Trump administration releases its proposed NASA budget for 2026
The Trump administration today released [pdf] its proposed federal budget for the 2026 fiscal year, calling for an overall reduction in federal spending by about 7.6%, with NASA getting a budget cut of about 24%.
A summary of the budget can be found in this NASA press release. The main bullet points are these:
- SLS and Orion will be retired after flying the two more missions. Whether those flights will be manned or not however is left vague.
- Lunar Gateway will be shut down
- The Mars Sample Return mission will be cancelled.
- The overall manned budget for interplanetary development is increased, and now includes a line item of $1 billion for “Mars-focused programs”.
- Flights to ISS are reduced (cutting a half billion from this budget) to facilitate the “transition to a more cost-effective commercial approach to human activities in space as the space station approaches the end of its life cycle.”
- Eliminates “low-priority climate monitoring satellites”, shifting the focus to getting such data from commercial sources.
- Major budget cuts are proposed for many other departments, and also include a major restructuring of NASA’s entire operation to “streamline the workforce, IT services, NASA Center operations, facility maintenance, and construction and environmental compliance activities.”
Below is a screen capture from the budget proposal detailing these cuts.
The changes to the manned part of NASA’s budget make great sense. The goal appears to be to get rid of NASA projects that cost too much and accomplish little (SLS, Orion, Gateway) and shift investment to more effective commercial products.
Overall the budget simply brings NASA’s budget back to what it was in 2016, about $18 billion. NASA was able to accomplish quite a lot with that amount of money, so this is not as draconian as many will certainly claim. Moreover, if the agency is streamlined properly as it appears the Trump administration wishes, it will likely be able to do more with less.
Without doubt however these cuts will be initially painful, especially for the space science community. However, our federal budget debt is out of control, so a rational discussion of some reductions is perfectly reasonable. Many of the proposed cuts will actually make NASA more capable and efficient, as they include eliminating a number of its many centers scattered across the country with their large work forces that generally do not achieve very much. Instead, the focus will be getting this work done in the private sector, in a more focused manner.
Whether Congress (and the public) is really ready for this rational discussion however remains unknown. The sense I have is that the public is quite ready to accept major cuts, but the Washington swamp and the “educated” class from our bankrupt Marxist academic community is not. The propaganda press will push hard against any cuts, and many in Congress (from both parties) will eagerly go along because they don’t want their gravy train to shut down.
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Amazing.
Don’t cut NGR or LISA!
Looks to be a generally good plan. It would be nice to have more details on the proposed crew reduction and reduction in resupply flights to ISS. A smaller crew would consume fewer supplies and need less frequent replenishment. I wonder if the idea is to fly only two or three astronauts on future crew rotation flights or if the idea is to stick with four on each rotation but increase the standard mission length from 6 to 8 months to match the Russians. Regardless of the details, there would seem to be even less work in prospect for Starliner than before these intended changes. That might influence Boeing’s decisions about what, if anything, to do with Starliner going forward. It wouldn’t be good news for Sierra Space and Dream Chaser either.
I literally did a fist pump when I saw that they are going to put the SLS out of our misery. I personally know some of the people who have spent their careers on this, and they are solid professionals. Unfortunately, this is an Industrial Age solution to an Information Age problem, and has turned into a Black Hole for money and intellectual resources. The science community, of which I was at one time a part, will scream bloody murder that NASA is finally being forced to recognize that exploration of space must eventually give way, at least partially, to exploitation of space.
Dick Eagleson wrote, “I wonder if the idea is to fly only two or three astronauts on future crew rotation flights …”
Your comment gave me an idea. If NASA flies fewer astronauts on each Dragon flight, that frees up seats for commercial passengers! There is a profit center here, if SpaceX or others want to grab it.
Interesting that this is done before Isaacman is approved.. Will add tension to that vote.
Smaller crews would also mean more astronauts get flight experience.
Of course, Congress is going to go bat, er, crazy over every single cut. Can you imagine the frothing over the entirety of cuts in the full budget? Washington is about to experience a frothpocalypse. I’m here for it.
“Overall the budget simply brings NASA’s budget back to what it was in 2016, about $18 billion.”
In fairness, we have to factor in inflation, which thanks to Joe Biden and his colleagues in the 117th Congress, we have had a lot of since 2016. $18 billion in 2016 dollars comes to,….just over $24 billion in 2025 dollars. Or to put it another way, $18 billion in 2025 dollars is about $13 billion in 2016 dollars.
Which, if that’s what we want NASA to work with, OK: Just be sure you know what that value actually comes out to. In real terms, that comes out to the smallest NASA budget since 1980.
And Congressional staffers for the peeps representing the most impacted congressional districts are already making such calculations. The chance that this will survive intact on the Hill is basically nil. But again, as we have discussed before in these budget threads, we cannot rule out that some of this is being proposed as an opening negotiation salvo. And frankly, even I wouldn’t endorse all of these cuts: I am all for whacking Mars Sample Return, but I think it’s a bad idea to kill the Nancy Roman Space Telescope at this point. But getting that tradeoff as a final result looks like a decent compromise outcome in my book. Just as I would prefer pole-axing SLS and Orion tomorrow, but I could think of worse outcomes than phasing it out after Artemis III. There’s basically zero chance Ted Cruz would agree to anything more at this point, and the White House knows that.
But the things that need reforming at NASA go beyond just what we spend. The infrastructure footprint desperately needs rationalization. So does how NASA does program procurement. And then there’s personnel policies…. But all that requires legislation in many cases.
Eric Berger of course has his criticisms, but it is hard to disagree with his discussion of SLS and Orion: “As someone who has covered SLS from the beginning, it is mind-blowing to see the rocket described this way in public, government documents. Not that the description of the rocket as “grossly expensive” is not true. It is. Still, it’s wild.”
And: “Several sources in the space community, therefore, believe it is indeed plausible that SLS and Orion will be phased out over the next five years in favor of far less expensive commercial rockets and spacecraft. NASA will thus be asked to beat China to the Moon with the legacy systems and then identify more affordable options for future missions to the Moon.”
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/05/white-house-budget-seeks-to-end-sls-orion-and-lunar-gateway-programs/
Progress.
I don’t care for the Billion increase for Mars projects.
”SLS and Orion will be retired after flying the two more missions.”
This makes the most sense at this point.
”Lunar Gateway will be shut down”
This makes no sense at all. It reduces the cadence and effectiveness of future manned missions, royally screws over our international partners, and saves almost no money.
”The Mars Sample Return mission will be cancelled”
The JPL-led monstrosity deserves to die, but the overall effort is the most important mission in planetary science. The samples have already been collected. Finding a cost-effective way to bring them back should be a priority.
”Flights to ISS are reduced”
This also makes no sense. It will reduce science output by 80-90% while only reducing the budget by 12-15%.
So mostly penny-wise-pound-foolish efforts to save money. About what I expected. Sigh.
mkent,
This budget largely reflects the thinking of Russ Vought and his staff, and Vought is an old budget hawk – he used to work for Phil Gramm. Vought is the kind of guy that would make NASA bathrooms pay-per-use, and make employees bring their own toilet paper. I tend to think the White House let him have his head because the “skinny” budget would make a useful starting negotiating position. (“OK, Ted, you can keep ISS as is, but Gateway has to die.”)
1. We have not seen the specifics on the proposed ISS mission reductions, but I tend to agree that it’s hard to see how the science loss (accepting it at face value) would justify the modest savings. Either run the station at full tilt until the end and max out your use of it, or just splash it now. Of course, that said, Bob’s idea of maybe making one of the seats a paying customer (probably a sovereign client in most cases) might be an interesting alternative to save money without losing science.
2. Why would you need Gateway if you no longer are using SLS and Orion? The only conceivable commercial architectures (SpaceX, Blue Origin) are not going to need Gateway. (We all know why Ted Cruz would like to keep Gateway: It would require keeping a fully staffed Mission Control in Houston after the ISS is splashed. But that’s pork, not engineering.)
As for the international partners, there’s ways to give them things they can contribute to lunar surface operations. JAXA is already doing that with the pressurized rover, in fact!
3. The Mars samples at Jezero Crater certainly have science value, but how much is that worth, especially in opportunity costs? The two alternatives being looked at by NASA now still run $6 to $8 billion or so. Even Rocket Lab’s proposal (which we have not seen in any detail) would run $4 billion.
Well, for $4 billion to be spent after Dragonfly’s wedge is done, I would like to argue that a flagship orbiter mission to the ice giants, or heck, even Enceladus, would be a better use of that money. And I am not alone in thinking so.
The smartest people in the country should be able to comprehend the budget problems we face and be able to put the greater good before their personal desires. All of us should be willing to give a little to help the country. Demand is infinite and there are endless worthy causes to spend money on.
I think propulsion research is important but am willing to concede it isn’t the most important thing at this moment. NASA, or some other agency, can come back to this work in the future.
What people should be focusing on is the future and where the priorities laid out in the budget request will take us. There is an implicit promise of NASA getting more funding as our sphere of activity expands. A temporary reduction in spending in exchange for more money later is merely delaying gratification.
The public isn’t aware of what NASA does or how much is spent, so the only outrage will come from people who are using it as a talking point without understanding the issues.
There is the opportunity to point out that using commercial services has been one of the greatest innovations at NASA, and much can be done to study the climate without bespoke platforms.