The White House 2026 budget request that covers NASA has been released… and it’s as bad as other White House actions on science would indicate. There hasn’t been carnage to this level since the ’80s abandonment of planetary exploration.
The top-line number for NASA as a whole is roughly $18.8 billion, which sounds like a lot to someone not paying attention. However, that’s a drop of many billions from 2025, when NASA got $24.8 billion- a cut of nearly a quarter. But let’s look at the specifics. Among programs, “boots and flags” missions (human projects) actually rise, which means other line items fall by over a quarter. Physics (including exoplanets) sees the biggest hit, at about -40%; planetary (Solar System) is not far behind.
Among individual projects, OSIRIS-APEX (a fully built, flying mission) would be shut off, with New Horizons, and Voyager. Cutting a probe that had already been developed and launched, to save operations wages, is about the most penny-wise, pound-foolish thing in space. The OSIRIS craft is healthy and running; an extended mission cost could be a rounding error compared to that of the original OSIRIS-REx budget. Similarly, New Horizons and Voyager are fine… and irreplaceable.
Note that participation by US scientist on the Euclid telescope would be zeroed out. Euclid is built and launched– including some US hardware aboard. A pittance for scientists’ salaries aboard the program is truly a bargain. Yet even this would be abandoned; all discoveries will be made by others.
The impact goes deeper than that, I have to say. The implication is that no new probes will start for the foreseeable horizon- the pipeline runs dry. For longer scales, the educational line runs out- NASA stops engaging schoolkids with teaching efforts. But there’s an insidious impact in the numbers.
Cutting programs de facto cuts jobs. With existing lines canceled or abandoned, their staffs are idled. Based on funding, NASA total employment is expected to fall from 17,391 heads to 11,853. The loss of NASA’s skilled workforce will represent a loss of human capital (“brain drain”) that simply cannot be replaced- that pipeline cannot be arbitrarily “turned back on” in the future. The parallel OMB (Office of Management and Budget) released its own estimate of staff levels, including:
FY2025 FY2026
Science 2841 1441
Space Technology 711 528
STEM 49 0
Space Operations 2351 1588
Not only would NASA lose future missions, it would lose abilities for future missions.
$18.8 billion is a NASA level not seen since 1981- we are sending ourselves back to the dark times of 1981. Meanwhile, Chinese launches are continuing just fine. This budget request would abandon leadership of space exploration to China, and by a clear lead.
The good news- such as it is- is that this is a White House budget request, not an enacted bill. The US Constitution vests budget authority with the House of Representatives instead. Congress thus has some ability to ignore the president, and write their own numbers. This has (to an extent) happened. New Horizons itself was zeroed out by the Bush administration during development, only to be restored by Congress in their spending bill. That’s been the game; most years, the White House plays “chicken” with Congress, canceling one mission. It’s a test, to see if Congress will push back, and a way for the Executive Branch to swing its weight. But a top-level slashing is no game: this is a bloodbath.
The House of Representatives is, for better and for worse, supposed to be the voice of the people. It falls on us as space-inclined readers- and a spacefaring society- to speak up. We can still pressure our Representatives to call out this foolishness, and maintain our lead in space, and planetary missions.