The Space Advocate Newsletter, April 2025

This month

📉 White House considering 20% NASA cut, with science slashed by 47%...
🔬 Roman telescope, Mars Sample Return, DAVINCI face cancellation
🗣️ Planetary Society mobilizes against budget cuts following Day of Action

On April 11, NASA received guidance from the White House’s budgeting office that outlined a 20% cut to the agency, including a staggering 47% cut to the agency’s science directorate. While it doesn’t represent the administration’s final budget proposal for 2026, the guidance, known as a “passback,” is the final step before a public release.

While we don’t know the full details of the proposal, the following has been reported:

• A 20% cut to the NASA top line (~$5 billion)
• A 47% cut to science (~$3.4 billion), distributed as follows:
  
  
  • Earth Science: -53% (cut by $1.15 billion)
  • Planetary Science: -29% (cut by $787 million)
  • Astrophysics: -68% (cut by $1.05 billion)
  • Heliophysics: -43% (cut by $350 million)
  • Biological & Physical Sciences: -83% (cut by $73 million)
• Cancels the Roman Space Telescope, Mars Sample Return, and the DAVINCI mission to Venus. All space telescopes in operation except JWST and Hubble would be ended.
• Closure of Goddard Space Flight Center

Given the degree of cuts, many more missions would have to be cancelled should this budget go forward.

Multiple members of Congress have already spoken out against this proposal, including a joint statement issued by the co-chairs of the Planetary Science Caucus, Representatives Don Bacon (R-NE) and Judy Chu (D-CA). The Planetary Society issued a statement of our own, and we are working aggressively to push back against this proposal, and have been encouraging.

Just a few weeks prior to the news, more than 100 Planetary Society members were in Washington, D.C., for our annual Day of Action, making the case for space science and exploration. That message is all the more urgent following the news of this budget proposal. The commitment of these advocates underscores the importance of citizen action as we confront this challenge.

Until next month,

Casey Dreier
Chief of Space Policy
The Planetary Society

Want to do something?

Keep your letters and calls coming: U.S. residents can write their representatives and voice their concern.

Additionally, you can consider writing your local media outlets and raising awareness of these consequences.

What I’m reading this month

Invigorating the American Space Sector Requires Working With NASA, Not Against It
Dr. Janet Vertesi is a sociologist who studies the dynamics of NASA’s mission teams. Her recent piece argues that, “when programs are cut to the bone, America loses much more than it gains.” Specifically, when teams and institutions are thoughtlessly broken up, active knowledge transfer stops, and the group knowledge necessary to perform specialized tasks (such as land things on Mars) falls apart.

Ground Truth

Data visualization and analysis

Funding for NASA’s four major science divisions since 2000, adjusted for inflation. The projections reflect the White House’s FY 2026 budget currently under consideration.

Source data: The Planetary Society’s Historical NASA Budget dataset