White House Seeks Deep NASA Cuts as Artemis II Breaks Spaceflight Record
Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2026/04/07/nasa_budget/
First, the good news: the Artemis II crew has successfully swung around the far side of the Moon and surpassed Apollo 13's record for the farthest humans have traveled from Earth. Now the bad news: the White House is sharpening the budget blade once again.
The US administration celebrated Artemis II's success while simultaneously proposing a FY 2027 budget [PDF] that would slash NASA's overall spending allowance from $24.4 billion to $18.8 billion [PDF].
If enacted, the request would gut science funding from $7.3 billion in 2026 to $3.9 billion. Space Operations (which includes the International Space Station) would drop from $4.2 billion to $3 billion, and Safety, Security, and Mission Services from $3 billion to $2 billion.
One bright spot is Exploration (including human missions to the Moon), which would get a bump from $7.8 billion to $8.5 billion.
Reaction has been swift and grim. One source close to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) told The Register the budget proposal was as "dismal as expected," and that "JPL is hoping that Congress will again dismiss it. We can only hope."
The Planetary Society was blunter in its response, saying: "This proposal needlessly resurrects an existential threat to US leadership in space science and exploration."
"The President has stated his desire that NASA remain the world's premier space agency. The White House's budgeting office is out of step with this broad, bipartisan consensus," it added.
In a message to the NASA workforce, obtained by NASAWatch, administrator Jared Isaacman put a positive spin on the request, saying: "The requested funding levels are sufficient for NASA to meet the Nation's high expectations and deliver on all mission priorities.
"As we saw in last year's budget request, it [the FY2027 request] calls on agencies to find efficiencies, focus resources, and do more to meet the moment."
The request ushers in another year of uncertainty for NASA. Despite the fanfare surrounding the Artemis II mission, the budget proposal describes the Space Launch System (SLS) - used to send astronauts around the Moon - as "grossly expensive and delayed" and calls for replacing the SLS and Orion - currently housing the Artemis II crew - with something "more cost-effective."
What that replacement might be remains unclear, particularly given that SpaceX's Starship, critical to NASA's lunar landing plans, suffered yet another delay on April 3 when boss Elon Musk pushed its next test flight to "4 to 6 weeks away," so no earlier than May.
This is familiar territory. The White House proposed comparable funding cuts for FY 2026, only for Congress to reject them, holding funding roughly flat year-over-year, albeit a real-terms cut once inflation is factored in, but nothing like the scale now proposed. Lawmakers also added almost $10 billion earmarked largely for human spaceflight through 2032, including $2.6 billion for the Gateway space station, which Isaacman subsequently paused in favor of a moonbase.
This time, however, the cuts are proposed against a darker backdrop of rising US defense spending, "which," our source said, "will further reduce the money available for science... This is a worrying time."
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