GoKawiilPresident Donald Trump released a budget blueprint on Friday calling for a 23 percent cut to NASA’s budget, two days after the agency launched four astronauts on the first crewed lunar mission in more than 50 years.
The spending proposal for fiscal year 2027 is the opening salvo in a multi-month budget process. Both houses of Congress must pass their own appropriations bills, reconcile any differences between the two, and then send the final budget to the White House for President Trump’s signature. Fiscal year 2027 begins on October 1.
The White House requested a similar cut to NASA last year. The Republican-led Congress resoundingly rejected the proposal and kept NASA’s budget close to its level in the final year of the Biden administration. Like last year’s budget, the proposal from the Trump administration will undergo major changes as Congress weighs in over the coming months.
In a document explaining the NASA cuts, the Trump administration said it seeks to slash funding for “unnecessary and overpriced activities.” Under the White House plan, NASA will focus on the administration’s priority of landing humans on the Moon before the end of Trump’s term in office, then building a Moon base.
“The budget requests $18.8 billion in discretionary budget authority for NASA for 2027, a $5.6 billion or 23 percent decrease from the 2026 enacted level,” White House officials wrote in the budget outline.
All Moon and little else
The requested cuts will put NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, who last week unveiled an ambitious vision for the space agency, in the position of publicly defending the Trump administration’s budget proposal. In a statement accompanying the budget, Isaacman wrote the proposal emphasizes “sustaining American leadership in deep space exploration, strengthening the nation’s industrial base, and accelerating technological innovations that benefit the American people.”