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Months after Congress voted against the Trump administration\u2019s brutal NASA budget proposal for fiscal year 2026, the White House has renewed its efforts to deal the space agency\u2019s science directorate a devastating blow.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released its proposed 2027 top-line request, which would eviscerate NASA\u2019s science budget by a whopping 47 percent and slash the agency\u2019s overall funding by 23 percent. The move highlighted the Trump administration\u2019s persistent and staunchly anti-science agenda, once again drawing outraged reactions from space advocacy groups.<\/p>\n
Worse yet, as The Planetary Society chief of space policy Casey Dreier told Space.com<\/em>, the latest document is incredibly vague, failing to identify which space science missions would land on the chopping block. It even refuses to list prior-year funding levels, a baffling departure from 60 years of institutional history.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are two things: the astonishing lack of transparency and the abject refusal to acknowledge political reality,\u201d Dreier said. \u201cThis is the least transparent NASA budget request I\u2019ve ever seen \u2014 and I\u2019ve literally looked through every single one since 1960.\u201d<\/p>\n Dreier also pointed out that the White House was allocating $438 million to \u201cMars Technology\u201d without providing any further cost breakdowns.<\/p>\n The 2027 request also appears to largely ignore Congress\u2019s insistence on keeping NASA well funded. Lawmakers resoundingly rejected the White House\u2019s proposed 2026 budget, which Dreier described as an \u201cextinction-level event for space science and exploration in the United States,\u201d last year.<\/p>\n In other words, the Trump administration\u2019s latest request comes off as a \u201ccopy-paste budget\u201d from its last attempt, as Dreier told Space.com<\/em>, calling it out as \u201csloppy and unprofessional.\u201d<\/p>\n The document even includes egregious errors that could\u2019ve easily been caught, with Dreier noting that it lists the Mars Sample Return mission as a line item even though it was canceled last year, and misstates the fiscal year for the funding of NASA\u2019s groundbreaking James Webb Space Telescope.<\/p>\n While funding for future missions to the Moon including NASA\u2019s signature Artemis program remains largely intact, space science \u2014 which relies on long-term public funding \u2014 could take a massive hit.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the essence of why we have public investment in basic science,\u201d Dreier told Space.com<\/em>. \u201cJust because SpaceX is very good and launching rockets does not then mean that it\u2019s now easy to get high quality science data at Mars.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe two activities are very different, but they often get conflated together,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Despite the errors and vagueness of the document, NASA\u2019s leadership is firmly behind the Trump administration\u2019s attempts to largely dismantle the agency\u2019s science mission. Administrator Jared Isaacman defended the 2027 budget proposal, telling CBS News<\/em> that the agency would still have enough resources to \u201cget to the Moon.\u201d<\/p>\n He also told CNN<\/em> in a separate interview that \u201cNASA\u2019s science budget is greater than every other space agency combined across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI strongly support the President\u2019s fiscal policies and mandate to drive efficiency,\u201d Isaacman wrote in an April 3 memo to NASA employees, as quoted by SpaceNews<\/em>.<\/p>\n The fate of NASA is once again in the hands of lawmakers. Considering how its 2026 proposal fared, there\u2019s a good chance a bipartisan group in Congress will once again strike down the White House\u2019s request.<\/p>\n Senate Appropriations Commerce, Justice and Science chair Jerry Moran (R-KS) argued in a statement this week that it would be a \u201cmistake\u201d to gut funding for science missions.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to try to lead the subcommittee and the whole committee to put us in a position where we are funding NASA, NOAA and our other agencies in a way that is pretty similar to what we did last year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n However, the upcoming midterm elections could soon complicate matters even further, delaying an almost guaranteed revision.<\/p>\n In short, the OMB\u2019s latest budget request is seemingly little more than a clumsily constructed document designed to obstruct, not support, NASA\u2019s operations, underlining the White House\u2019s flagrant disregard for anything not related to sending astronauts to the Moon and Mars.<\/p>\n