‘Extinction-level cuts’ to space agency’s spending means labs will close and deep-space missions will be abandoned
Some of the greatest mysteries of the universe, such as the possibility of life on Mars or Venus, may never be solved because of Donald Trump’s proposed “extinction-level” cuts to Nasa spending, scientists are warning.
The Trump administration revealed last month its plan to slash the space agency’s overall budget by 24% to $18.8bn, the lowest figure since 2015. Space and Earth science missions would bear the brunt of the cutbacks, losing more than 53% of what was allocated to them in 2024.
If the budget is approved by Congress, opponents say, longstanding Nasa labs will close, deep-space missions, including many already under way, will be abandoned, and a new generation of exploration and discovery will never reach the launchpad.
I am not uninformed. You are very excited to get to give this speech and are looking to project that lack of information onto someone, but I never “spun” this into the notion that SpaceX will take over NASA’s research functions. I said the goal is to push the business portions to private hands. We agree this is at the cost of dropping the pure research functions in most cases. I explicitly mentioned a scenario where this delays research by thirty years.
Sometimes I feel this place is so ideologically aligned people are desperate for someone who holds whatever normie stance they are itching for a chance to push against. Sometimes they will just go ahead and do that at whoever says something that sounds even vaguely different from the default stance, even if it’s not the thing they’re arguing against.