Space science under fire: Your questions answered

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Can space exploration continue to thrive in a changing world? And why does it matter for all of us? We'll address some hard questions this week on Planetary Radio. I'm Sarah Al-Ahmed of The Planetary Society with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. As many of you know, NASA is facing the largest proposed budget cut in its history, threatening missions, technological advancements, and our understanding of the universe. 

Today, I am joined by Casey Dreier, our chief of space policy, and Ambre Trujillo, our digital community manager, to break down the toughest questions people are asking us about NASA's budget. Then Jack Kiraly, our director of government relations returns with an update on the growing community movement to save NASA Science. He'll share how organizations, student groups, and even podcasts are stepping up to protect space exploration. As always, we'll wrap up with What's Up? with Bruce Betts, where we'll discuss some of the most recent NASA spinoff technologies that are making our lives better here on Earth. 

If you love Planetary Radio and want to stand formed about the latest space discoveries, make sure you hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcasting platform. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode filled with new and awe-inspiring ways to know the cosmos and our place within it. 

Before we jump into our conversations for today, I want to take a moment to celebrate all of the graduates out there. It's that time of the year again. Whether you're finishing high school, college, or earning that advanced degree, you did it. Your hard work and perseverance have brought you to this moment and you should be proud. A special congratulations to Finley, the son of our audio editor, for graduating high school. We're cheering you on and we can't wait to see what you do next. 

Speaking of bright futures, it's moments like these that remind us why space exploration matters. It's about pushing boundaries, asking huge questions, and fighting for the discoveries that are going to shape our understanding of our universe and ourselves, but not everyone sees it that way. As debates around space exploration heat up online, so do the questions, and sometimes they're not exactly friendly. With NASA's future in the spotlight, misconceptions and doubts are spreading fast. To help set the record straight, I invited Casey Dreier, our chief of space policy, and Ambre Trujillo, our digital community manager, to join me for a Q&A. 

We're diving head first into the toughest and most common questions people are asking about NASA's role, the value of space science, and why all of this matters. Hey, Casey and Amber, thanks for joining me.

Casey Dreier: Hey.

Ambre Trujillo: HI.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Space exploration has always sparked some really big questions and some bold opinions, especially when it comes to how it's funded. With all this recent news about proposed budget cuts for NASA, we've been dealing with this surge of debate. I'm going to be asking you questions that we've been receiving online. I apologize ahead of time if any of these seem rude, but I'm speaking for the anonymous person on the internet.

Casey Dreier: Amber, are anonymous people rude online? Do you have any experience?

Ambre Trujillo: Oh, no, never.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Right. But I also feel like, in some ways, the anonymity allows people to ask questions they might've been too scared to ask publicly.

Casey Dreier: It's great to get questions if you're embarrassed to ask them. I love answering all types of questions about space and how space works. I love doing this. It's a great opportunity to ask us questions, but just don't be a jerk about it.

Ambre Trujillo: Yeah. And to add onto that, I want to say that, especially with my job being in the trenches of social media, I am a huge, huge proponent of asking questions. I think that our society right now rewards being right over asking questions and this starts from a young age. Unfortunately, I don't know about for you guys, but for me growing up, I eventually was shamed out of asking questions. I think that we are seeing a fruition of this, because I think a lot of people go through this on social media because people don't know how to ask questions. 

Sometimes, it comes from a statement or a comment or through anger, but I think, at the core of it, a lot of people are curious. They just aren't sure how to ask the question that is deeper. I feel like part of my job is to get people to see what their question really is. Yeah, I think the thing that we're coming up to right now is when do we ask questions and when is the time to stop asking the questions and taking action? 

What I mean by that is you can ask all the questions in the world, but there's certain situations, like in a fire in your home, you're probably not going to ask the firefighter a million questions. You're going to take action. I think in social media right now, people aren't really sure where that line is. It's our job as science communicators to communicate the time to answer the questions and the time to take action. We're in the moment of asking questions, but we are fast approaching the point where we need to start doing the actions before the house is burned down.

Casey Dreier: That was beautifully put, Amber. That was well said.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Yeah. Now, is definitely a critical moment for space science, but it's particularly a critical moment for space science in the United States. This speaks to one of the first questions we've been getting a lot recently, which is why is it so important for the United States to remain a leader in space exploration and why is this such a priority for us at The Planetary Society, especially considering that we're an international organization?

Casey Dreier: I'm happy to address that. One of the reasons is that there's a practical way to think about this and there's a bigger picture way. The practical way is that we are an international organization, but something like 90% of our members are in the United States. We're based in the United States. We know the system here really well. We understand exactly where we need to go, who we need to talk to, and actually very somewhat uniquely the distance between a citizen and a decision maker when it comes to NASA priorities and budget is very small. 

You can literally walk into your congressional representative who maybe is serving on the NASA Appropriations Subcommittee and talk to them and they have direct ability to write the legislation that then funds NASA. You just really don't have that at other space agencies around the world. There are many more layers between the voter and the policy setting. That has its advantages and disadvantages in that context, but in terms of just direct way to engage with this, this is where most of our effort goes to almost as a practical matter because it's much less clear how you make that one-to-one connection. 

In addition to that, why do we want the US to be... Well, I mean, the US at the moment spends, relatively speaking compared to other nations, just much more on space science and space exploration. As much as I would love other countries to spend more, the US sets a lot and what the US does in space tends to drive the activities of our international partners. We saw this with Artemis where a lot of other nations started to join the US with going to the moon. We see this with a lot of scientific partnerships and it happens the other way as well. But just by the sheer volume of activities where the US goes and what it does and doesn't do really has these echo-y impacts across the world. 

And then also why I want the US... I'd say it's not an exclusive claim, but I mean broadly in the ideal sense right now, the US has classically operated with its partners, with a coalition of its allies and partners. It's exemplified by what's in the Artemis Accords, about what values we're bringing into space, openness, scientific curiosity, transparency, mutual aid, respect for historical monuments and places and various places of the solar system. Again, actual [inaudible 00:08:24] kind of like how this actually comes out, but in terms of the ideals being presented, those are the ideals that we want to see. 

I'm an American and I think it's very important to encourage those best ideals, setting the types of normative behaviors in space, the goals in space, and acting as a way to bring others with us. That's why we frame it a lot of the way like that. Someone else wants to [inaudible 00:08:46] nation wants to send a mission to Europa, we're really excited about that too and we are with Juice and other missions like that. When we talk about it in that framing, that tends to be what we mean by it.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: We're talking more broadly about NASA and space agencies and what they accomplish in space, but we're in a very different age where it's not just government entities that are going into space. There are huge numbers of these commercial space companies coming online. Many of them want to do this work in space. Why is it so important that we spend money to try to fund things like NASA when conceivably we could put that out for the commercial entities to do?

Ambre Trujillo: NASA does, what, the private industry. I don't want to say they can't do it, but they really have no incentive to do it. I'm sure a private company could make a web telescope if they invested enough money into it. Fundamental science like telescopes don't have an immediate economic return in the way that something like a rocket does. A rocket, you can have payloads on. A telescope, it does bring an economic value in the fact that it creates jobs, but it's more of a long-term economic value. NASA spin-offs are a big thing that come off of a lot of these missions and I think that those are extraordinarily important. They lead to some of the biggest advancements that human beings have ever been able to embark on, because of the fact that when you go to space and you do these space science missions, you are forced to think out of the box. 

If you have to build a parachute that's going to land a Mars lander on Mars, you have to be able to think about how it's able to withstand an impact. That forces someone to think outside of the box in different aspects, and then an entrepreneur can come along later and go, "Oh, that same fiber we can use to protect first responders." That kind of like out-of-the-box thinking doesn't really happen unless you are forced to think outside of the box in these space missions and those economic returns happen much, much later. 

NASA does and develops these missions that not only fuel the answers to the questions that we don't have yet, but they also answer, as Casey would put it, the secular sublime, the inspiration behind things. There was a gentleman back in 1962 named John F. Kennedy who posed a very similar question. Why go to the moon, right? Well, why do we climb the highest mountain? Why fly across the Atlantic Ocean? It's because it's not easy, it's because it's hard, and it speaks to the human spirit. Why do we make music? Why do we make art? 

There's something intrinsic in us that wants to find out more. Private industry, unfortunately, right now... I don't know if this could change. Casey, you can weigh in on this, but there is no immediate profit value into answering those questions. If they want to be viable as an organization or as a company, they need to make money. I don't want to villainize profit because that is what runs our economic society. It's what we build off of, but right now there are no consumers of fundamental science and research. NASA exists to advance exploration for the benefit of everyone and not just those who can pay for it.

Casey Dreier: Yeah, that's exactly right, Amber. Just to build on that, I mean, it's essentially why we have a public sector and a private sector. We do see this question a lot, so it is worth dwelling on a bit. Why can't just SpaceX do it? Amber, you outlined exactly right that the incentive structures of private companies who have to answer to investors or have limited amounts of funds, they are forced to, by necessity, focus on things that have markets. In space still, the only real completely commercial market is for sending things up into space and then pointing them back down to Earth. Whether you're taking pictures of Earth or observing Earth in various different wavelengths of light to understand vegetation and growth and other practical things or weather or just reflecting communications back and forth between humans, that's where the market is. So far as we know, there's no Europeans on Europa who are willing to pay for Starlink satellites and so they're not going to send them there. 

Now, again, those are just the fundamental distinctions of a private and public entity. We, society, the United States in particular, created agencies devoted to the fundamental scientific research of various things, starting with the National Science Foundation, adding NASA and others in the wake of World War II, where it turned out that World War II was a war largely won by technology and which countries had the most advanced technology and were able to develop it and utilize it. This famous report by Vannevar Bush, who was the president of MIT, to President Roosevelt at the time basically laid this argument out, this answer. If you want to say why doesn't SpaceX do this, read Vannevar Bush's Science, the Endless Frontier. It was published in 1945. Because it's the same argument, which is that it is in the national interest to direct investments in things that have uncertain but potentially foundational levels of payoff in terms of functionally changing forever the way something works. 

We owe it to ourselves as humans who exist in the cosmos to better understand the cosmos in which we exist. NASA Science and NASA things like this, again, as Amber said, there's no markets for going to these places, and we shouldn't expect private companies to do that. That's not their job. NASA will work with them and there are tools to do it. As I said, they build rockets. You got to put something on that rocket. You can have all the rockets in the world, but if you don't build something to go on top of it, what do you do with them? If you send humans to Mars without a scientific purpose, what are they going to do there? Just stare at the wall or just dig things? 

It's a foundational responsibility of the public sector and we have seen this over and over again. While individuals, and we've seen this with Jeff Bezos and other wealthy individuals, have made infrastructure to even send themselves into space, we have not seen any wealthy individual commit to building a science mission to Enceladus or Neptune or a space telescope. We haven't seen any individual foundation or commercial company build their own scientific spacecraft because it just doesn't make any sense financially. The only closest example as perfect illustration is Rocket Lab's mission to Venus. You should listen to my interview with Peter Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab, who said, "Oh, yeah, we love Venus. It's so fun to do, but we cannot justify working on this unless we have nothing else to do." It is a nights and weekend project, it is a hobby, and you can't build a leading scientific research capability on hobby time. This is a unique responsibility, it is a profound responsibility, and it is a perfect example of where we should actually invest public money, where commercial sector cannot do these things, and then leverage the tools provided by the commercial sector to do everything else.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: But this does speak to another question that we get quite frequently, which doesn't have to do with commercial space, but speaks more broadly to the major financial issues that people are facing here in the United States. I think you've made a good case for the fact that NASA spinoffs and things like that are a result of this kind of research, but people still ask all the time, why should we be spending money on space science when there are so many more urgent financial issues that we have to deal with and larger issues that people are dealing with here at home?

Casey Dreier: Well, if you look at... I'm a budget guy. Anyone who listens to my show, I love numbers, not just because nerdy about them but I think words are free clearly. I'm using a lot of them. People can say lots of things, policies are free to write, but you can only spend a dollar once or a euro once or whatever. What you actually spend your money on, in a sense, reveals what your actual priorities are as a nation, as a person, whatever, because you ultimately have a limited number of them to spend. If we look through that lens, I'd say we have ethically, overwhelmingly the correct response to that question, which is the vast majority of what the United States, at least as a nation, spend its money on. 75% of it is for social and medical programs for the elderly and for the poor. 

That's 75% of our annual budget, national defense takes up about a sixth, and then everything else, that includes NASA, fits in that last little bit. NASA, as a proportion of how we spend our money is 0.3%. If you round the percentage that we spend on our space program to the closest digit, we spend 0% of our money as a nation on NASA. If you look at what NASA Science does, that's a third of that. 0.1% is what NASA Science costs. If you look at the overall amount of money we spend, we spend it on very immediate social and national interest needs. 

NASA is a high-risk, high-reward, small portion of our, in a sense, national investment portfolio, so you could cut NASA... I like to say it this way. If you take all the money we have ever spent on NASA going back to 1959, fiscal year 59, the first year it existed, add that up, adjust for inflation, and you subtract it from just this one year in the United States' budget deficit, we would still run a budget deficit. NASA could have never existed and we basically would have the same financial situation. It is not where we want to focus our attention if people are serious about money and neither saving it or applying it to things. There are other areas to focus on.

Ambre Trujillo: I think, on top of that, a lot of people are concerned about how they're going to pay for rent or gas prices. Are they going to be able to even go to work or buy the food that they need for their babies? I think that's okay to ask, but I think what is sometimes a challenge to communicate is what you've been saying a lot, Casey, is the fact that this is making the lives of you and your children better in the long run. Why? Because societies that invest in science and technologies remain leaders on a global scale.

Casey Dreier: I think they're just more dynamic, too, societal. We're constantly have to ingest new information and challenge our beliefs and just novel information, I think, is critical in the society.

Ambre Trujillo: Absolutely. You look back in the history of the world and you look at all of the societies that have risen and have fallen. The societies that began to thrive were the ones that invested in science and technology. I just think that you have to reframe it in the sense that this is creating jobs for us in the economy and then down the road it is providing opportunities for our children to have better paying jobs or whatever it might be, but it also strengthens our national security. A lot of people are concerned about war and all of these things and learning about where we are as a nation and what our values are as a nation. It really is an expression of that. Do we value that curiosity, that cooperation, and that discovery? 

I think it's a bigger picture thing and it's hard for a lot of people to think in that bigger picture element because of the fact that they are worried about getting groceries that week. I get it. I get it. It's the fact that this is what defines and ultimately helps a nation and a society thrive. Yeah, that's basically why investing in education and science and technology is so important, too, but the space science and the missions and everything, what that ultimately gives us is the opportunity to live better lives.

Casey Dreier: Building on that, it's this idea that there's something to look forward to and that there's something bigger than ourselves and that you or your children or their children will have the most astonishing and wonderful and amazing opportunities to be part of that, to learn about it, to live in a time when they had a deeper and more profound understanding of their own place, and to always have something to look in the distance and aspire to that is welcoming and bringing them all together to say, "Let's do this together and figure it out."That the world is not ossified and static and diminished, but in fact, we are, as Carl Sagan said, just dipping our toes into this cosmic ocean. It's so much bigger and weirder and stranger and more wonderful than we had ever imagined. That is really enlivening. 

To be able to pursue that, to realize that we're among the very first humans in, what, more than a quarter million years of humans existing on this Earth who are able to think about this and pursue it at the same time, that's something to treasure. Why would we walk away from that? Why would we deny ourselves or our children's opportunities to participate in and that the world is so much bigger? Even becoming much more prosaic, I've always said that if you're worried in terms of economics, NASA gives that minimum of three to one economic boost to wherever they spend their money. 

Would you rather or rather not have a NASA center in your neighborhood? Would you rather have all that investment and future oriented individuals and maybe yourself working at these institutions or serving them? There's huge economic benefits wherever we put that funding. On top of that, then we get to unlock maybe there's life beyond Earth and we now know that for the first time. It's all the way from these big esoteric sense of self down to this practical, pure economic benefit. It is a worthwhile thing to do. 

I think maybe another way to think about this, too. Every other nation is trying to make a space program pretty much. It can't be that bad of an idea. They can't all be misguided or something the same way. They want to build and create these avenues and opportunities and potentials and be a part of this big endeavor as well. That says that there is a fundamental value to this idea that goes beyond this political situation that we're facing now. 

I think that people tend to think about either/or. We have to either have space science or we protect Earth. Space science is actively protecting Earth through missions. We have telescopes looking for potentially hazardous asteroids. We have satellites that are tracking wildfires and droughts and helping to save people every single day. We are learning water filtration through technologies that we use on the ISS or on Mars, then we can bring it back home and use it here at home. We are actively addressing those financial issues on Earth through space science, so they are not mutually exclusive. They work together in many ways.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I feel like this might be a problem of people's exposure to understanding what technologies are spun off from NASA. I've gotten questions all over the board. Why invest all of this money? But everything from your ability to get LASIK to the camera in your phone comes from space exploration, so maybe it's just an issue of people's awareness of these spin-off technologies.

Casey Dreier: I think also there's a function of how we talk about space. For deep cut, this was, I think, literally my first article I ever wrote for planetary.org, which is a surprising number of years ago now, but it was in the wake of the Curiosity Rover. Something I observed then that I still observe now is that the way people talk about a NASA mission. The cost of that mission is part of the title of it. It was always the $2.5 billion Curiosity Rover. $2.5 billion is a lot of money. I wish I had $2.5 billion. When it's presented that, NASA, what it does, it's so big, literally and figuratively, it's so unique and distinctive, and you associate it again with this constant discussion of its cost, that I think it creates this perception that everything is this luxury expensive item when, in reality, Social Security spends in three days what NASA spends in a year. 

That's the level of priority that we've spent on these types of things, that NASA is actually among the smallest national federal agencies in terms of budget compared to Department of Education and Homeland Security, transportation, you name it. NASA is actually one of the smallest ones. It's just because what NASA does is so much more visible and unusual that I think it creates this perception of unusual expense when it's actually, again, oh 0.3% of what we spend our money on. I don't blame people for feeling that. That makes sense in terms of how things are presented and this is why I think this context is always so important. It's not a luxury item. I think it's a smart, savvy investment in the future and done for, again, a fraction. 

Remember, NASA's budget rounds to zero as a percentage of what we spend in the United States every year and it's just because... Again, 2.5 billion Curiosity Rover, that's adding up 12 years of expenditures. All of this stuff has just spread out like a piece of taffy. You're taking that money and it's just dripped out through the years and this is why it can add up over time. But again, compared to what we spend in other things, it's modest at best.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: We'll be right back after the short break.

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Sarah Al-Ahmed: We're also seeing an uptick in this kind of discourse, I think, because of the rise of commercial space. I get asked all the time, why am I advocating so hard for space exploration when, really, I'm just advocating for billionaires going to space and having a joyride? I think being able to compartmentalize these two things, what NASA does and space exploration for scientific gain versus going to space to see that overview effect or because you own a rocket company. There are very different types of space exploration, although we want to have as much access to space as possible through whatever means.

Casey Dreier: Yeah. I mean, those billionaires, they're paying for themselves. Most of those, there's no NASA money. Blue Origin now has some money for its human landing system on the moon, but that wasn't what Jeff Bezos was building for otherwise. That was all self-funded. Same with Virgin Galactic, SpaceX. People have purchased those, notably Elon Musk himself has not gone into space. Interesting now that I think about it.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Yeah.

Casey Dreier: But all of these investments are now available for use by the public sector paid for by individual billionaires. That's great. That saves a lot of money in having the taxpayer build new rockets. Again, I think there's an interesting broader discussion that maybe we don't have time here to really delve into, but this kind of reputational shift that's happening as we have more individuals going into space. Human brains, we're tuned to individuals. Social structures, we're social animals, and individuals can be weird or idiosyncratic or frustrating or are cool or whatever, you name it. Harder to do that with an agency. As we add to space by having more individuals own capabilities or themselves go, I think our brains are starting to tune to how we feel about those individuals and apply that backwards to what NASA does, which is, for the most part, very distinct. Maybe sometimes NASA will purchase some of those hardware services, but that's about it.

Ambre Trujillo: NASA's mission is not space tourism. The programs that are at risk from this budget cut aren't about sending people to space for fun and that's kind of what you already touched on, Casey. When people used to think about space, they used to think about NASA. That was the only reference point that they had. And then there's all these other commercial companies that started coming in and they still associated NASA with everybody else. Now, we're at this point where it's become a space economy. There's all these different players in space and now it's the job as science communicators to help the public understand that there are differences in the goals of different organizations, private and public, as you mentioned, Casey. I think at this point, it's a communication issue as well.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Yeah. And it's something that we really hope that we can get people to understand is that this kind of investment helps all of us here in the United States but also around the world, and that it is worth this kind of scientific exploration for our own betterment. Because of that, because of the value that NASA has given us, I think, even when we first let people know that there was this potential budget cut coming down the line for NASA, I think there were a lot of people out there who were incredulous that it was absolutely not going to happen. Even now, people still say that it's fearmongering for us to say that this is something that might actually happen. Won't Congress stop it, particularly knowing how much economic value this brings to their states? What would you say to that?

Casey Dreier: I hope Congress stops it. I mean, that's why we're asking... In our democracy, they need to hear from their constituents asking them to stop it. There's a lot going on right now and this is an unusual time in both a function of the gridlock in Congress makes it hard to respond rapidly, and the overall dynamic of turning over a lot of power to the executive branch, which we don't need to go into, but just in terms of that's just what's happening. There's a lot more power under the executive branch than there has been in the past in terms of impacting here. 

The fundamental issue, and I think it's worth dwelling on this for a second, this is very serious. When you have an official budget request out, this is now formal administration policy, that means that NASA, even though this is not approved yet by Congress, NASA now has to plan accordingly that this will be their budget next year. They cannot make new contracts. They cannot extend contracts into following years for projects that may be canceled. They have to start planning to ramp things down. They have to not hire people if they would've otherwise hired. They cannot move projects forward the way that they should. 

This now formal policy. Jared Isaacman, assuming he gets confirmed, will have to champion this because he will be part of the administration. This is administration policy. This is serious. This is very, very serious. In any situation where Congress does not act, the White House proposal becomes the de facto implementation. Assuming Congress does not pass on appropriations by October 1st, the start of this '26 fiscal year, this White House proposal will go into effect, and that is bad. That's terrible. Congress has not passed a budget on time since late nineties. This year, they didn't even. They just did a full year of what's called continuing resolution. They never did pass a budget. 

Any extended period of congressional uncertainty, which seems very likely considering how tight the margins are in Congress, means that this budget is almost a de facto standard the moment we turn into the next fiscal year. It's so extreme and, again, historically... I'm not being hyperbolic here. This is in terms of just NASA top line, the largest single year cut ever proposed to NASA. If this goes in as proposed, this would be NASA's lowest budget adjusted for inflation since before the first Americans flew into space in 1961. Obviously, a lot has changed at NASA since 1961. 

You have to start turning off missions in flight. You have to start turning off spacecraft. You have to start laying people off, not clear if you can turn them back on. An extended uncertainty where this becomes imposed on NASA will have the same types of consequences and potentially irreparable consequences. We cannot just assume... I want to assume Congress will fix it and be very clear about it. We have not seen that yet. Maybe that'll change the next few months. This is why we're asking people to take action to make sure that they do, but I cannot emphasize enough how serious a situation this is and how deep the potential impacts could be, even if six months into the next fiscal year, Congress put some of the money back. Can you get Voyager back if you have to shut it down in interstellar space? Who knows?

Ambre Trujillo: There's a big misconception, I think, right now that what is happening is we are in debt as a nation and we're trying to cut the fat. This 47% budget cut is just cutting fat and it is not. It is decimating an agency. Not only the missions, but you spoke in your last podcast with Janet Ver-

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Vertesi.

Ambre Trujillo: Vertesi, yes. And you had a fascinating conversation about how we lose knowledge as humanity. We're not only cutting those missions, but we're cutting those experts that hold that institutionalized knowledge that can be passed down to generations. A lot of people ask, "How do we lose languages? How do we lose the ability to sculpt these gorgeous buildings?" It's because the people that taught them are not there anymore. We're not just trimming the fat, we're not just cutting little things, we're cutting huge missions and people are losing their jobs that have the ability to pass on amazing, exceptional knowledge that can only come from years of expertise and years of learning.

Casey Dreier: I want add one more thing, because, Amber, you mentioned something that, I think, is really important here, about this idea of trimming the fat and that we all need to cut because we're in debt. Yes, the US has a lot of debt. The US is spending more than it's taking in. It has been true for a long time. Now, I'm not going to talk about... I mean, we're not going to touch the larger thing, but, yes, I fully acknowledge that. However, this is not in the context. These cuts are not being done in the context of we have to cut everything back and raise revenues to address the debt, I can tell you that, because just today as we're recording this, Congress is moving through what's called a budget reconciliation package that is mainly carrying forward the president's priorities on taxes. 

In order to pass that budget reconciliation package, they are required to vote to increase the debt limit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years. That's actually the conservative estimate. The actual policies... Again, this is not a number I'm making up. This is what they themselves have scored in their own budget reconciliation. They are moving forward a series of priorities that will increase the overall debt of the United States by a minimum $4 trillion over the next 10 years. Do not tell me that these cuts to NASA Science are to trim the fat so we all need to save money, because that is not what is happening at the broad policy level. We are going deeper into debt. This is not the price I want to pay to do that, given how little this actually impacts this debt. 

Remember how I said the overall, if you took NASA, rolled it all up in history, and added it into one year number? $4 trillion is two and a half times more than we've ever spent on NASA in history. That's where we are. This is not being done in the context of trimming the fat. We are gorging ourselves on debt and cutting the things that we do uniquely and are noble and make us really engage and pursue something special.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: It's a really great point to make. I'm just hoping that, together with all of our voices, we can in fact turn this around and whether or not we actually manage to prevent this budget from going into effect, because as you said, it is often a thing that Congress passes budgets late or goes into a continuing resolution. No matter what the situation is after that, I think all of us as space fans and people who are passionate about this will continue to fight for this, because space exploration and scientific discovery and looking out into the universe and hoping to answer these deepest questions is something that makes us all better, it grows our society, and it's something that is worth pursuing no matter how many hurdles end up in our way. Whether or not this is the end of this age of space exploration, I am confident that together we can build it back because this is important to all of us.

Ambre Trujillo: Sarah, I can tell you we will never give up. Never making this point. This is why we are here as The Planetary Society. This is why I worked at The Planet-... This is why I wanted to work and devote my life to working at The Planetary Society. We will never stop making this case and we do not know how this will turn out, but I do know how it'll turn out if we don't do anything. As Amber was saying, this is the time to do something. We give you options to do that at planetary.org/savenasascience. It's on our homepage. Thank you for sending us questions. Everyone who has and posted, I'm happy to answer them. A lot of these questions, we do have an FAQ on that Save NASA Science page that we have linked off our homepage. You can reference them there. If you need more details or questions, email us or submit them. I think we should do this again.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Thank you so much for your thoughtful answers and for helping to answer some of these questions for everyone. Seriously, everyone, if you need to ask any more questions, you can contact any of us online at our email. That's Planetary Radio at planetary.org. Thanks so much, Amber and Casey.

Ambre Trujillo: Thank you.

Casey Dreier: Thank you.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: We've heard from Casey and Amber about why space exploration matters and how it drives innovation and discovery, but right now NASA's future is facing real challenges. To get the latest on the community movement, the growing list of supporters, and what's happening on Capitol Hill, I sat down with Jack Kiraly, our director of government relations for a space policy update. 

Hey, Jack, welcome back.

Jack Kiraly: Hey, Sarah. How's it going?

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Doing all right, all things considering. I feel like ever since this situation with NASA's budget began a few months ago for us, I am just... Every day, there's some new thing, but I'm just trying to keep hope in my heart that we can accomplish this and save NASA. Otherwise, I will fall to despair.

Jack Kiraly: Indeed. There seems to always be something new happening in the news. That's maybe why they call it that.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Well, thanks for joining me for this update. Let's start out with something we spoke about, I think, two weeks ago. We've been circulating this community letter to try to get as many different science institutions as possible to sign on to our letter, saying that we want to save NASA Science and hopefully return the budget to a sustainable amount that actually prevents us from having to cancel most of our NASA missions. Where are we at with that community letter right now?

Jack Kiraly: I will say a lot of things are influx here in Washington. There's a lot of angst and anxiety about what's happening next. There's a lot of angst and anxiety about what's happening next, but where there is not any angst, and maybe it's fueled by the angst, is the fact that a huge number of organizations have gotten behind this community letter. We started off with just a handful of signatories. In fact, it was including The Planetary Society. There were eight of us: American Astronomical Society, American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, the Commercial Space Federation, Explore Mars Incorporated, The Mars Society, and The Planetary Science Institute. We're sort of these inaugural signatories and a lot of those names had society or foundation or something related to that in their name. Those are the professional societies and advocacy organizations that focus on this. 

But then you have groups like the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration and Commercial Space Federation, which are trade associations, which represent the contracting workforce that supports these NASA missions that does a lot of that, the actual bending of metal to build these things. You not only have the legacy advocacy organizations like The Planetary Society and Explore Mars and Mars Society and the professional societies, but then you also have the commercial space sector. Not just the old primes, your big Lockheed Martins and Boeings, but also Commercial Space Federation represents a lot of the new and upcoming commercial space organizations. Astrobotic and SpaceX and Blue Origin are all members of that. 

Signing onto this letter is really significant. That was our original batch of people, eight of us. We have grown to be a grand total of 19 organizations who have signed onto this letter and it continues to grow within all those fields, the professional societies, scientific associations, private institutions like the Planetary Science Institute. We have some of the new ones that have joined us since the letter came out: American Geophysical Union, Open Lunar Foundation, Scientific Society for Astrobiology. We had our first student group join us, the Aggie Space Initiative, at the University of California, Davis. 

I think our first podcast as well, the Aspiring Martians podcast, has joined. Mars Foundation, National Space Society, the Agnostic Life Finding Association, Satellite Industry Association, a lot of associations, Maryland Aerospace Alliance, and the University Space Research Association. Huge swath of the space sector is behind this letter, basically saying exactly what you just said, Sarah, which is these cuts are devastating. They cannot stand. This is not a serious proposal. This would surrender leadership in not just space science but space exploration. The future of the American enterprise in space would functionally cease if these cuts were enacted.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: We spoke a little bit last time about how Congress people were reacting to this movement and people peppering them with letters and calls and organizations heading them up to try to save NASA's budget. We also have a congressional letter that's been circulating, but the deadline isn't up yet at this point as we're speaking,. What is your general read on how people in Congress are feeling about this right now?

Jack Kiraly: I think the energy that people have brought to their meetings on the Hill to the messages that they've sent, the phone calls that they've made is resonating in the halls of Congress. I've heard from more than one congressional staff person that they have received this message and they're working through their process. They're talking to their boss about ways that they can support, whether it's publicly in the setting of a hearing or a markup for a bill or if it's behind the scenes in conversations with the administration. They are looking for ways to be supportive. 

One of those ways is this congressional letter, what we call an appropriations request letter. Basically a group of members of Congress going to the appropriations committee, the people who dole out the money year after year, and asking them to reject these cuts outright. They're unserious. They have all these horrible consequences and reinvest, recommit to the science program at NASA. The specific number that the letter asks for is that 9 billion, which is the slightly above the inflation adjusted peak funding for NASA Science under the first Trump administration. 

We have an administration that has done this before that has fully funded NASA Science before and we have a growing chorus of people in Congress who agree with this. I'll say when we did this letter last year, granted the stakes were not as high, but when we did this letter last year, we had 44 signatories. That's 10% of the House of Representatives. A Senate letter did not happen last year but is in the works this year. 10% of the House of Representatives said that this was important to them and obviously we have a continuing resolution for the full fiscal year, so ultimately that request didn't make it into the final bill because it's just the flat funding from the previous year. 

As of recording this, the deadline is still open, so I don't want to put a number to it, but I'm going to tell you it's significantly more than 44. If you're listening and this is enticing to you, you want to know how many signatories have added their name to this letter, head on over to planetary.org/savenasascience to our action hub. It's also available on our homepage because it's that important. There is a whole section called Latest Updates and all of this information on the community letter, on new signatories on that, updates on this congressional letter, updates just about the process. What's going on? Why are we hearing about this now? What is the next step? What does this hearing mean? All that stuff is going to be there on the action hub. It is your one-stop shop to learn about this budget crisis that we are in with NASA and how you can be a part of the solution.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: People are putting in the effort. Thank you so much, everyone out there. Seriously, you're giving me some hope in times that are a little troubling and I really, really appreciate it. But let's all remember, we're not just doing this for the United States and for NASA. We're doing this for all of humanity, because we're all in this together. And if we can make sure that this funding continues to go to NASA, that's opportunities for everyone around the world to learn more about the universe and to collaborate together on something beautiful that truly makes us better as a species. I really appreciate... I love everyone so deeply for helping us in this effort.

Jack Kiraly: And just so you know, I do go through and read some of the messages that people send. Sometimes when I'm feeling down about what's going on, I'll go through and see some of the things that people have sent. It's so heartwarming to see what NASA means, what space science and exploration means to people all over the United States. Again, this is just looking at the United States and I'm really looking forward to rolling out some opportunities for our folks around the globe to participate in these actions. But seeing the stories that people are sharing and the things that people have sent is really heartwarming. 

Again, the action hub is where it's at. It's your clearinghouse of everything you need to know about the budget process, about actions that are happening. Everything's going to live there, so please bookmark it like I have and make sure you're checking that. Please feel free to reach out, especially if this is your first time doing it. You want to take those extra steps, writing an op-ed, calling your member, setting up meetings with your member of Congress, please feel free to reach out. We are here to support the public's enthusiasm for space science and exploration. It is not just my duty and job but my pleasure to work with people from all across the United States and across the world to advance this noble cause.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Well, let us not go quietly into that good night and keep fighting that good fight, Jack.

Jack Kiraly: Indeed. Indeed. Thanks, Sarah.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Hearing about all of the advocacy happening to save NASA Science is inspiring and it's a powerful reminder of how space exploration shapes our world. From life-saving medical technologies to everyday conveniences like memory foam or camera sensors, space innovation goes far beyond rockets and rovers. We'll hear more about some of the most recent NASA spinoffs next in What's Up? with our chief scientist, Dr. Bruce Betts. Hey, Bruce.

Bruce Betts: Hi, Sarah.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Well, this week, we got a chance to talk about some of the misconceptions that people have about NASA and space exploration. A big part of that conversation actually was about the cool spinoff technologies that happen because of space exploration. If people want to learn more, I'm going to leave a link to the NASA spinoff website on this webpage for this episode of Planetary Radio, but I wanted to give people a small taste of some of the more recent spinoffs that NASA is sharing with people. I wanted to go with you through some of the 2025 developments in NASA spinoffs. What are some of your favorites?

Bruce Betts: Well, anything that does new families of composite plastics, I'm excited.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Any kind of revolution in material engineering, I thin, is really interesting because it's something that allows us to build new things in ways we wouldn't have thought of before. Why are you going to build something that can brave space unless you have to actually launch it?

Bruce Betts: Well, there you go. But they find clever ways to adapt into these industries. This one I would just want to mention not only as composite materials, which are very popular now and used all over the place, but also as aerogel, the world's least dense, solid that was developed for planetary missions. Just making them lightweight and fire resistant and water-repellent and sound damping. I think it also keeps ghosts away, but I'm not sure.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Who are you going to call, NASA?

Bruce Betts: NASA. And what about batteries? Do you like batteries? I like batteries.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: It's super useful.

Bruce Betts: They're very useful. Hubble, remember that thing launched way back when? Well, they developed some groovy nickel hydrogen batteries for Hubble that now are being used for all sorts of things in the world. What are your opinions on gecko feet?

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Gecko feet?

Bruce Betts: Yes. They've developed synthetic gecko feet kind of things where they can grip flat surfaces. That's being used to, for example, buy Flipstik for phone accessories, but sticking to different surfaces.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Oh, that would be so useful. The number of times I've tried to mount a speaker in my shower, as an example, only to have that suction cup just fall right off.

Bruce Betts: Yeah, no, that's really annoying. I've played that game not with speakers, but I have many a thing fall on me in the shower and I no longer use the little suction cup things, but if I had a gecko to hold those things, then I'd be set.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: It's really interesting because every time I have conversations with people about these NASA spinoffs, they assume that maybe there's some tech that is going to be working for big aerospace industry and things like that. There are definitely those types of spinoffs, but when you start getting to things like the CCD chip in your phone, which was made for New Horizons or LASIK surgery, people don't realize how much of NASA influences their real life from day to day.

Bruce Betts: This is true. It's used in all sorts of day-to-day stuff. Hey, how would you like a random space fact?

Sarah Al-Ahmed: All right. What you got for me?

Bruce Betts: You're probably aware of space tourism, which is happening now, and started with Dennis Tito in 2001 who paid a lot of money to fly up to space. But non-NASA, non-space agency employees actually flew going back in time on the space shuttle occasionally. The first was Charles D. Walker as a payload specialist in 1984. McDonnell Douglas, who's one of the many aerospace companies that's been absorbed by other aerospace companies, paid $40,000 to have him fly to operate their commercial payload. He actually flew on two more shuttle missions but just as an employee of McDonnell Douglas.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I mean, that's pretty cheap to send someone to space, $40,000, but I'd have to calculate that with inflation.

Bruce Betts: Well, I mean, it's still in the... Yes, it's still cheap because it's somewhere in the 100,000 to $120,000 now. But they also were in a partnership with NASA flying their payload, so it was a more complicated thing than just throwing down 40,000 and now our guy could fly.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Yeah.

Bruce Betts: We'll get you up there.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Someday. Someday, Sarah in space. We'll just envision it.

Bruce Betts: Oh, I do. Just headed off away. Bye, Sarah.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Cruising out into the blackness. Going to go meet Voyager. Bye, Bruce.

Bruce Betts: Bye-bye, Sarah. And with that thought, everybody go out there, look up the night sky, and think about your favorite seed. Thank you and good night.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: We've reached the end of this week's episode of Planetary Radio, but we'll be back next week with more space science and exploration. If you love the show, you can get Planetary Radio t-shirts at planetary.org/shop, along with lots of other cool spacey merchandise. 

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