NASA’s headquarters in Washington DC
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NASA is preparing for substantial budget cuts that may force the cancellation of ongoing and upcoming missions across the solar system, leaving it facing a “brutal” future, experts have warned.
The space agency has already begun some layoffs as part of the extensive restructuring of US federal agencies by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an independent task force led by Elon Musk. Earlier this week, it announced it would close its Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy; the Office of the Chief Scientist; and the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility branch in the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity in Washington DC, representing a total of 23 jobs at the agency.
“Change of this magnitude is never easy, but our strength comes from our shared commitment to our mission and each other,” Janet Petro, NASA’s acting administrator, wrote in an email to staff. “I encourage you to support one another as we move forward.”
One employee of the Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy, who learned they had been laid off this week and were granted anonymity because of fear of reprisal, says they were an “easy target” because their office was established under the administration of Joe Biden. “Some people thought this might be coming,” they say.
The roles of chief technologist and chief economist for NASA were within this office, which “helped with strategic planning across the agency,” says the employee. That included managing the recent uptick in lunar missions and “making sure those missions don’t interfere with one another” when planning moon-based landing sites and operations.
“There’s a lot of interest in the lunar south pole, and there’s concern about operating near one another,” they said, such as kicking up dust that could coat solar panels on other vehicles. “I don’t think these issues will be tackled moving forward.”
These losses are expected to be just the start of a much larger cull at NASA. Casey Dreier at US space-exploration advocacy group The Planetary Society says there are rumours that, in his upcoming budget request, President Donald Trump will direct NASA’s overall science budget to be cut by as much as 50 per cent, in favour of spending money on crewed space exploration. That would be a blow to NASA’s Science Mission Directorate office, which handles “pretty much everything NASA does that’s not a crewed spaceflight mission”, says Dreier; it currently has a budget of about $7 billion out of NASA’s total $25 billion annual budget.
A scientist familiar with NASA’s policy decisions, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisal, says that any cuts requested by the president will still need to be approved by Congress, which might not so readily support them. “NASA is really beloved on a bipartisan basis,” they say. But if the cuts did go ahead, they “would essentially be the end of NASA science”, they add. “No mission will be safe.”
Halving the budget “would be a profoundly brutal consequence that would symbolise the nation turning its back on the cosmos”, says Dreier, and would result in many missions’ cancellation. While some missions in their prime – like the James Webb Space Telescope – would probably survive, those most at risk are missions either in early planning stages or later in their lives. That could include climate satellites, the Hubble Space Telescope, the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers on Mars and the Voyager missions, which were the first spacecraft to ever leave our solar system.
The effects on NASA could be permanent: “If you completely destroy the pipeline of people, you have a significant and long-lasting consequence,” says Dreier. “It is an extinction-level event.”
In a letter to Petro this week, Zoe Lofgren of California, the top Democrat on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, urged NASA to fight back against the cuts. “DOGE will seek to slash and burn core functions of NASA,” she wrote. “It is imperative that you stand up for NASA’s critical work.”
Speaking to New Scientist, Lofgren warned that the situation could have international ramifications. “Dismantling NASA’s highly skilled workforce would be a giant leap backwards for the United States and enable a giant leap forward for China,” she said. “Senseless and reckless reductions will cripple the agency’s ability to maintain its leadership in cutting-edge innovation, curiosity-driven science and human exploration.”
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