The Trump administration is again asking Congress to cut NASA's scientific budget nearly in half, mimicking a last-year attempt that was rejected by lawmakers. The proposal, published Friday morning, seeks to cut approximately $6 billion from NASA's total spending, in a second attempt by the Trump administration to reduce the agency's budget by nearly a quarter after lawmakers funded it at Biden-era levels last year. As part of the reduction request, the Trump administration proposed cutting $3.4 billion from the agency's scientific programs by canceling 40 missions, a plan that will likely again be unpopular with lawmakers. Last year's cuts included a program to collect Martian soil samples for study, which the White House presented on Friday as an example of wasteful spending that was canceled. What were the plans for NASA? The proposal comes at a time when NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman is trying to revolutionize the country's space program. In March, Isaacman announced a series of changes he intended to implement at the agency, such as transitioning to commercial rockets for lunar launches, increasing the pace of missions, and establishing a $30 billion lunar base over the next decade. The Trump administration's budget, which allocates about $175 million for the lunar base, is the first sign that the White House backs Isaacman's ambitious plans. Like last year, the administration also called for the gradual phasing out of the Boeing-built Space Launch System rocket, which it called 'excessively expensive and delayed,' and the Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Orion crew capsule, which currently carries a crew of four astronauts on a lunar mission, in favor of commercial alternatives. The White House also requests a cut of about $1 billion from the budget of the International Space Station, whose decommissioning is scheduled for 2030, and the 'rapid development and deployment of commercial space stations.' However, in March, agency officials announced they have a more limited budget than expected to fund the development of commercial space stations. The president's budget request usually serves as a starting point for the lawmakers' appropriations process. It also includes specific requests from agencies that will be negotiated in Congress in the coming months.
