Massive Cuts To NASA Science Proposed In Early White House Budget Plan

By Joel Achenbach and Christian Davenport

NASA’s science budget could be cut nearly in half under an early version of President Donald Trump’s budget proposal to Congress, a move that would terminate billions of dollars’ worth of ongoing and future missions, according to two individuals with direct knowledge of the administration’s plan.

The budget plan, sent to NASA by the Office of Management and Budget, would give NASA’s Science Mission Directorate $3.9 billion, down from its current budget of about $7.3 billion, according to the individuals who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the details.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens issued a brief statement: “NASA has received the fiscal year 2026 budget passback from the Office of Management and Budget, and has begun the deliberative process.”

The budget proposal, though not yet formally submitted to Congress, would eviscerate a long list of planetary and astronomical missions, including the next major NASA space telescope and the agency’s goal of bringing samples of Mars back to Earth to search for signs of ancient life.

NASA’s astrophysics budget would take a huge hit, dropping from about $1.5 billion to $487 million. Planetary science would see a drop from $2.7 billion to $1.9 billion. Earth Science would drop from about $2.2 billion to $1.033 billion.

“This is an extinction-level event for NASA science,” said Casey Dreier, chief of space policy for the Planetary Society, a space advocacy group. “It needlessly terminates functional, productive science missions and cancels new missions currently being built, wasting billions of taxpayer dollars in the process. This is neither efficient nor smart budgeting.”

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