Cuts to NOAA funding could imperil weather forecasts, endanger lives
The Trump administration's plan to dismantle the nation's atmospheric research programs could set U.S. forecasting back a generation or more, a cadre of retired federal hurricane, weather and ocean scientists warns.
The budget proposed by the White House for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is almost half what it was a year ago, and eliminates all funding for the agency's Office of Atmospheric Research, the division that coordinates and conducts weather and climate research across the nation.
'It will stop all progress' in U.S. forecasting, said James Franklin, who retired in 2017 as chief of the National Hurricane Center's forecast specialists.
Abolishing that research will be 'a generational loss" of any progress that would have been made over the next 10 years or more, Franklin said. 'We're going to stagnate and we're not going to continue to improve as we go forward.'
The atmospheric research office, also referred to as NOAA Research, underpins much of the agency's work and scientific advances, whether it's more accurate forecasting or tracking tsunamis or plumes of chemicals or wildfire smoke, said Franklin and others working to persuade Congress to save the programs.
They say defunding the research program would carry great costs − forecast improvements have saved as much as $5 billion per storm − and put lives at risk when forecasts fall short.
Dozens of private weather forecasters, TV meteorologists and scholars have expressed similar concerns in social media, broadcasts, blogs and newsletters, saying the degradation of forecast accuracy will affect farmers, aircraft pilots and passengers and millions of other Americans, whether they know it or not.
The NOAA cuts, combined with other proposed cuts and a host of canceled grants and contracts across the federal government is being viewed by many scientists and scholars as a sweeping assault on science in the U.S.
White House budget would be 40% less for NOAA
The White House proposed an estimated direct program budget of $3.5 billion for NOAA, roughly $2.3 billion lower than the current year, an almost 40% reduction.
The 2026 line item for NOAA Research is blank, compared to an estimated $608 million in 2025. The only office under the NOAA umbrella slated to see an increase is the National Weather Service, which could see a $71 million increase to its direct program budget, with an estimated total of $1.3 billion.
In a June 5 hearing on Capitol Hill, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick defended the cuts, saying NOAA is 'transforming how we track storms and forecast weather with cutting-edge technology.' USA TODAY reached out to the Commerce Department and NOAA for comment about Lutnick's remarks to Congress, but did not receive a response.
Former senior NOAA officials say transformative work will cease if the budget cuts are approved, particularly when combined with extensive cuts already made to staffing, research, grants and cooperative programs with dozens of universities.
The cuts, including those by the Department of Government Efficiency and Office of Management and Budget, show little practical knowledge of how the nation's weather system operates, said Craig McLean, a former NOAA chief scientist and former assistant administrator for research.
He compares the administration cuts to dismantling a car engine, then trying to put it back together without parts whose purpose you don't understand.
Conservatives propose reining in "climate change alarm"
Many of the steps taken so far reflect the recommendations of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which proposed dismantling NOAA and privatizing weather service operations, specifically targeting the agency's work on climate monitoring and climate change.
Project 2025 stated NOAA's six main offices – including its divisions for research, satellites, ocean service, fisheries and marine and aviation operations – form 'a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.'
In a budget document, the White House has stated some of NOAA's research and grant programs 'spread environmental alarm." In mid-June, a team of at least a half dozen people who wrote and produced Climate.gov, a website that supports science education and explains complicated science and weather to the public, was terminated.
Agency veterans say the administration's campaign against climate research fails to acknowledge the role climate plays in daily weather, and mischaracterizes how NOAA research supports daily forecasts for all kinds of extreme weather.
US military takes an abrupt turn after decades of climate change research
NOAA research extends far beyond the well-documented changing climate, said Alan Gerard, who recently retired from the agency's Severe Storms Laboratory. For example, he said the cuts could "be disastrous" for improving tornado warnings.
Experts say budget cuts put national research network in peril
NOAA Research's network of nine laboratories, 16 cooperative institutes and other partnerships with universities collect and share weather data, then use it to develop new forecast models, new tools and better techniques to save lives, Gerard said.
The division's work is credited with modeling and forecasting advances that support both the hurricane center and the weather service, including vast improvements in forecasting hurricane track and intensity.
John Cortinas, a former deputy assistant administrator for science with OAR, cited a list of forecast-improvement projects now underway. For example, the storms laboratory is developing 'the next generation of radars,' to improve tornado forecasting, Cortinas said. 'But if the White House cuts go as proposed, that lab's gone, that ends.'
The Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory is working on the next generation of offshore buoys.
The Global Systems Laboratory developed a national weather forecast model and conducts fire-weather and wildfire research. Cortinas said it's now working to improve prediction of hyperlocal extreme rainfall events like those that caused massive flooding last summer in Minnesota and earlier this year in Kentucky.
Several projects are rooted in the Weather Research and Forecast Innovation Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump during the early days of his first term in 2017. A Congressional Research Service report released on June 10, 2025 noted NOAA has not publicly released details on the proposed budget, and stated the available documents do not discuss how NOAA plans to meet the responsibilities it has been assigned.
Balloon launches have far-reaching forecast impacts
Franklin started his 35-year career at NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory, which includes the Hurricane Research Division. He has spoken often about strides being made to improve forecasting and voiced frustration over hurdles that still exist in forecasting hurricane intensity.
Over the past decade, NOAA has shaved the margin of forecast track error by 27% at 36 hours out and 18% at 72 hours out. In 2024, the hurricane center set a record for the most accurate forecasts in its history, according to a preliminary analysis by the center and the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University.
'The 5-day forecast of hurricane track is as accurate as the 3-day forecast was 20 years ago,' Rick Spinrad, NOAA's former administrator told USA TODAY.
Franklin fears the budget cuts would jeopardize those improvements. For example, he points to weather balloon launches that have been restricted or discontinued at some weather service offices. The offices are grappling with staffing shortages after the administration fired some probationary employees and offered incentive-based retirements to shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy.
It may be hard to conceive that data collected from balloons launched in the Great Plains could affect hurricane forecasts on the East or Gulf coasts, but they can and do, said both Franklin and Gerard.
The launches provide crucial information about moisture and prevailing winds in large systems crossing the country that could steer or interact with approaching tropical systems, Franklin said. 'If they pass through an area with less balloon coverage, the forecast might change a bit and get degraded." The larger the area with missing data, he said, the greater the risk of error in a hurricane landfall forecast.
Experts say better forecasts save money and lives
Franklin and others cited a 2024 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research that found NOAA's Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program has saved roughly $5 billion per hurricane per year in terms of pre-landfall protective spending and post-landfall damages and recovery.
"Hurricane response costs become greater when you have a poorer forecast,' he said. 'That's a lot of cost savings that we seem willing to give up here. We're going to turn off all that potential savings by saying we don't care if the forecasts don't continue to get better.'
Dinah Voyles Pulver covers climate change, hurricanes and disasters for USA TODAY. Reach her at dpulver@usatoday.com or dinahvp.77 on Signal.
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USA Today
7 hours ago
- USA Today
Cuts to NOAA funding could imperil weather forecasts, endanger lives
Retired federal scientists warn Trump administration's proposed NOAA budget cuts could be costly and harm forecast accuracy. The Trump administration's plan to dismantle the nation's atmospheric research programs could set U.S. forecasting back a generation or more, a cadre of retired federal hurricane, weather and ocean scientists warns. The budget proposed by the White House for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is almost half what it was a year ago, and eliminates all funding for the agency's Office of Atmospheric Research, the division that coordinates and conducts weather and climate research across the nation. 'It will stop all progress' in U.S. forecasting, said James Franklin, who retired in 2017 as chief of the National Hurricane Center's forecast specialists. Abolishing that research will be 'a generational loss" of any progress that would have been made over the next 10 years or more, Franklin said. 'We're going to stagnate and we're not going to continue to improve as we go forward.' The atmospheric research office, also referred to as NOAA Research, underpins much of the agency's work and scientific advances, whether it's more accurate forecasting or tracking tsunamis or plumes of chemicals or wildfire smoke, said Franklin and others working to persuade Congress to save the programs. They say defunding the research program would carry great costs − forecast improvements have saved as much as $5 billion per storm − and put lives at risk when forecasts fall short. Dozens of private weather forecasters, TV meteorologists and scholars have expressed similar concerns in social media, broadcasts, blogs and newsletters, saying the degradation of forecast accuracy will affect farmers, aircraft pilots and passengers and millions of other Americans, whether they know it or not. The NOAA cuts, combined with other proposed cuts and a host of canceled grants and contracts across the federal government is being viewed by many scientists and scholars as a sweeping assault on science in the U.S. White House budget would be 40% less for NOAA The White House proposed an estimated direct program budget of $3.5 billion for NOAA, roughly $2.3 billion lower than the current year, an almost 40% reduction. The 2026 line item for NOAA Research is blank, compared to an estimated $608 million in 2025. The only office under the NOAA umbrella slated to see an increase is the National Weather Service, which could see a $71 million increase to its direct program budget, with an estimated total of $1.3 billion. In a June 5 hearing on Capitol Hill, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick defended the cuts, saying NOAA is 'transforming how we track storms and forecast weather with cutting-edge technology.' USA TODAY reached out to the Commerce Department and NOAA for comment about Lutnick's remarks to Congress, but did not receive a response. Former senior NOAA officials say transformative work will cease if the budget cuts are approved, particularly when combined with extensive cuts already made to staffing, research, grants and cooperative programs with dozens of universities. The cuts, including those by the Department of Government Efficiency and Office of Management and Budget, show little practical knowledge of how the nation's weather system operates, said Craig McLean, a former NOAA chief scientist and former assistant administrator for research. He compares the administration cuts to dismantling a car engine, then trying to put it back together without parts whose purpose you don't understand. Conservatives propose reining in "climate change alarm" Many of the steps taken so far reflect the recommendations of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which proposed dismantling NOAA and privatizing weather service operations, specifically targeting the agency's work on climate monitoring and climate change. Project 2025 stated NOAA's six main offices – including its divisions for research, satellites, ocean service, fisheries and marine and aviation operations – form 'a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.' In a budget document, the White House has stated some of NOAA's research and grant programs 'spread environmental alarm." In mid-June, a team of at least a half dozen people who wrote and produced a website that supports science education and explains complicated science and weather to the public, was terminated. Agency veterans say the administration's campaign against climate research fails to acknowledge the role climate plays in daily weather, and mischaracterizes how NOAA research supports daily forecasts for all kinds of extreme weather. US military takes an abrupt turn after decades of climate change research NOAA research extends far beyond the well-documented changing climate, said Alan Gerard, who recently retired from the agency's Severe Storms Laboratory. For example, he said the cuts could "be disastrous" for improving tornado warnings. Experts say budget cuts put national research network in peril NOAA Research's network of nine laboratories, 16 cooperative institutes and other partnerships with universities collect and share weather data, then use it to develop new forecast models, new tools and better techniques to save lives, Gerard said. The division's work is credited with modeling and forecasting advances that support both the hurricane center and the weather service, including vast improvements in forecasting hurricane track and intensity. John Cortinas, a former deputy assistant administrator for science with OAR, cited a list of forecast-improvement projects now underway. For example, the storms laboratory is developing 'the next generation of radars,' to improve tornado forecasting, Cortinas said. 'But if the White House cuts go as proposed, that lab's gone, that ends.' The Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory is working on the next generation of offshore buoys. The Global Systems Laboratory developed a national weather forecast model and conducts fire-weather and wildfire research. Cortinas said it's now working to improve prediction of hyperlocal extreme rainfall events like those that caused massive flooding last summer in Minnesota and earlier this year in Kentucky. Several projects are rooted in the Weather Research and Forecast Innovation Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump during the early days of his first term in 2017. A Congressional Research Service report released on June 10, 2025 noted NOAA has not publicly released details on the proposed budget, and stated the available documents do not discuss how NOAA plans to meet the responsibilities it has been assigned. Balloon launches have far-reaching forecast impacts Franklin started his 35-year career at NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory, which includes the Hurricane Research Division. He has spoken often about strides being made to improve forecasting and voiced frustration over hurdles that still exist in forecasting hurricane intensity. Over the past decade, NOAA has shaved the margin of forecast track error by 27% at 36 hours out and 18% at 72 hours out. In 2024, the hurricane center set a record for the most accurate forecasts in its history, according to a preliminary analysis by the center and the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University. 'The 5-day forecast of hurricane track is as accurate as the 3-day forecast was 20 years ago,' Rick Spinrad, NOAA's former administrator told USA TODAY. Franklin fears the budget cuts would jeopardize those improvements. For example, he points to weather balloon launches that have been restricted or discontinued at some weather service offices. The offices are grappling with staffing shortages after the administration fired some probationary employees and offered incentive-based retirements to shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy. It may be hard to conceive that data collected from balloons launched in the Great Plains could affect hurricane forecasts on the East or Gulf coasts, but they can and do, said both Franklin and Gerard. The launches provide crucial information about moisture and prevailing winds in large systems crossing the country that could steer or interact with approaching tropical systems, Franklin said. 'If they pass through an area with less balloon coverage, the forecast might change a bit and get degraded." The larger the area with missing data, he said, the greater the risk of error in a hurricane landfall forecast. Experts say better forecasts save money and lives Franklin and others cited a 2024 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research that found NOAA's Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program has saved roughly $5 billion per hurricane per year in terms of pre-landfall protective spending and post-landfall damages and recovery. "Hurricane response costs become greater when you have a poorer forecast,' he said. 'That's a lot of cost savings that we seem willing to give up here. We're going to turn off all that potential savings by saying we don't care if the forecasts don't continue to get better.' Dinah Voyles Pulver covers climate change, hurricanes and disasters for USA TODAY. Reach her at dpulver@ or dinahvp.77 on Signal.
National Geographic
9 hours ago
- National Geographic
It may be possible to detect Alzheimer's risk sooner—as early as your 20s
The accumulation of neurofibrillary tangles—like those illustrated here inside a neuron—is closely associated with cognitive decline caused by Alzheimer's disease. A recent study found that several biomarkers implicated in Alzheimer's are associated with cognitive decline as early as ages 24 to 44. Illustration by Hybrid Medical Animation, Science Photo Library Treating the neurodegenerative disease in its earlier stages is key to slowing cognitive decline. A new study offers hope for the future. More than a century ago, a German neuroanatomist noticed his patient acting inordinately confused. After she died, Alois Alzheimer examined her brain and discovered amyloid-beta plaques and neurofibrillary 'tangles,' two key characteristics for what we now call Alzheimer's disease. Today we know when these plaques and tangles interfere with our normal brain functions, our neurons die. People start to forget, lose their memory. When Alzheimer's enters the later stages, it's irreversible. However, the damage may be slowed if caught early. Now a new study cautiously suggests it may be possible to detect signs of Alzheimer's risk even earlier than previously thought possible—in a person's 20s or 30s. Given the number of Americans with Alzheimer's is projected to double to 14 million by 2060, this could be a gamechanger. 'A neuron dead is a neuron gone…forever. You want to do preventive medicine,' says Lilian Calderón-Garcidueñas, a professor at the University of Montana in the Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Department, who was not involved with the new study but says its findings coincide with her team's research into early Alzheimer's detection. (Your eyes may be a window into early Alzheimer's detection.) 'The key is the age group: young adults,' Calderón-Garcidueñas says. 'Most researchers in the U.S.A. are focused on elderly populations.' Scientists have made leaps and bounds to diagnose Alzheimer's accurately and faster. After all, it wasn't until the 2000s that the disease could be diagnosed before death. Now it's generally accepted that brains demonstrate signs of Alzheimer's decades before symptoms emerge—a timeline that this research would push back even further. 'It kind of clicked for me that we really do need to be studying this earlier,' says Columbia University professor of epidemiology Allison Aiello, the new study's lead investigator. 'We did see some associations at these early levels. I was pretty surprised myself.' Why is Alzheimer's so hard to diagnose in younger brains? Today, diagnosis and risk detection typically hinges upon finding a core biomarker like neurofibrillary tau tangles and amyloid-beta plaques. That alone doesn't guarantee a person will become symptomatic, so clinicians also look for evidence of cognitive decline. Certain standard assessments—for example, having a person recall words from a list—can measure cognition. Additionally, there are multiple underlying causes and risk factors that can vary from person to person. To further evaluate dementia risk, clinicians use tools like Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging and Incidence of Dementia (CAIDE), which takes into account risk factors like body mass index, age, and education and grants a 'risk score.' Higher CAIDE scores point to higher risk. (The unexpected ways Ozempic-like drugs might fight dementia.) Because Alzheimer's primarily manifests in those 65 and older, there's historically been 'skepticism in the field [about] measuring cognitive function earlier in life,' Aiello says, especially before mid-life. But Aiello was curious and saw her opportunity to study the issue when she joined the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. This landmark study originally enrolled 20,000 middle-schoolers and high-schoolers in 1994 and 1995 and is still ongoing—making it one of the largest longitudinal studies in the U.S. In 2008, when participants were 24 to 34 years old, Aiello's team conducted thousands of tests, including assessing 11,500 participants' cognition and taking 4,500 blood samples. Approximately a decade later, the team again administered cognitive and genetic tests. The findings revealed early signs of cognitive decline by age 24, and some neurodegeneration biological risk indicators among people in their 30s. Specifically, researchers analyzed interleukin 6 and interleukin 8, biomarkers of inflammation, within the blood samples. When participants were aged 34 to 44, these biomarkers were associated with lower scores on the cognitive tests. The team also found higher CAIDE risk scores were associated with lower cognitive scores as early as during someone's mid-20s—decades earlier than mid-life, when risk factors are typically tested. 'The study is a big success,' says Tatjana Rundek, director of the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Miami, who was not involved with the study. While effect size is small and associations are subtle, it still provides 'compelling molecular support for early neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration.' Study limitations However, some experts are more cautious. Despite its validation, Rundek says CAIDE isn't a sure-fire predictor of Alzheimer's disease, especially regarding diverse populations. Meanwhile, some of the biomarkers found are not exclusive to Alzheimer's, says Sharon Sha, a neurology professor and the chief of Stanford University's Memory Disorders Division. (What your biological age can reveal about your health.) Sha points out that the study measured 'total tau' instead of phosphorylated tau; while total tau can be an indicator of neurodegeneration, growing research finds phosphorylated tau to be more predictive of Alzheimer's specifically. Still, she says, 'I do find that the results they found are potentially risk factors for future cognitive decline, or cardiovascular and vascular cognitive impairment risk.' The data collection is also impressive, Sha adds. Conducting these studies is difficult because obtaining confirmatory data is costly and takes decades. 'It's hard to follow someone in their 20s, to say, their 60s or 80s, [to see] if they get a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.' Aiello also agreed more research needs to be done, and that's likely coming. Other scientists in the U.K. have conducted life course studies, Aiello says, and 'I think we'll see more of these types of studies in the future.' Her own team is continuing to follow this cohort to see how Alzheimer's risk changes over time. As participants enter the latest wave, when they are between the ages of 39 to 49, they'll take cognitive tests and measure physical and sensory functions like hearing or grip strength. The data is scheduled for analysis with results potentially forthcoming in 2026. Early detection can empower people. Those at greater risk can start changing their lifestyles—and some healthy interventions may prevent or slow up to 40 percent of dementia cases. Current Alzheimer's therapies like lecanemab also slow decline, though in milder stages. 'The earlier the better, right?' Aiello says. (Why this new Alzheimer's drug is eliciting both optimism and caution.) Consequently, early detection remains a hot research topic. In 2023, researchers published a study cautiously suggesting the eyes have potential for early Alzheimer's risk prediction. Another 2024 study published in Nature Aging showed an AI-trained model could predict Alzheimer's seven years before symptoms emerged, and identified surprising patterns and risk factors. The model suggested that osteoporosis may be an Alzheimer's risk factor for women. While this doesn't mean a woman with osteoporosis will definitely develop Alzheimer's, 'we see these relationships,' says Alice Tang, an MD/Ph.D. candidate at University of California, San Francisco, who led the study. 'And so that has led to a lot more questions being opened up and better studies down the line.' Ultimately, research avenues like these may soon be able to help scientists develop a more meaningful model for early Alzheimer's prediction. In her own work, Aiello is excited to see what Wave VI reveals. 'I think it's going to be really exciting for people to try to tease apart some of these associations much earlier in life, in a really kind of in-depth way.'
USA Today
9 hours ago
- USA Today
Trump 'Big Beautiful Bill' provides $85 million to move a NASA space shuttle. Here's where
Discovery, which made its inaugural flight in 1984, completed 39 missions before it retired in 2011. Discovery's days of spaceflight may long be over, but the historic NASA space shuttle may soon be on the move again – just not in orbit. As part of Republicans' massive tax and spending legislation signed by President Donald Trump, the space shuttle Discovery is due to depart its home of 13 years at a Smithsonian museum in Virginia. Ahead of the iconic spacecraft? About a 1,400 mile journey across the country to its new home in Texas. The provision, first introduced by of Texas Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, was added to the Senate's version of the legislation, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, as part of an additional $10 billion in funding for NASA. The funding is separate from NASA's Fiscal Year 2026 budget request, under which the space agency would see its funding slashed by nearly 25%. Here's what to know about the space shuttle Discovery, and what may be ahead for the vehicle as lawmakers look to transport it to Texas. What is the space shuttle Discovery? Discovery, which made its inaugural flight in 1984, completed 39 missions before it retired in 2011 as the oldest and most-used orbiter in U.S. history. During its career, Discovery shuttled 184 astronauts into space and back, many of whom flew more than once. Discovery also launched the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990 and helped in the assembly of the International Space Station, which has been orbiting about 250 miles above Earth for more than two decades. All of Discovery's launches took place at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Where is NASA's Discovery shuttle displayed? After NASA's Shuttle program ended in 2011, the space agency selected museums to display all of the retired spacecraft. Since 2012, Discovery has been on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. Three other shuttles are also on display in the U.S.: Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' would transfer Discovery to Texas Trump's legislative package, which he signed into law on Independence Day, includes a provision that allocates $85 million to move Discovery from Virginia to Texas. The spacecraft's new home is now due to be at Space Center Houston, the official visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The center is already home to a replica of the space shuttle Independence, formerly known as Explorer, that visitors are able to step inside. Cruz and Cornyn were the first to introduce the effort in April to relocate Discovery with their "Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act." The legislation provides "no less than $5 million" to move the shuttle to its new home, with the remaining $80 million set to go toward building a new facility to house and display the vehicle. However, the Smithsonian's estimate to Congress was that it would cost between $300 million and $400 million of taxpayer dollars to move Discovery across the country. The law also sets a deadline of Jan. 4, 2027, for the transportation of the space shuttle to be completed. Why do lawmakers want to move space shuttle to Houston? Texas lawmakers have long believed that because Houston is home to mission control for NASA's space shuttle program, the region is deserving of recognition with a space shuttle of its own to display. Cornyn called the provision to bring Discovery to Texas "long overdue" in a statement. 'Houston has long been the cornerstone of our nation's human space exploration program," Cornyn said in the statement. 'I am glad to see this pass as part of the Senate's One Big Beautiful Bill and look forward to welcoming Discovery to Houston and righting this egregious wrong.' In a seperate statement, Cruz said the legislation honors Houston's legacy as "the heart of America's human spaceflight program." "Bringing such a historic space vehicle to the region would underscore the city's indispensable contributions to our space missions, highlight the strength of America's commercial space partnerships, and inspire future generations of engineers, scientists, and pioneers who will carry our legacy of American leadership in space," Cruz said. Contributing: Sarah D. Wire, USA TODAY Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@
