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Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American\u2019s Science Quickly, I\u2019m Rachel Feltman.<\/p>\n
The White House recently proposed slashing NASA\u2019s science budget nearly in half and reducing the space agency\u2019s overall funding to just three quarters of what it received last year. When adjusted for inflation the proposed fiscal year 2026 budget would be NASA\u2019s lowest since the beginnings of the Apollo program. But these days NASA is responsible for much more than keeping up with the space race. NASA\u2019s work touches our daily lives in ways most people never realize, from the weather forecasts that help you decide what to wear to the climate data that helps farmers know when to plant their crops.<\/p>\n
The stakes are so high that every living former NASA science chief\u2014spanning from Ronald Reagan\u2019s administration through Joe Biden\u2019s\u2014recently signed a letter warning that these cuts could be catastrophic for American leadership in space and science.<\/p>\n
If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n
Today we\u2019re joined by Lee Billings, a senior editor at Scientific American who covers space and physics. He spoke with one of those former NASA science chiefs about why this moment feels different\u2014and why the scientific community is sounding the alarm.<\/p>\n
Lee, thanks so much for coming on to chat.<\/p>\n
Lee Billings: It is my pleasure, as always, Rachel. I am happy to be here, even though I wish the circumstances were a bit happier.<\/p>\n
Feltman: Right, things aren\u2019t looking great for NASA. What exactly is going on with the agency\u2019s funding?<\/p>\n
Billings: Oof, well, to sum it up: the White House has proposed that NASA\u2019s science budget be effectively cut in half, that the agency as a whole receives about only three quarters of the funding that it received in the previous fiscal year. And there\u2019s been a lot of pushback about that, of course, because if you cut NASA\u2019s science budget in half, for instance, then you\u2019re probably gonna have to shutter, cancel, decommission dozens of active missions across the solar system and in Earth orbit, and you\u2019re going to really hamstring a lot of good science, a lot of things that feed forward into other aspects of national economies and competitiveness.<\/p>\n
So the Senate and the House appropriators have been upset about this to various degrees, and they have, apparently, largely now restored a lot of that funding when you\u2019re looking at, like, the appropriations process and the back and forth between the Senate and the House. I don\u2019t think that we\u2019re entirely out of the woods yet\u2014things are not fully finalized\u2014but it is looking a bit brighter.<\/p>\n
And one contributor to that pushback from Senate and House appropriators might have been a letter that was recently sent to them\u2014an open letter from all the living previous science chiefs of NASA, the associate administrators of the Science Mission Directorate of NASA. Every single one who\u2019s still alive, from serving [in] the Reagan administration all the way through the Biden administration, signed on to this letter on a bipartisan basis and said, \u201cWe\u2019re really not cool with these proposed changes; they\u2019re potentially catastrophic for the nation and for NASA as a whole, so let\u2019s not do them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Feltman: So this pushback is like really seriously bipartisan effort.<\/p>\n
Billings: That\u2019s correct. And, you know, these are serious people. They\u2019ve had their finger on the pulse of every aspect of our civil space agency for, you know, the better part of 40 years, collectively. And none of them seemed too happy about the potential changes that these budget cuts would\u2019ve wrought on NASA.<\/p>\n
Feltman: Let\u2019s talk some more about those potential changes. What are the signatories of this letter most concerned about?<\/p>\n
Billings: You know, it\u2014it\u2019s hard to reel out a concise laundry list because the cuts [laughs] were so large, they threatened to affect almost everything. And I\u2019m gonna read just a couple of quick excerpts.<\/p>\n
So they say that these budget cuts would, quote, \u201ccede U.S. leadership in space and science to China and other nations,\u201d would \u201cseverely damage a peerless and immensely capable engineering and scientific workforce\u201d and would \u201cneedlessly put to waste billions of dollars of taxpayer investments.\u201d They would, quote, \u201cforce the U.S. to abandon its international partners who historically contribute significantly to U.S. space science missions.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then they spend a paragraph going into more details. And we\u2019re talking about things like winding down Hubble, even starting to wind down the James Webb Space Telescope, which only launched a few years ago. We\u2019re talking about turning off missions that are currently at Jupiter, like NASA\u2019s Juno mission. We\u2019re talking about retreating at Mars and turning off a lot of the orbiters and landers and, and rovers there.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re also talking about closing some of NASA\u2019s eyes to Earth. We\u2019re talking about cuts that would affect things like the Landsat program, which NASA manages [with] the United States Geological Survey, which, you know, looks at things like weather and precipitation and, and helps people avoid dangerous storms or know when to plant or harvest their crops\u2014things like that.<\/p>\n
It even cuts into things like aeronautics; people forget that that\u2014the first A in NASA stands for \u201caeronautics,\u201d I\u2019m pretty sure, and there\u2019s lots of work that\u2019s done there, too. That\u2019s everything from developing next-generation engines and other parts of airframes that can lead to more efficient flight to, you know, software systems that can probably help air-traffic controllers and things like that. It\u2019s a full-spectrum situation.<\/p>\n
Feltman: So I know that you talked to one of the authors of this letter. Could you tell us more about who he is and why he feels so strongly about this?<\/p>\n
Billings: Yeah, his name\u2019s John Grunsfeld; sometimes he\u2019s called \u201cDr. Hubble.\u201d And he is a lot of things. In short he\u2019s an astrophysicist. He is a five-time spaceflight veteran\u2014a former NASA astronaut who went up to fix the Hubble Space Telescope and service it, hence the \u201cDr. Hubble\u201d name. And of course, he is also a former associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, a former chief scientist of NASA.<\/p>\n
John Grunsfeld: There\u2019s no question that science in the United States is under attack, and the president\u2019s budget request shows that NASA, you know, is not at all spared.<\/p>\n
Billings: And so when people like this have strong opinions and speak up I think it\u2019s important to listen. I really feel like some of his strongest material was when we prompted him by saying things like, you know, \u201cWhat\u2014why is this happening right now? What upsets you about it?\u201d And he had some pretty sharp words for, you know, these proposals and, and the Trump administration. He threw some sharp elbows.<\/p>\n
Grunsfeld: You know, I can only speculate that this is part of a deliberate attempt to dumb down America. People who are poorly educated are much more easily manipulated than people who have strong critical-thinking skills.<\/p>\n
Billings: The stuff he said there, it\u2019s the kind of thing where this isn\u2019t some sign-toting hippie doing a protest in the street. Like, this guy\u2014that was the other thing that he said that I thought was really good: when I challenged him directly, I was like, \u201cYou know, you can look through your socials and your history and I can see that, you know, you were a supporter of Kamala Harris. There\u2019s gonna be this pushback on you\u2014that you\u2019re just a partisan hack and you\u2019re compromised by your bias\u2014and how would you respond to that?\u201d<\/p>\n
And he answered me very clearly: talking about his resume, talking about his experience at NASA, talking about his spaceflights and how he put his life on the line for the nation to upgrade and service and preserve one of our most cherished and enduring iconic national resources, the Hubble Space Telescope. And he talked about how he\u2019d worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations in the past. And, you know, I\u2014to me that really resonated because, like, this is\u2014he\u2019s not the kind of person who makes a lot of headlines with a lot of splashy talk, right? But when he does talk in a concerted way that\u2019s trying to get attention, I do think it\u2019s worth listening.<\/p>\n
Feltman: Yeah, and what is he most concerned about?<\/p>\n
Billings: So the two that he really highlighted for me when, when we spoke, the first was the cuts to astrophysics.<\/p>\n
Grunsfeld: I\u2019m an astrophysicist, so that actually has me seriously depressed. There\u2019s especially one cut, which is eliminating the high-altitude balloon program, which\u2014I have to say, having run NASA Science\u2014is probably the most efficient and productive program in all of NASA and in all of the federal government because it always has a tiny budget and it does tremendous science.<\/p>\n
Billings: And it seems to be one of the areas where NASA and, by proxy, the United States is really in a pole position. We\u2019re really leading the world in a lot of domains of astrophysics in terms of building telescopes to see further and more clearly deeper out into the cosmos, and he definitely thinks that that is at risk.<\/p>\n
And the other one that he pointed out has\u2014it hits a little closer to home.<\/p>\n
Grunsfeld: Earth science: part of NASA. And one of the things we know is that the Earth as a system is incredibly complex, and it\u2019s that view from space\u2014not only, you know, seeing the whole Earth with our fleet of satellites but also over a long period of time\u2014that allows us to develop models to accurately predict what the future will be.<\/p>\n
Billings: The planet\u2019s warming, and that\u2019s not a partisan appraisal\u2014that\u2019s just a fact. And we need to know how that works. And we need to know how it\u2019s cascading through the Earth\u2019s system to affect everything from precipitation patterns to extreme weather events, so on and so forth\u2014sea-level rise, lots of things. So there\u2019s lots of areas where NASA\u2019s work, especially its observations of our home planet, really do touch people\u2019s lives, everyday people\u2019s lives, in, in lots of subtle ways.<\/p>\n
Feltman: Of course NASA has faced potential budget cuts before. So, what does John say is different about this? Why did he and the rest of the folks who signed feel the need to speak out now?<\/p>\n
Billings: One thing that\u2019s indisputable is: if you look at these proposed budget cuts and you look at NASA\u2019s funding over time, across the entirety of its nearly 70-year history, the budget cuts, if they went through, would be bringing NASA to its lowest state, its lowest budgetary state, since before the [beginnings of the] Apollo program\u2014since, really, its founding. So that\u2019s pretty historic.<\/p>\n
And of course, NASA is doing a lot more with its money than it did back in the Apollo days. You know, back then it was all about a moonshot and beating the Soviet Union in this new \u201cHigh Frontier,\u201d and it was a very focused, almost singular goal. Now NASA\u2019s portfolio is vast. If you look at all the different things it\u2019s doing and all the different types of science that it supports, all the different technology development that it supports, all the different aspects of our lives that these things filter into, it\u2019s just grown so much.<\/p>\n
So we\u2019re pairing a historically low budget with an immensely expanded portfolio of responsibilities, obligations and opportunities, and I think it\u2019s that combination that really set the alarm bells off and that really brought not just John Grunsfeld to the table to write this letter but also all of his predecessors within NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate.<\/p>\n
Feltman: It makes sense that this former NASA head is really concerned about this stuff. But how could it impact our listeners?<\/p>\n
Billings: Woo, well, I think that our listeners should care for many different reasons, and, and it kind of depends upon one\u2019s point of view. If you\u2019re really enthused and excited about just fundamentally expanding the frontiers of our knowledge about the universe, right, if you are captivated and awestruck by pretty pictures from space telescopes and other worldly vistas from interplanetary spacecraft, you should be concerned about that window closing on the universe. And again, we\u2019ve been at the forefront.<\/p>\n
Maybe you\u2019re very, very, very patriotic and you\u2019re always first to start chanting \u201cUSA!\u201d at any public event. Well, in that case maybe you don\u2019t care so much about pretty pictures from space telescopes and rovers on Mars looking for signs of life, but maybe you just want the U.S. to be the best, right? And if these sorts of budget cuts go through, then it\u2019s very hard to see how we\u2019re still gonna be the best in these domains, instead of some other competitor nations, particularly China.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s rapid rise in space science and exploration and spaceflight is something that many people have flagged, obviously, and that John Grunsfeld also noted when we spoke, and they are going full bore. They have a space station up there right now. They are going to be launching almost, like, a Hubble Space Telescope\u2013like orbital observatory that\u2019s gonna hang out near their space station for servicing in [the] coming years. They are probably going to pull off the first successful Mars sample return mission before NASA and the European Space Agency, its key partner, will manage to retrieve a bunch of samples that they already have stored there on Mars.<\/p>\n
You know, attracting the best and the brightest to our shores from all across the world, because who wouldn\u2019t want to work on a mission to land people on Mars? Who wouldn\u2019t wanna work on a mission to try to find life on some distant exoplanet? Those things are fundamentally attractive and cool to a lot of people\u2014again, the best and the brightest\u2014and we want to have them here, I think.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also the direct-utility angle of people wanting to know if it\u2019s gonna be rainy or sunny tomorrow, what they need to wear if they\u2019re going out to work: Should they wear a light sweater, or should they, you know, wear seersucker because it\u2019s gonna be 90 percent humidity? Is there gonna be a big squall or hurricane that might blow in? Those things depend on forecasts, which are based on data that, to some degree, comes from NASA assets\u2014NASA satellites, NASA computers crunching the numbers, all that stuff. So Earth observations have a very strong, direct influence on our daily lives, whether we really recognize it or not, and it\u2019s threatened by these sorts of budget cuts.<\/p>\n
Feltman: Lee, thank you so much for coming on to chat.<\/p>\n
Billings: Rachel, it is always my pleasure. Again, I wish the circumstances were a little better, but hey, hope springs eternal.<\/p>\n
Feltman: That\u2019s all for today\u2019s episode. We\u2019ll be back on Friday to talk to a meteorologist who\u2019s made his way to Washington.<\/p>\n
Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.<\/p>\n
For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. See you next time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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