Please reject the White House’s proposed NASA budget, which cuts the current NASA budget by about half. This slashed budget represents missed future opportunities and a careless waste of money already spent to develop still-prospering projects.
NASA is a national treasure worth protecting. In addition to satisfying our human drive for exploration and sparking the curiosity of the scientists of tomorrow, our space program is also a source of national pride and sign of strength. NASA research drives discoveries that help us every day here on earth—GPS is the example I find easiest to remember, but it is just one of many. NASA also employs some of the world’s best and brightest scientists and engineers. If the NASA budget is cut, it will contribute to the brain drain also threatened by cuts to the NIH.
Furthermore, I cynically but with ample cause suspect that some of these cuts will be directly offset by private contracts to SpaceX—a percentage of the ”saved” spending simply shifted from NASA to Elon Musk’s private company, adding more to the mountain of conflicts of interest of President Trump’s adviser.
About the proposed NASA budget, the Washington Post reported on April 11, 2025: “‘This is an extinction-level event for NASA science,” said Casey Dreier, chief of space policy for the Planetary Society, a space advocacy group. ‘It needlessly terminates functional, productive science missions and cancels new missions currently being built, wasting billions of taxpayer dollars in the process. This is neither efficient nor smart budgeting.’”
Please do everything you can to prevent this careless and predatory slashing of the budget of NASA, the world-leading space science and exploration organization that belongs to all of us.