The Artemis II trip to the moon and back might be NASA’s biggest public triumph in decades. It nonetheless is not saving the agency from proposed cuts that would massively slash its space science budget.
President Donald Trump’s plan gives a “billion-dollar boost” to efforts to land on the moon, said CNN. It also proposes “deep cuts” that would reduce the agency’s science programs by nearly 50%. Projects “designed to catalog potentially hazardous asteroids” and “discover exoplanets” would be affected, said Space Daily, as would a key climate-data-sharing program. The trimming raises questions about how NASA can “explore the cosmos” while “gutting the research efforts that underpin” the broader enterprise, said CNN. The targeted programs “feed into the human program and enable the human program,” The Planetary Society’s Jack Kiraly said to the network.
These budget cuts “could bring NASA down” after lifting “humanity’s spirits” with the Artemis mission, the Houston Chronicle said in an editorial. Americans “lived vicariously” through the adventures of the “joyous astronaut crew.” It is crucial that the United States maintain its “momentum toward further exploration.” Otherwise, the Artemis mission will be a “brief sugar high” instead of a “bellwether for continued human spaceflight.”
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“It’s an odd choice” from a White House that has repeatedly promised to “put America first,” Bill Nye said at MS NOW. China is also looking to land on the moon by 2030, so it is perplexing that the U.S. would “cede the lead” in the 21st-century space race. The U.S. cannot be “first in space” if it chooses to be “second in science and technology.” The agency has proven with the Artemis program that Americans are “capable of extraordinary things,” and it would be a shame to abandon that effort. “NASA is what makes America great.”
The United States can still “shoot for the moon,” former NASA scientist Kate Marvel said at The New York Times. But we are “losing the ability to understand our own world.” Climate research done by the agency has been targeted by the Trump administration, along with researchers “studying the sun, the stars and other planets and moons.” Rather than debate policy, the White House has “chosen to attack science itself.” NASA wants to “conjure the notion of inspiration.” For now, though, U.S. leaders are “diminishing our ability to see and understand our planet.”
What next?
The “all moon and little else” White House proposal is the “opening salvo in a multi-month budget process,” said Ars Technica. The Trump administration sought similar cuts to NASA last year but was “resoundingly rejected” by the GOP-led Congress. That may happen again. It would be a “mistake” to gut NASA’s science funding, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), who runs the Senate subcommittee that oversees the agency, said to Politico. NASA is “doing big things” like Artemis “faster” than it used to, he said, so “more resources” are required to succeed.
