The Trump White House has shared its draft version of the budget request for NASA, proposing a massive 20% cut to the agency’s overall budget. The cuts are expected to be devastating, with science programs facing nearly a 50% reduction in funding. The plan would slash $5 billion from the agency’s top line, affecting various missions and centers.
The majority of the cuts will be concentrated within the Science Mission Directorate, which oversees planetary science, Earth science, astrophysics research, and more. This includes a two-thirds cut to astrophysics ($487 million), a greater than two-thirds cut to heliophysics ($455 million), and significant reductions in Earth science ($1.033 billion) and Planetary science ($1.929 billion).
Some notable cuts include the cancellation of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, an observatory seen as on par with world-class instruments like the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes. Funding for Mars Sample Return and the DAVINCI mission to Venus will also be eliminated.
The proposed budget has sparked concerns among science policy experts, who characterize the cuts as “extinction level” events that could decimate American leadership in space exploration. NASA’s acting administrator, Janet Petro, downplayed the significance of the report earlier this week, but many Democrats are already speaking out against the plan.
Congress is expected to fight back against the proposed budget, with Representative George Whitesides vowing to work alongside colleagues on the Science Committee to block the cuts. The process of establishing a federal budget begins in October, and it’s unclear when the Trump administration plans to release its final budget request.
Source: https://www.wired.com/story/proposed-nasa-budget-cuts-would-decimate-american-leadership-in-space