Senators push back on Trump's proposal to cut NASA science funding by 47%

On Thursday (July 10), the U.S. Senate appropriations committee voted on a bill that provides NASA's science programs with $7.3 billion for the upcoming fiscal year. The bill would reject the Trump administration's budget proposal for the agency, which slashes such funding by 47%.

The bipartisan Senate bill — worked on by Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) — initially won by a vote of 15-14. However, primarily due to contention surrounding the location of the FBI headquarters, the bill was ultimately withdrawn and another vote will be conducted during a future meeting.

"The bill funds NASA at $24.9 billion, slightly above [fiscal year 2025 levels] to explore the solar system, to advance our understanding of climate change, promote innovation and sustainability in aeronautics," Sen. Van Hollen said during Thursday's committee meeting. "We rejected cuts that would have devastated NASA's science by 47% and would have terminated 55 operating and planned missions."

Some of those missions that Trump's 2026 budget proposal put on the chopping block include the Jupiter-orbiting Juno mission, the New Horizons Pluto spacecraft, the DaVinci Venus probe and the OSIRIS-APEX asteroid-sampling spacecraft, to name just a few.

For this reason, many experts in the scientific community have strongly opposed Trump's budget proposal — which cuts NASA's overall budget by 24% and calls for about a third of its staff to be let go. The opposition includes all seven former NASA science chiefs, scientists in attendance of this year's huge American Astronomical Society meeting and bipartisan U.S. Planetary Science Caucus chairs.

"For NASA, the bill reflects an ambitious approach to space exploration, prioritizing the agency's flagship program Artemis, and rejecting premature terminations of systems like SLS and Orion before commercial replacements are ready," Sen. Moran said during the meeting.

SLS (which stands for Space Launch System) and Orion are both part of NASA's Artemis program that aims to return humans to the lunar surface over the next few years — the former refers to the bright orange rocket component of the project, and the latter refers to the white capsule that'll physically carry astronauts to the moon.

"We make critical investments to accelerate our plans to land Americans on the lunar surface before the Chinese, but also in the technologies and capacity to land astronauts on Mars," Sen. Moran said.

The bill goes beyond NASA as well. For instance, it also includes support for the National Science Foundation (NSF), asking only cut the agency's funding by just $60 million — which equates to only about a 0.67% budget decrease. That's a huge boost compared to what Trump requested for the agency, and a departure from moves taken by the White House, such as a recent abrupt decision to remove over 1,800 NSF staff from the agency's headquarters.

"The bill provides $9 billion for the National Science Foundation, sparing it from the proposed 57% cut advanced in the President's budget request," Sen. Van Hollen said. "This bill protects key science missions that are fundamental to furthering our understanding of the Earth and [making us] better stewards of our natural resources, and supports critical programs … to safeguard the Earth from natural disasters."

The National Weather Service (NWS) also remains "fully funded" under this bill for the purposes of "employing the people who work at the National Weather Service to protect our well being," Sen. Moran said.

"This bill is a blueprint on how to govern in a constrained fiscal environment," he said. It provides this blueprint, he added, "by making smart strategic choices, cutting where we can, investing where we must, and always staying focused on trying to deliver value to the American people."

The bill also offers support for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which has already seen quite a few cuts over the last few months, including over 800 worker layoffs and possible building closures.

"We maintain the current, next-generation satellites that track severe weather, promote and support American businesses and exports and spur economic development nationwide," Van Hollen said. Such work, he added, also helps to "create cybersecurity and AI standards, promote economic development nationwide and enable sustainable management of ocean resources, conduct periodic censuses …. and much more."

Passage of the Senate bill — if it does indeed hold — is far from the end of the story, however. To take effect, budget bills must pass both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and then be signed by the president. There's certainly no guarantee that agreement will come easily in this case.