Ex-NASA Chief Sounds Alarm Over Space Agency's Future

Newsweek

16 hours ago

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The former head of NASA has said that the space agency is "being savaged," in response to proposed cuts by the Trump administration.
Bill Nelson, NASA administrator from 2021 to 2025, said: "If they continue on the path that they're on, it will be a crippled agency."
NASA has been working on plans to bring astronauts back to the moon for the first time since 1972 with the Artemis program, and to build the Lunar Gateway space station on the moon for long-term lunar scientific exploration.
These plans are now on hold amid a proposed Republican budget that would cut as much as half of NASA's science funding. President Donald Trump's budget request to NASA, which must be debated by Congress before October 1, called for the agency to "terminate unaffordable missions," cut "woke" education programs and implement a "more sustainable, cost-effective approach to lunar exploration."
Overall, the budget proposes reducing the agency's annual budget from $24.9 billion to $18.8 billion.
Newsweek has contacted NASA for comment via email outside of working hours.
The Mary W. Jackson headquarters of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, May 6, 2025.
The Mary W. Jackson headquarters of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, May 6, 2025.
Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo
Why It Matters
The Trump administration says that the proposed reductions are necessary to rein in excessive spending, eliminate underperforming projects, and reorient NASA toward more cost-efficient private partnerships. The White House has highlighted examples such as the $4 billion-per-launch cost of the Space Launch System, NASA's expendable heavy-lift rocket.
Critics say the proposed budget cuts threaten American progress in space and in scientific endeavor more broadly. In parallel, the administration has proposed eliminating climate satellite projects.
Previous scientific cuts by the Trump administration include Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. firing vaccine advisers from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a decrease in grants for scientific research.
What To Know
Cuts to NASA are creating "chaos" and will likely have "significant impacts to our leadership in space," a Democratic House staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Sunday Times, a U.K. newspaper.
NASA's Artemis project was launched during the first Trump administration and has already cost more than $26 billion for the new Space Launch System.
Cutting NASA's budget would also heavily impact space science across Europe, as NASA has partnerships with the European Space Agency (ESA), which was collaborating with NASA and Airbus to build part of the new rockets to the moon and a Gateway space station.
This collaboration, which has already cost ESA €840 million in Airbus payments and another €650 million in future Airbus contracts, was supposed to result in three European astronauts going on the new lunar mission. The future of this plan is uncertain.
Elon Musk's space exploration company SpaceX still works with NASA, including on lunar exploration. However, he left the federal government and has criticized budget cuts amid a rift with Trump. The future of SpaceX's partnership with NASA is now also uncertain.
"The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts," Trump wrote on Truth Social in June.
What People Are Saying
Bill Nelson told reporters at a POLITICO summit: "That's like eating our seed corn. We're not going to have anything to plant next year in the quest of trying to understand what is part of the statutes for NASA, which is to search for life, and therefore to understand who we are, what we are, and where we are."
Acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro in a statement in May: "This proposal includes investments to simultaneously pursue exploration of the Moon and Mars while still prioritizing critical science and technology research. I appreciate the President's continued support for NASA's mission and look forward to working closely with the administration and Congress to ensure we continue making progress toward achieving the impossible."
The White House in a statement in May: "The Budget phases out the grossly expensive and delayed Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule after three flights. SLS alone costs $4 billion per launch and is 140 percent over budget. The Budget funds a program to replace SLS and Orion flights to the Moon with more cost-effective commercial systems that would support more ambitious subsequent lunar missions."
Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA director of human and robotic exploration, quoted in The Sunday Times: "We want to work on reducing the risks of the projects where we are dependent on US decisions. We want to increase the projects which are done in autonomy, where we are the masters of the decisions we take."
What Happens Next
ESA leaders are looking to work on projects that do not rely on American money or American political decision-makers, turning to work with India and Japan, and possibly even China, instead.
Senator Ted Cruz, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee which oversees NASA's budget, has supported Artemis in the past, so it is not certain that NASA's budget will be cut by as much as the Trump administration's proposal by the October 1 deadline.