit that are producing invaluable data, said Richard Eckman, who retired as a program manager for NASA's Earth Science Division in January after almost 40 years at the agency.
The probes typically cost billions of dollars to build and launch and comparatively little to maintain once they're in space.
Eckman worked on Sage, one of the instruments slated for elimination, which is bolted to the International Space Station and measures ozone as required under the Clean Air Act of 1990.
He said it's clear the White House budget aims to blind the country to the ways climate change is transforming the world.
But he said the satellites and instruments slated for elimination produce all kinds of other data too, such as tracking the movement of different climatic zones that affect plant growth and are relied upon by the agriculture industry.
The missions being canceled typically take decades to go from an idea to an instrument launched into space, he said.
'Whether you believe in climate change or human-induced impacts on climate or not, these are atmospheric gasses that have an impact on the composition of the earth,' he said. 'It's very depressing to me to think that we're writing off the future of NASA Earth Observing missions from space.'
