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October 14, 2025<\/p>\n
4 min read<\/p>\n
The U.S. Won\u2019t Win the New Space Race by Defunding NASA<\/p>\n
The U.S. wants to remain a superpower in space. It can\u2019t without supporting NASA<\/p>\n
In the early 1400s, nearly a century before Columbus\u2019s fateful voyage to the Americas, China seemed most poised to use maritime might to create a global empire. Beginning in 1405, Ming Dynasty admiral Zheng He commanded a fleet of immense \u201ctreasure ships\u201d on a series of expeditions across the Indian Ocean, showcasing China\u2019s wealth and strength as far afield as the eastern coast of Africa. But by 1433 the state-sponsored voyages had ceased.<\/p>\n
Scholars still debate what led 15th-century China to turn inward, ceding its power\u2014and ultimately the discovery of what would become the New World\u2014to others. But regardless of its cause, the missed opportunity is unquestionable.<\/p>\n
Today a strange echo of this episode is unfolding\u2014on the high frontier of space rather than the high seas. This time, however, China is rising to prominence as the U.S. squanders its advantages. Unlike the Ming court that made no secret of decisively abandoning China\u2019s naval aspirations, some U.S. leaders now embrace space as a vital, contested domain. But while they insist they\u2019re setting a course for America\u2019s continued dominance in space science, technology and exploration, their actions are contradicting and undermining that goal.<\/p>\n
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Skepticism about, if not outright scorn for, civilian space spending is practically a bipartisan tradition in U.S. politics, but we are talking chiefly about the \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d policymaking of President Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n
While [U.S. leaders] insist they\u2019re setting a course for America\u2019s continued dominance in space science, technology and exploration, their actions are contradicting and undermining that goal.<\/p>\n
On July 20, the 56th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the White House released a statement in which Trump proudly declared his administration was \u201creigniting the United States\u2019 leadership in space\u201d and pledged to return Americans to the moon and send them to Mars. Weeks earlier, thanks to Trump\u2019s signature budget-reconciliation bill (the \u201cBig Beautiful Bill\u201d), NASA had received nearly $10 billion in additional funding for heavy-lift rockets, crewed spacecraft, and other things crucial to the Artemis program, which officially began during Trump\u2019s first term. Acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy has repeatedly parroted similar talking points. During a September press conference, he said \u201cwe\u2019re in a second space race right now; the Chinese want to get back to the moon before us. That\u2019s not going to happen. America has led in space in the past, and we are going to continue to lead in space in the future.\u201d The U.S., Duffy asserted, would achieve this feat in 2027. (Duffy\u2019s remarks came a week after his Trump-appointed predecessor, Jim Bridenstine, more realistically testified to Congress that \u201cunless something changes, it is highly unlikely the United States will beat China\u2019s projected timeline [of 2030] to [send humans to] the moon\u2019s surface.\u201d)<\/p>\n
The Trump administration does deserve credit for some sound space policy\u2014such as two executive orders, one in 2020 seeking to extend the economic sphere of the U.S. and its allies beyond low-Earth orbit and another in 2025 to supercharge U.S. capabilities by streamlining regulations for domestic commercial space companies. Similarly, this past August, Duffy announced the administration\u2019s plans for NASA to fast-track readying a nuclear reactor for launch to the moon by 2030\u2014a bold move meant to secure valuable lunar territory and eventually power U.S. outposts there.<\/p>\n
But these acts must be considered alongside other policies and proposals that influence U.S. scientific and technological prospects off-world and on Earth.<\/p>\n
Chief among these is the White House\u2019s proposed spending budget for fiscal year 2026. Despite the boost to the Artemis program, Trump\u2019s FY2026 proposal called for cutting NASA\u2019s overall budget by about 25 percent, with the agency\u2019s science division being slashed by nearly half. Advocacy groups such as the Planetary Society\u2014as well as all seven living former NASA science chiefs\u2014have condemned these proposed cuts as catastrophic for U.S. space science. The cuts, they warned, would lead to the cancellation of more than 40 ongoing and planned U.S. space missions. On Trump\u2019s chopping block are high-profile, decades-in-the-making projects such as NASA\u2019s Mars Sample Return mission and the next-generation Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. These have counterpart competitors in China, which is proceeding unimpeded toward space leadership.<\/p>\n
The cuts proposed for FY2026 are not the administration\u2019s only harmful moves: White House actions have led to the shedding of more than 2,500 NASA staffers, most of them senior employees. Innumerable federal research grants have been canceled, suspended or delayed because of ideological litmus tests. Thousands of foreign students and skilled professionals have been blocked or discouraged from living and laboring in the U.S. by immigration and guest-worker policies. As the federally funded scientific enterprise staggers and a U.S. brain drain accelerates after these heavy blows, affecting both new and longtime workers, China and other nations are opening their doors to international students and scientists, including American ones, offering generous financial incentives and building state-of-the-art research hubs to attract talent from around the world.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to see how America\u2019s losses across these myriad domains won\u2019t lead to other nations\u2019 gain, even if we can\u2019t predict the marvelous opportunities we\u2019ll be missing out on. And, just as with China\u2019s befuddling decision to retreat from maritime greatness nearly 600 years ago, it\u2019s harder still to understand why U.S. leaders today seem so eager to lose this new space race. Trump\u2019s push to make America great again in space presumes America isn\u2019t already the world\u2019s greatest spacefaring power\u2014which it demonstrably is, albeit perhaps not for much longer.<\/p>\n
Our nation\u2019s continued greatness in space requires giving more support to government-sponsored R&D rather than less and respecting, not disdaining, science\u2014irrespective of politics.<\/p>\n
If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" October 14, 2025 4 min read The U.S. Won\u2019t Win the New Space Race by Defunding NASA The U.S. wants to remain a superpower in space. It can\u2019t without supporting NASA By The Editors In the early 1400s, nearly a century before Columbus\u2019s fateful voyage to the Americas, China seemed most poised to use maritime<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[506,3331,2475,1101,811,4657],"class_list":{"0":"post-28217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-crucial","9":"tag-nasa","10":"tag-race","11":"tag-space","12":"tag-u-s","13":"tag-winning"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}