The US government’s science programs are facing a crisis under the Trump administration, with NASA emerging as one of the most prominent casualties. Proposed budget reductions would slash NASA’s resources to levels not seen since before the first human spaceflight in 1961. The cuts are the steepest percentage drop in a single year ever proposed for the agency.
The current push to reorient NASA’s mission priorities amounts to a deconstruction of the agency’s scientific capacity, according to researchers. Casey Dreier of the Planetary Society has characterized this shift as akin to watching the “death of an ideal,” arguing that it represents not only a loss of technical ability but also a diminishment of the United States’ collective imagination.
Forty-one NASA missions are facing the axe, including ventures ranging from probes to the outer solar system to climate-monitoring satellites. The most striking possible casualty is the Mars Sample Return programme, an ambitious effort to bring Martian soil and rock back to Earth for detailed analysis.
The budgetary retrenchment has also destabilized NASA’s workforce, with around 4,000 employees expected to depart through voluntary buyouts, attrition or early retirements. This loss of expertise threatens to erode the institutional knowledge required to mount complex interplanetary expeditions.
The administration’s plan to abolish the radioisotope power systems (RPS) programme, which builds nuclear batteries that power spacecraft in environments where solar energy is insufficient, has been met with widespread criticism. The RPS programme cost NASA approximately $175 million in 2024 and would be nearly irreversible if dismantled.
Experts warn that the retirement of the RPS programme would place the highest-priority planetary science mission of the coming decade – a mission to Uranus – at risk. Scientists have also noted that abandoning RPS undermines even near-term ambitions, including sustained lunar bases and Mars expeditions.
As other nations pursue their own nuclear space power systems, the US is ceding leadership in deep-space exploration to international rivals. Resistance to the cuts has emerged within and beyond NASA, with more than 300 agency staffers signing a public dissent letter denouncing the administration’s actions as “rapid and wasteful” changes that undermine the agency’s mission.
The dismantling of NASA’s scientific programmes signals something larger than fiscal restraint – it represents a blow to the American spirit of exploration and innovation. The trajectory of NASA under current budget proposals appears uncertain, with scientists warning that the damage being inflicted may prove permanent.
Source: https://www.firstpost.com/world/nasa-donald-trump-us-china-india-space-13927062.html