Trump Admin Reportedly Plotting to Slash NASA Budget by 50 Percent

While plenty of confusion remains over the fate of over 1,000 NASA employees who were put on the chopping block by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency last month — only to be told that they weren't being fired after all — the space agency may still be in for a rude awakening. As Ars Technica's Eric Berger reports, the Trump administration is expected to slash the space agency's science budget by as much as 50 percent, which could prove disastrous for the future of space research. Sources told Berger that NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) could soon face an existential threat. "If this is implemented, it would be nothing short of an extinction-level event for space science and exploration in the United States," Planetary Society chief of space policy Casey Dreier told Ars. "Losing this much money, this fast, has no precedence in NASA's history." "It would force terrible decisions, including turning off scores of active, productive, irreplaceab ... Read full article.