President's budget brings back NASA science cuts
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The President's Budget Request is essentially a repeat of the cuts proposed in 2025. Photo: Derek Lacey/Axios
NASA is looking at another potential funding hit.
Why it matters: Cuts to NASA science initiatives could have a big impact locally because North Alabama is one of the largest recipients of annual NASA funding awards.
Zoom in: The President's Budget Request for fiscal year 2027 calls for $18.8 billion in NASA spending, a $5.6 billion cut, or a drop of about 23% from current levels.
- It proposes a $3.4 billion cut, or about 47%, to current science funding, including eliminating 40 science missions.
What they're saying: "The budget is an insult to the astronauts and the agency that is currently returning humanity to the Moon," Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at nonprofit The Planetary Society, told Axios.
- Focusing on lunar initiatives while cutting science programs "is the core contradiction" in the proposal, he said. "You cannot be first in space and be second (or third) in science."
- He also called it a "radical departure" from Trump's first term, which resulted in significant investments in space science at NASA.
Catch up quick: The budget is similar to the 2025 proposal, after which the reconciliation process added back billions in NASA spending that's key to Huntsville operations.
- "It is a copy-paste job," Dreier said, noting errors in the document referencing 2026 instead of 2027, and the canceling of the Mars Sample Return, which was already effectively canceled by Congress.
By the numbers: The proposal earmarks $731 million to land astronauts on the moon by the end of 2028 and "fully funds the lunar landers, space suits, lunar surface systems and astronaut transportation systems."
- $175 million is included to establish a Lunar Base Camp, including robotic and manned missions to the Moon.
- $109 million is budgeted to transition the Landsat system, which provides satellite imagery of Earth's surface, "to a commercial solution."
Case in point: The proposal aims for commercial replacements to the Space Launch System (SLS), which just propelled the Artemis II mission into space and is managed from Marshall Space Flight Center.
- It calls SLS "grossly expensive and delayed," saying it "cost taxpayers nearly $65 billion and flew once," between 2005-2025.
- $1.1 billion is cut from the International Space Station; space technology is cut by almost $300 million; and $143 million is cut from NASA's Office of STEM Engagement, which the budget calls "woke STEM programming."
The Planetary Society has already received a strong response from the public, Dreier said, and he's more optimistic than last time about funding being restored during the rest of the budget process.
- "Congress knows this is coming and has already signaled it won't accept it," he said.
What's next: The ball now moves to Congress' court, including the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, of which Rep. Dale Strong is vice chair.
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