How the Trump administration’s budget cuts could affect NASA : Short Wave : NPR

An illustration of Mars Curiosity Rover. President Trump says he wants astronauts on Mars. What will it take … and will the budget proposed by the White House be the NASA cuts, or less possible?

Piranka / Getty images

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Piranka / Getty images

An illustration of Mars Curiosity Rover. President Trump says he wants astronauts on Mars. What will it take … and will the budget proposed by the White House be the NASA cuts, or less possible?

Piranka / Getty images

Earlier this year, the White House proposed a reduction of almost 24% of the budget for the 2026 NASA financial year, mainly targeting the fundamental scientific research of the organization. If the cuts materialize, they would be the most important in the history of the agency.

If it is approved by the Congress as is, the proposed versions would stop the science which has already been partially paid, such as the return of Mars, the return and the financing of the Roman space telescope Nancy Grace. In addition, several scientists and political experts to whom we have spoken for this episode believe that this funding reduced to NASA and other scientific agencies would eliminate the United States as a world leader in scientific discoveries.

But in the last month, the congress began to discuss the packages of credits that suggest that the finalized budget may not contract severely after all. So in this episode, Short wave The Regina G. Barber host reports important hypotheses: what programs could be assigned? Are these cuts likely to occur? If so, when?

Do you want to hear more stories about space and politics? Let us know shortwave@npr.org.

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This episode was produced by Hannah Chinn. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez and checked by Tyler Jones. Kwesi Lee was the audio engineer.