The Congressional Budget Office issued an updated estimate today of the cost of President Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense system. Lacking detailed data from the Administration, CBO based its analysis on the capabilities called for in Trump’s January 2025 Executive Order and concluded the total cost over 20 years is $1.2 trillion, about twice its estimate last year, with the bulk of it for Space-Based Interceptors.

Trump issued the Iron Dome for America Executive Order on January 27, 2025, seven days after his second term began. He soon renamed it Golden Dome in part to distinguish it from Israel’s Iron Dome system which has more limited capabilities. Trump appointed Gen. Michael Guetlein to lead the project and in an Oval Office meeting on May 20, 2025, said it would cost $175 billion and be completed in three years, before he leaves office.

By then CBO had estimated the cost at $524 billion based on information available at the time.

Guetlein has since raised his estimate to $185 billion, but it is widely viewed as far too low.

Several important points: First, the CBO’s cost estimates are usually wrong, in either direction, which means the cost could be a lot less, or a lot more. Odds are that in this case its estimate is trending in the right direction. Guetlein’s cost estimate is absurdly too low.

Second, the high cost helps explain why a lot of investment money is pouring into a lot of new space startups, for both rocket and satellite companies. Wall Street sees the federal government spending a lot of money on Golden Dome, and wants to get into the action. For the same reason this is why a lot of space companies have shifted their focus from civilian projects to the military.

Finally, the idea of Golden Dome is perfectly reasonable, as its concept has already been proven both by the U.S.’s Patriot missile system and Israel’s Iron Dome. The implementation however is going to be bad, because the people in Washington being asked to do it have a terrible track record. They routinely waste money and manage projects badly.

The vote was along party lines, with the Republicans approving and the Democrats opposing. As expected, while the overall budget was maintained, the Republicans went along with the sense of Trump’s cuts — and the desires of NASA administrator Jared Isaacman — by shifting money from science to exploration within the budget.

The subcommittee bill provides $8.926 billion for human exploration, an increase of about $400 million above the request, and the request itself favors exploration. … The subcommittee’s bill raises the FY2027 level for [NASA science] to $6 billion, but that’s still a $1.3 billion reduction from current spending as Ranking Member Grace Meng (D-New York) pointed out.

The bill also agreed with Trump’s proposal to eliminate NASA’s STEM education office, something Isaacman had repeatedly testified was redundant and a waste of money.

In other words, the committee is giving Isaacman more flexibility with the money it is giving him, as I predicted.

This is only the first step in the budget process. The budget still has to be approved by the full House, the Senate, and the President. Expect changes.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman yesterday appeared before a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations committee, and as happened last week when Isaacman appeared before a House committee, the reality of what happened at the hearing differed greatly from what most new sources reported.

The main topic of both hearings were the proposed $5.6 billion cut in NASA’s budget, proposed by President Trump. Isaacman has made it clear he does not oppose this cut, stating repeatedly in public that he has plenty of money to do what he wants, that there is much waste and needless spending at NASA that needs reform, and by trimming that out he will find the cash he needs.

As I noted in reporting about that House hearing, I was struck by the lack of hard opposition to those cuts. The Republicans generally made little of the issue, though they seemed generally opposed to the cuts. And though the Democrats as expected blasted the cuts, they did so in a generally subdued manner, only showing passion in noting the elimination to NASA STEM education office. Isaacman’s willingness to push back hard against more spending took the wind out of their demands for more money, and so they muted their protests.

Unfortunately, if you relied on our propaganda press for an honest report of this House hearing, you would have been misinformed. As shown below, that propaganda press distorted this reality to back big government spending without question.

• CNN: They are going to be rejected again’: NASA chief faces grilling on Trump’s budget proposal
• Space News: House Science Committee pans NASA budget request
• Space.com: ‘That’s just not a winning strategy’: Congress objects (again) to Trump’s planned NASA budget cuts
• Aerospace America: House Science Committee members vow to reject NASA budget cuts
• Fox Huntsville: NASA’s Isaacman defends budget amid lawmaker concerns over science cuts

The Senate hearing yesterday followed the exact same pattern. The questioning was generally friendly, and Isaacman aggressively pushed back at the demands for more spending by Democrats. This made their push for more spending more difficult, because Isaacman knows what he is talking about, supports an ambitious space program at NASA, and if he says he doesn’t need the extra money, they look foolish throwing it at him.

Yet, the propaganda press once again tried to spin the hearing to promote more spending. Though this hearing got less coverage, the following two stories were typical:

• SpacePolicyOnline: Key Senators Agree NASA FY2027 Budget Request Inadequate
• Aviation Week: Senate Panel Members Blast NASA’s 2027 Budget Request

Only one news source (outside of my reporting here), R&D World, reporting this hearing accurately: Senate largely hearing splits on party lines over proposed $5.6 billion NASA cut

Now, I am not naive. I fully expect Congress to restore most of the proposed cuts to NASA’s budget. At the same time, both hearings suggest that Congress will also afford Isaacman more leeway on how he uses the money. He will be able to cut or reshape major projects. He will be able to shut down some offices that he considers wasteful or redundant. And above all, he will be given the freedom to reform NASA in ways no Congress has allowed in decades.

“On behalf of President Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as a member of the National Science Board is terminated, effective immediately,” reads a 24 April email from Mary Sprowls of the presidential personnel office to each NSB member. “Thank you for your service.”

The article at the link, from the journal Science, takes the typical one-sided propaganda press anti-Trump view, interviewing only those who oppose Trump and spending most of its time screaming “He’s destroying science!”

A wider view would ask this: Is there a reason that the president of the United States, elected by the American people, might have reasons to question the management of this board? At the moment the federal government is running a deficit that is back-breaking, and this board publicly criticized Trump’s effort to rein in spending when he proposed a 55% cut in NSF’s budget. If they are not going to cooperate with their boss, then maybe they should leave, and not let the door hit them as they head out.

The Science article also included this howler: “the mass firing is the latest indication that the White House is ignoring the board’s authority and dictating policies at NSF.” Um, who elected them? No one. In fact, they were appointed by the president himself, and he is the only one with the constitutional authority to decide these matters.

Expect court suits of course, with some lower level unelected judge somewhere attempting to take over running the executive branch by demanding these board members remain in power, defying the elected president of the U.S.

There has been a lot of attention given by the propaganda press to the testimony yesterday by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman before the House Science Committee, with almost all of that coverage focused on two issues, Trump’s proposal to cut NASA’s budget significantly, and the public statement by Isaacman that two Lunar Gateway modules were delivered “corroded.”

On the corrosion issue, much of the press focused on whether Isaacman’s statement is true (contractors are denying it). I instead was struck by how little pushback there was overall from Congress about Isaacman’s proposal to cancel Gateway entirely. In two hours of testimony, only one congressman brought it up, and even he did not challenge Isaacman’s decision very strongly.

Put simply, it really didn’t matter whether these modules were corroded or not. Congress is not going to challenge Isaacman on this decision. Some politicians might use it in fund-raising letters or at press events as a hammer to win votes or donations, but when it comes time to approve NASA’s budget, they are willing to accept Isaacman’s overall judgment. Gateway will be gone.

As for the budget cuts, I was also struck by the lack of hard opposition from Congress, despite reporting from the propaganda press (like this story) suggesting the cuts were rejected outright. Though repeatedly Isaacman was questioned about those cuts — especially from Democrats — repeatedly he fought back hard, to good effect. He supports Trump’s cuts and does not want more money, because in reviewing NASA’s budget and recent actions, he has found there is ample cash available in Trump’s reduced budget by simply shutting down bad or duplicative projects and focusing his resources more effectively.

The only threatened program that seemed to generate any passion from Congress was Trump’s effort to eliminate NASA’s education STEM program. “We need this program to inspire kids!” they would say. Isaacman would bluntly respond “No we don’t,” noting that NASA issues millions in education grants outside that program (making that program duplicative and unnecessary), and that the best way NASA can inspire kids is to actually fly missions, not send money to some bureaucratic program. Isaacman wants to use that money to make building the lunar base more likely.

Over and over again Isaacman pulled the rug out from under this big-spending congress critters by simply pointing out the truth to them, with one exchange with Zoe Lofgren (D-California) quite typical. She clearly was opposed to Trump’s cuts and wanted to challenge any cancellations being put forth. To do so, however, she wanted Isaacman to provide more detailed information about those cuts. Issacman said sure, I’m glad to provide you everything you want, but then added this:

I am here at NASA for the mission. If there is a program that is under-performing, not meeting expectations, or not [using] the best resources, I can assure you and promise you I will over-communicate and make the case why those resources should be spent on something else that better serves NASA’s mission.

In other words, if Congress wants to fund useless pork, or a mission that can’t do what it promises, Isaacman was making it clear that he was going fight against it, and will use his public platform to do so.

This puts the pork-lovers in a difficult position. Isaacman now has clout with the public. To go against him will not win votes. Moreover, he is playing this game very smartly. They all want a successful government space program, and he is eager to give to them. He is just demanding they let him do it using his own judgment. He will not support any program he thinks is counter productive, and he said so candidly over and over.

As a result, there was little pushback from Congress during this hearing over Isaacman’s major reshaping of Artemis. And though it is very likely they will restore most of Trump’s cuts, it is also very likely Isaacman will convince them to give him more flexibility on how to use the money.

Using NASA wisely, for the first time in decades

Isaacman also argued strongly, with little opposition, that the goal should be to off-load as much of NASA’s work to the private sector. Let NASA do stuff the private sector can’t, but the instant the private sector can do it, NASA should back off, stop doing it, and move on to other stuff outside the realm of the private sector.

Overall, this hearing reaffirms my earlier conclusion that Isaacman’s political skills are far better than anyone expected. He is forcing Congress to shift its focus from funding pork to funding a real American space effort, and to do so in a way that will in quickly foster a vibrant American space industry, outside government.

Keep your fingers crossed. If Isaacman succeeds in this effort, he will profoundly change America’s future in space, and for the good.

Link here. I found this interview with NASA administrator Jared Issacman to be very informative and worth reading, especially in regards to his comments on the proposed cuts to NASA’s budget.

First, he admits right off the bat that the heat shield was his biggest concern during the Artemis-2 mission. He also took a swipe at past NASA management over this issue. After noting that the initial inspection of the Artemis-2 shield after recovery showed it experienced little serious damage, he added this: “All that aside, if you’re going to wait three and a half years between missions, just replace the heat shield.” In other words, after Artemis-1 NASA management dithered when it saw the damaged heat shield. It should have immediately moved to replace it.

As for the proposed Trump budget cuts and the opposition to those cuts by many in Congress, Issacman said this:

There’s a lot of passionate people out here [referring I think to the space industry and its advocates]. They can do incredible things, from a scientific perspective. I don’t know how many of them have ever pulled together a financial model, and driven execution on some of these things to say what should or shouldn’t be the right budget.

Now, all that said, of course, we will maximize every dollar that Congress affords to the agency. But it is not healthy, for the agency, to get in this mindset that we have to spend our way out of every problem. And I don’t think it’s good for the country to think we have to print our way out of every problem. [emphasis mine]

This is not the first time Isaacman has indicated he thinks NASA can survive these cuts, and in fact can do as well if not better by using what it gets more wisely. It is however the first time he has put NASA’s budget in the context of the entire federal budget, which is badly out of control. Isaacman does not want more money from Congress because he thinks it is bad for the nation to spend itself into debt. He thinks he has enough to do the job.

The entire interview is worth reading. It indicates a very practical and honest mindset. Everyone might not agree with every proposal Isaacman has put forth, but he is clearly approaching things from a very good place.

BEAD was part of the Biden administration’s bipartisan infrastructure act – originally a $42 billion program to bring broadband internet to areas of the country with little or no broadband access. The Trump administration eliminated other infrastructure act programs, and cut BEAD outlays to $21 billion, along with rule changes to allow satellite providers.

SpaceX applied for BEAD funds in 2025. The company won $733 million worth of BEAD projects nationwide, including $109 million in Texas.

Initially the Biden administration awarded SpaceX almost a billion dollar grant, because its Starlink constellation was the only broadband outlet actually doing the job. Then Musk began to campaign for Republicans, and suddenly the Biden administration pulled that grant, saying absurdly that SpaceX was failing to provide its service to rural areas, when that was exactly what it was doing.

Now SpaceX wants BEAD to ease some of its requirements, and wants these grant funds upfront.

I say, this whole BEAD program is a waste of taxpayer money and a perfect example of crony capitalism. I’m glad Trump cut it in half, but that wasn’t good enough. It should be shut down entirely. SpaceX doesn’t need this handout. It is making money hand-over-fist on its own.

SpaceX tonight at 10:21 pm (Eastern) successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

I specify the launch time because it occurred just outside the FAA’s so-called curfew banning all launches from 6 am to 10 pm local time, due to the government shutdown and a shortage of air traffic controllers to coordinate aviation and rocket launches. Though the Senate today voted to end the shutdown, that shutdown has not yet ended, and won’t until the House passes the Senate budget version and Trump signs it.

Thus, it appears Blue Origin has negotiated an exemption for its now planned launch of New Glenn on November 12, 2025 in the afternoon.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

147 SpaceX (a new record)
70 China
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 147 to 115.

Note that I had made an error in entering my numbers earlier this week in regards to China, and have now corrected the mistake, thus revising the numbers in the last few launch reports.

Accordingly, with respect to commercial space launches and reentries, under the authority provided to the FAA Administrator by 49 U.S.C. §§ 40103, 40113, and 46105(c), and authority delegated to the FAA Administrator under 51 U.S.C. § 50909(a), it is hereby ordered that, beginning at 6:00 a.m. EST on November 10, 2025, and until this Order is cancelled, Commercial space launches and reentries will only be permitted between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. local time.

It appears the curfew has been imposed because of a shortage of air traffic controllers due to the government shutdown. Each launch needs to be coordinated with air traffic control, and it appears the FAA won’t have the people it needs to do this during the day. This is part of the overall 10% reduction in flights at forty of the busiest airports nationwide imposed at the same time, also due to the shutdown.

This order is going to probably impact planned launches by SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and others, with SpaceX likely affected the most.

Note: I got the curfew times backwards initially, and was corrected by my readers. Post is now correct.

As part of this effort, JPL is undergoing a realignment of its workforce, including a reduction in staff. This reduction — part of a reorganization that began in July and not related to the current government shutdown — will affect approximately 550 of our colleagues across technical, business, and support areas. Employees will be notified of their status on Tuesday, Oct. 14.

As the statement makes clear, this reduction is unrelated to the government shutdown, and is also mostly unrelated directly to the 24% budget cut the Trump administration wishes to impose on NASA. JPL has had major management issues in the last few years, including two previous rounds of layoffs of similar amounts. Much of these budget issues stem from the cancellation by NASA of the Mars sample return mission, which JPL was to play a major part. That money is gone, and even if the mission is resurrected, JPL is almost certainly not going to play a major part.

The two missions saved are Osiris-Apex, on its way to the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis, and the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS), four satellites in orbit that observe the Earth’s magnetosphere.

The article at the link is typical of our propaganda press. It clearly opposes any cuts to NASA, and lobbies repeatedly for all funding to be reinstated. This pattern has gotten quite boring and tedious. It would be so refreshing to see a more objective take, at least one in a while.

However, its reporting confirms my own reporting from mid-September, where I noted that the vague language in the House budget bill would allow Trump to cut these missions. Congress wants to preen itself as supporting all funding for NASA, while carefully allowing Trump to go ahead with large cuts.

It is a good thing these two missions have been saved, though it does appear their funding has been trimmed. Of the fifteen missions in limbo, the only two that seem worth keeping is the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and New Horizons, though the second should likely be set up similar to the two Voyager spacecraft, with a very small crew aimed mainly at keeping the spacecraft functioning and able to send back data periodically.

We are in great debt. It is time that the federal government make some real choices. We can no longer afford to buy all the candy in the store.

NASA’s management had previously extended the orbiter’s mission several times, with the last extension going until the end of the 2025 fiscal year, that ended on September 30, 2025. No new budget has yet been approved, and the proposed Trump budget had included no money for extending the mission farther.

Due to the government shutdown, NASA is currently unable to say whether Juno is still operating or already powered down. At the time of publication, responses from agency officials state that “NASA is currently closed due to a lapse in government funding … Please reach back out after an appropriation or continuing resolution is approved.”

Under shutdown rules, only missions that fall under “excepted activities” — those required to protect life, property, or national security — can continue operations or communications. NASA’s continuity plans also specify that carryover funding may only be applied to “presidential priorities,” which limits what science programs can proceed during a lapse.

Juno does not fall into those protected categories, and was also zeroed-out on the President’s fiscal year 2026 budget request — making the mission, presumably, not a priority. So, until normal government operations resume, the spacecraft’s future is uncertain.

I think Juno’s future at this point is not uncertain in the least. While other active missions that the Trump proposed shutting down might get revived, Juno is unlikely to be one of them. I suspect the science team has put it in hibernation, and is already beginning to move on to other projects and work. They are being coy about this in the faint hope Congress will save Juno, but this should not be a priority. At this point I think NASA would be wiser to spend its resources elsewhere.

The key is the language of the bill. From the link above:

The bill was largely unchanged from what the CJS [commerce, justice and science] subcommittee approved July 14. It includes $24.838 billion for NASA, nearly the same as the $24.875 billion the agency received in fiscal 2024 and 2025, and far above the $18.8 billion the administration proposed for fiscal 2026 in May.

Members adopted a manager’s amendment, a package of noncontroversial changes and corrections, on a voice vote. That amendment also made additions to the report accompanying the bill. The report includes language expressing support for several NASA missions targeted for cancellation, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Juno mission at Jupiter and the New Horizons mission in the Kuiper Belt.

The report does not specify funding levels for those missions, but the “continues support” language signals to NASA that it should fund continue operations within the agency’s science budget. [emphasis mine]

It is the vagueness of this language that suggests the support is ephemeral. The courts recently have consistently ruled that if Congress doesn’t specifically mandate spending on a project, the White House is free to move money around as it sees fit. By not expressly outlining funding for Chandra, Juno, and New Horizons, these congressmen are playing a shell game, whereby to their constituents they can point to this vote and claim they wholeheartedly supported NASA and these missions. At the same time, they also appear to be allowing Trump the freedom to go ahead and shut the missions down, as his budget has already proposed.

None of this is yet real. The bill still must be passed by the full House, as well as the Senate. It then has to be signed by Trump. A lot of changes would happen in that process.

Either way, it appears that within the House at least, there is some movement to at least make some budget cuts possible. The sad thing is that the House is not actually cutting the budget, even as it is allowing Trump a way to cut these relatively inexpensive on-going missions. Considering the debt, it would have been much better had the committee actually trimmed NASA’s budget, even a little, while at the same time allocating specific funds to keep these very cost-effective missions alive.

The Senate hearing that was held yesterday, entitled “There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise: Why Congress and NASA Must Thwart China in the Space Race”, was clearly organized by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to promote a continuation of the SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway parts of NASA’s Artemis program. And he was able to do so because senators from both parties felt the same way. They all want to continue this pork, and don’t really care whether those expensive assets can really accomplish what they promise.

Furthermore, the hearing was also structured to allow these politicians to loudly proclaim their desire to beat China back to the Moon, using this pork. They want the U.S. first, but they are almost all want to do this through a government-run program.

As such, the choice of witnesses and the questions put to them were carefully orchestrated to push this narrative. To paraphrase: “We have to beat China to the Moon! And we have make sure a NASA program runs the effort! And above all, we mustn’t let Donald Trump cut any of NASA’s funding, anywhere!”

It was therefore not surprising that the most newsworthy quote from the hearing was the comments by former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine about Starship and how its choice as a manned lunar lander was a bad one, and that it was likely going to the prime reason China will put humans back on the Moon ahead of us.

Jim Bridenstine at yesterday’s hearing

He started by stating bluntly, “”It is highly unlikely that we will land on the moon before China.” He then went on to criticize the decision of NASA, after he had left the agency, to pick Starship as the manned lunar lander.

Instead of buying a moonlander, we’re going to buy a a big rocket. … The architecture is [complicated]. We need to launch Starship. That first Starship is a fueling depot that’s in orbit around the Earth. Then we need … up to dozens of additional Starships to refuel the first Starship. So imagine launching Starship over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, dozens of times, no delays, no explosions to refuel the first Starship. Then once it’s fully refueled, then that Starship has to fuel another Starship that is in fact human rated, which that process hasn’t even started yet.

He then outlined the complexity of launching SLS and Orion and having it rendezvous and dock with that manned Starship in lunar orbit, all of which seemed to him a bad idea. “This is an architecture that no NASA administrator that I’m aware of would have selected had they had the choice.”

What was fascinating about Bridenstine’s comments was that while he questioned Starship extensively, he said nothing about the significant questions about SLS and Orion. SLS did have overruns in the past but that’s “behind us. It’s done.” Orion meanwhile was “a shiny object … usable today.” No mention of its questionable heat shield or its as yet untested environmental system that must keep its astronauts alive.

Other witnesses lauded the medical research on ISS, without noting that none of that research produces products for sale on Earth. None mentioned the new commercial sector that is doing the same, but actually providing those products to Americans while making a profit. Over and over both senators and witnesses proclaimed the need to fund NASA, because without NASA nothing would happen at all.

The expected real per launch cost of SLS and Orion

The bottom line is that there will likely be no cancellation of SLS, Orion, or Lunar Gateway in the near future. Congress wants all three, and is willing to throw money at them for years to come to keep them alive. Though Starship might delay things a bit, as Bridenstine claimed, the reason China will get its lunar base built first will be because of SLS, Orion, and Gateway, not Starship. SLS and Orion are inefficient, cumbersome, and too expensive, and Gateway puts our assets not on the Moon but in space. You can’t build a manned lunar base with a rocket and capsule that only launches at best once a year, carrying four people. Nor can you do it building a lunar space station in an orbit that makes landing on the Moon more expensive and difficult.

Yet Congress wants them, and it held this hearing expressly to convince the country that these projects should be funded forever. And unless something dramatic happens, such as Orion failing during its first manned mission next year, or SpaceX leaping ahead with its own manned missions to Mars, we should expect Congress to fund SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway endlessly for many years to come.

There was at least one small hope during this hearing. One witness, Lieutenant General John Shaw, former deputy commander of the U.S. Space Command, made it a point to repeatedly advocate for a wider view outside of funding a government-run NASA program to plant a flag on the Moon.

John Shaw

My bottom line up front for the committee today is that I am an advocate for and a champion of a unified grand space strategy for our nation for the earth-moon system and beyond. Yet such a grand strategy which would unify and synergize our national efforts across civil, commercial, and national security activities in pursuit of common goals, opportunities, and capabilities does not currently exist. And I believe our mission to return Americans to the moon can be a powerful and a central driver as well as a beneficiary of such a strategy.

In his testimony he consistently focused on encouraging many different capabilities by the private sector across a wide spectrum, not on simply funding SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway, noting that by doing so the government would be enabling its goal of establishing a lunar base far more effectively. This is the concept I put forth in December last year. And though a majority of the senators seemed uninterested in this approach, there were more than a few that appeared to agree with it.

Thus, though the boondoggles will go on, it does appear Congress is also willing to shift focus away from them, albeit with some reluctance.

We can only hope that given time and events, this reluctance will eventually fade and be replaced with a more coherent approach, focused not on funding NASA but helping the American people themselves colonize the solar system.

The Jupiter orbiter Juno finally accomplished this observation for the first time.

[T]o image Callisto’s footprint, the main auroral oval needs to move aside while the polar region is being imaged. And to bring to bear Juno’s arsenal of instruments studying fields and particles, the spacecraft’s trajectory must carry it across the magnetic field line linking Callisto and Jupiter.

These two events serendipitously occurred during Juno’s 22nd orbit of the giant planet, in September 2019, revealing Callisto’s auroral footprint and providing a sample of the particle population, electromagnetic waves, and magnetic fields associated with the interaction.

The research paper describing this detection has just been published.

These secondary auroras are caused by Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field.

The Juno mission itself is about to end. NASA did not approve a mission extension, and next month the science team will send the spacecraft into Jupiter’s atmosphere, where it will burn up. We will then have to wait five years for Europa Clipper to arrive in Jupiter orbit, followed a year later by Europe’s Juice orbiter.

While the propaganda press is condemning this decision, there is some logic to it. Juno has mostly completed its work. While new knowledge can certainly be gained if it remained operations for three more years, the amount of knowledge will be relatively small. And NASA does face a budget crunch. Better to spend its money on other things that can produce more bang to the buck.

New Horizons, which had been in active data-collection mode since April, will now remain in hibernation. Pending a final Fiscal Year 2026 budget, the spacecraft may be awoken in late June 2026. This will be the longest hibernation period of the mission so far, surpassing the previous mark of 273 days from June 2022 to March 2023.

But the spacecraft won’t be completely at rest; New Horizons will continue to take round-the-clock measurements of the charged-particle environment in the Sun’s outer heliosphere and the dust environment of the Kuiper Belt using three different onboard scientific instruments. These data will be transmitted back to Earth when New Horizons wakes up. [emphasis mine]

Though the NASA press release puts up an optimistic front, it is very likely that this hibernation period will last significantly longer than planned, due to those budget negotiations. Trump’s budget proposes eliminating all funding for New Horizons, which will mean this hibernation period will be permanent. There will be no money to hire anyone to reactivate it.

Even if the budget is cut, it is probable that NASA management in the future will provide some cash. At the moment there is little for it to observe on a daily basis. All that needs to be done is to turn it on for short periods to download the heliosphere data. Management could simply decide to turn it on once every five years or so.

Members of Virginia’s congressional delegation were shocked by news of the potential closure of the NASA Wallops Flight Facility Visitor Center and worry it will negatively impact the Eastern Shore’s economy.

Employees at Goddard Space Flight Center and Wallops received word last week that management planned to close several facilities, including NASA Wallops Flight Facility Visitor Center — and federal workers asked for congressional support to preserve the local landmark.

Congresswoman Jen Kiggans, a Republican who represents Virginia’s 2nd District, said the proposed closure came as a shock. In a statement, she said was committed to supporting NASA Wallops staff. “This is an unacceptable and drastic step that will have a significant impact on local employees, residents, and visitors,” Kiggans said. “My staff and I are in contact with NASA to better understand the reasoning behind this reported decision as it is contradictory to the proposed House budget. Wallops has long been a vital part of our community, and we will do everything we can to support the work that’s done there and the people who work there.”

Nor is Kiggans the only politican whining. The article includes similar quotes from Democrat senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, as well as local state representative Rob Bloxom. All make the absurd claims that closing this one visitor center will destroy American civilization in Virginia.

And as usual for our propaganda press, no alternative opinions are offered. The only side that gets pushed is the pro-spending side.

What crap. NASA’s job is to foster a vibrant American space industry, by either developing or encouraging the development of actual technologies that can be used for this purpose. A visitor center has nothing to do with this job.

Moreover, such a visitor center employs a relatively small number of people. The economy of the Eastern Shore is not going to collapse by its closure. In fact, the economy won’t really notice it is gone in any significant way.

If we can’t cut the budget in this small way, we will never cut anything, and the country is doomed.

Nearly 4,000 employees, or more than 20% of NASA’s workforce, have applied to leave the agency, NASA confirmed to CBS News Friday. About 3,870 employees have applied to depart NASA over two rounds through the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program, NASA disclosed. The deadline for applications to the program is midnight Friday.

With those deferred resignations, NASA’s civil servant workforce would shrink from about 18,000 to 14,000 personnel. This figure also includes about 500 employees who were lost through normal attrition, the agency said.

It is certain that while Trump is office these workers will not be replaced. While most of the press and pro-government activists will claim this is terrible news, it is actually the best thing that can happen. Since NASA is now trying to use the capitalism model across the board, it doesn’t need that many employees. It is hiring the private sector to do most of its work. It doesn’t take that many people to review and issue a contract.

So, even if Congress rejects Trump’s proposed 24% cut to NASA’s 2026 budget and funds it entirely at the same levels as in 2025, the money will be more effectively used.

However, the two congressional committees are not in agreement on any of their spending proposals.

The totals recommended by the two committees are similar — $24.8 billion in the House, $24.9 billion in the Senate — but the specifics are different in many cases.

For example, the House wants to spend $300 million for NASA’s very messed-up Mars Sample Return project, while the Senate eliminated it entirely. The House also increases NASA’s manned exploration budget over Trump’s proposal, while the Senate cuts it. In science spending the House is less generous than the Senate, though both houses reject Trump’s cuts. In education the House agrees with Trump, zeroing out that funding, while the Senate wants to increase the ’25 budget slightly.

Before the 2026 budget is approved the two houses will have to negotiate an agreement to make their numbers match. What has usually happened in past negotiations is that the houses agree to approve the highest spending numbers in any budget item so that nothing gets cut and the budget continues to go up uncontrollably. We should not be surprised if our corrupt Congress does exactly that.

Even so, we should expect Trump to force significant changes at NASA, including budget reductions. Recent Supreme Court rulings have confirmed the president’s right to reorganize and even eliminate bureaucracies, as long as Congress doesn’t specify a particular spending item.

Timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, NASA employees and many of their supporters gathered yesterday for protests, demanding that their jobs be saved and that Congress not only cancel Trump’s proposed budget cuts to NASA, that Congress even consider increasing the budget because the work they do is so so SO vital.

The protests appeared to be organized by several groups, all claiming to be “grassroots” but all seeming to be well funded and comparable to other recent government protest groups at other agencies, issuing sanctimonious “declarations” that claim the cuts “to waste public resources, compromise human safety, weaken national security.”

Yet, the Trump cuts would only reduce NASA’s staffing of 17,000 by about 2,600 employees. How horrible!

This quote from the first link above is typical of the attitude of these government workers:

Morale at facilities like NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland has plummeted. One scientist who attended the June 30 demonstration works as a postdoc at Goddard, through a contractor, on the LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission, and told Space.com the past few years at NASA have been their “absolute dream job.”

“I love it,” said the Goddard scientist, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. “And this year has been an utter nightmare that has not stopped since January.” [emphasis mine]

All in all, this person’s words distills these complaints down to the basics: “I have a great job and it is unfair that anyone should ever consider canceling it! It should be mine for life!”

None of these protesters or declarations ever propose any alternative suggestions for gaining some control over the federal deficit. None propose ways to streamline and make more efficient the operations at NASA, which in recent years has been routinely ill-managed and wasteful. All seem to think that the work these government workers do is blessed by God, and anyone who dares suggest any changes or staffing reductions are worse than the devil, and should fry in hell!

Meanwhile, did you hear any similar whines coming from the 9,000 or so Microsoft employees the company announced in early July that it will lay off in the coming months? Nope. Those Microsoft employees — like all workers in the private sector — recognized that no job is permanent, that circumstances change, and that the company has the right and financial need to make these changes to survive. If you get fired or laid off, there is always more work. You just need to roll up your sleeves and go out and find it.

Chicken Little rules!

For government employees, however, it appears this idea is beyond horrifying. How dare Trump tell them to look for new jobs! They work for the federal government! No one is ever supposed to fire them!

Personally I am quite tired of these political tantrums. I also suspect that a majority of Americans feel the same way. For decades no cuts to any government program have been permitted, because every time someone in office has even hinted at such cuts, this kabuki theater of protests would rise up, screaming that to lay off even one government worker would cause the sky to fall!

Yet, there is room for cuts at NASA, just as there is room for cuts in every federal department. Trump’s proposed budget is not madness. Though there is definitely room for debate and some of his proposed cuts appear penny wise and pound foolish, overall the proposed budget is remarkably reasonable. A line-by-line review reveals that it tries hard to streamline operations, reduce duplicate efforts, and focus spending on NASA’s core mission, to explore space.

Trump’s cuts deserve a fair hearing. Unfortunately, the whines of government workers is apparently preventing that from happening, as our corrupt Congress is far more willing to give treats to these spoiled children than serve the American taxpayer who pays the bills.

And so civilization falls.

The House appropriations committee’s draft budget for NASA has followed the Senate appropriations committee in canceling all of Trump’s proposed NASA budget cuts, though it has shifted that funding significantly from science to manned space operations.

The House Appropriations Committee released the draft text of their version of the FY2026 Commerce-Justice-Science bill that funds NASA today. Like their Senate counterpart, the House committee would essentially keep NASA at its current funding level instead of imposing the severe 24.3 percent budget cut proposed by the Trump Administration. The CJS bill also includes almost $2 million for a White House National Space Council even though the Trump Administration has yet to establish one.

Unlike the Senate, which mostly kept the budget the same across all NASA departments, this House draft budget would reduce science and aeronautics spending from about $8.2 billion to $6.8 billion. Trump had requested only $4.5 billion for these departments.

In turn, the House would increase Trump’s request for NASA’s manned operations from $10.8 billion to $11.9 billion. Note that Trump’s proposed budget had already called for an increase here, so the House is clearly shifting funding to manned space in an enthusiastic manner.

At the same time, the House continues funding for the SLS and Orion programs Trump wishes to cancel. Both of these projects are over budget and behind schedule. Neither is very useful in the long run for exploring the solar system. If the House truly wanted to save money, it could easily fund all the cuts in science by cutting the billions spent yearly on these pork projects, and still lower NASA’s budget in total.

Based on the draft budget’s language [pdf], it is unclear whether the House has also funded the Lunar Gateway space station, as the Senate has, another useless pork project that Trump wishes to cancel.

I should note that the appropriations committee’s overall draft budget [pdf] does reduce the federal budget by about 2.8 percent. This is a marked change from past budgets, which often claimed (a lie) to cut spending but really only reduced the rate of budget growth. It appears the House is finally making some effort to shrink the size of the budget, though that effort is quite wimpy.

We’ll just print it! Though disagreements prevented the Senate’s appropriations committee from approving the 2026 bills covering the commerce, justice, and science agencies of the federal government (including NASA) , the committee yesterday appeared poised to cancel most of Trump’s proposed NASA budget cuts and even add more spending across the board.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland), the top Democrat on the CJS subcommittee, said this morning the bill would fund NASA at $24.9 billion, slightly above its current $24.8 billion level, with the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) remaining level at $7.3 billion.

By contrast, the Trump Administration wants to cut NASA overall by $6 billion, from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion. SMD’s portion would drop 47 percent, from $7.3 billion to $3.9 billion.

The disagreements centered not on NASA, but on the Trump administration’s effort to cancel a very expensive new FBI headquarters building in the Maryland suburbs and instead shift the agency to an already existing building in DC. Van Hollen opposed this, and the ensuing political maneuvering forced the committee to cancel the vote.

This bill would once again continue full funding for SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway. It also includes funding for NASA’s very messed-up Mars Sample Return mission (which comprises the large bulk of the money added back in for science). From this it appears that the Republicans in the Senate are quite willing to join the Democrats in spending money wildly, as they have for decades. They have no interest in gaining some control over the out-of-control federal budget, in any way, as Trump is attempting to do.

What remains unknown is this: Who has the support of the American people? The election suggests the public agrees with Trump. History suggests that this support for cutting the budget is actually very shallow, and that while the public says it wants that budget brought under control, it refuses to accept any specific cuts to any program. “Cut the budget, but don’t you dare cut the programs I like!”

It is my sense that the public’s view is changing, and it is now quite ready to allow big cuts across the board. The problem is that the vested interests in Congress and in the DC work force are quite powerful, and appear to still control the actions of our corrupt elected officials.

Thus, the more of that work force that Trump can eliminate as quickly as possible, on his own, the more chance he will have to eventually bring this budget under some control.

A coalition of space industry associations representing hundreds of companies is urging Congress to reject Trump Administration plans to kill the nascent Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS). Developed through NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce, TraCSS began beta testing last fall to provide data to civil and commercial satellite operators to avoid collisions. Just as the system is finally taking shape, it is targeted for elimination in the FY2026 budget request. The Senate Appropriations Committee takes up that proposal on Thursday when it marks up the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill that includes NOAA.

This new office was first conceived as a replacement for the tracking that the U.S. military has been doing since Sputnik was launched in 1957, information that it provides free to the industry. It appears Trump in his second administration has now concluded this new NOAA office is essentially redundant and therefore unnecessary.

The letters to the House [pdf] and Senate [pdf] urge Congress to reinstate the $65 million in spending for this NOAA office, but offer no suggestions on what to cut to fund this extra cost. Instead, like all such lobbying efforts, it expects Congress to simply print money to pay for the expense.

Meanwhile, it remains a valid question why this additional office is needed if the military has been doing the job quite successfully for the last three-quarters of a century. The letters argue this is a job better suited to a civil agency, but why? The military has to do it anyway for security reasons. Why waste money on a duplicate effort?

According to a tweet yesterday by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), the reconciliation budget bill that was passed by the Senate included the budget additions that Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had proposed to save SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway.

The graphic to the right lists these budget numbers. It is not clear whether the launch taxes on payloads that Cruz proposed were also included, though likely not based on the rules under which the reconciliation bill was passed.

This additional money for these projects contradicts directly the NASA 2026 budget proposal put forth by Trump that aimed to cancel Lunar Gateway and end SLS and Orion after only two more flights. Their existence in this passed Senate bill suggests that Congress is cool with the idea of spending this money and continuing these projects, even though they do nothing but waste taxpayer money and get us no where in space.

It also appears from the language in the graphic that the Senate is eager to also spend more money on NASA’s Mars sample return project, even though NASA itself still has no idea how to accomplish the task.

And these turkeys are adding this money even though they admit, due to Congress’s incompetent budget process, they really have no way to determine exactly how the money will be spent.

The House Appropriations committee took the first step in crafting a FY2026 bill to fund the Department of Defense today, albeit reluctantly. Appropriators from both parties lamented the paucity of data they have about what the money will be used for, but decided to move ahead and mark up their bill at subcommittee level this afternoon. Full committee markup is scheduled for Thursday. President Trump’s request would cut about $2.5 billion from the U.S. Space Force’s budget, but the committee would restore it and add a little more.

According to the new budget put forth by this committee, the Space Force will have a budget of $29 billion, more than even the highest budget figure proposed for NASA.

This is what we can expect now from the Republican leadership in Congress. They will cut nothing, but instead restore all the spending that Trump attempts to eliminate, even money that is expressly designed to help leftist causes. They are worse than useless.

What these idiots don’t realize that if the country goes bankrupt, it will become impossible to accomplish anything. A smart person would realize it is better to only get part of what you want now (so you can maybe get the rest later) than to try to get it all immediately and instead end up with nothing at all.

But then, these are Congressmen. The word “smart” is the last word I would use to describe them.

The bill would allocate $2.6 billion to Lunar Gateway, $4.1 billion to build two more SLS rockets, $20 million to build one more Orion capsule, $1.25 billion more for ISS to continue its operations as is, and $1 billion to upgrade or expand facilities at five NASA centers in Florida, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana.

This pork-laden bill would also fund a Mars Telecommunications Orbiter for $700 million and add $325 million to the $843 million contract NASA has with SpaceX to build the de-orbit vehicle for bringing ISS down in a controlled manner once it is retired.

What this bill tells us is that these Senators, led by “lying” Ted Cruz (to use the nickname Trump pinned on him during the 2016 presidential election campaign), are still unwilling to face the realities of the national debt, and want to spend money we don’t have in order to make believe they are grand explorers sending Americans into space. Instead, these idiots are simply funneling cash to their states in order to bribe voters to vote for them.

As Elon Musk so correctly noted, there is an election coming in 2026. Maybe it is time to throw them all out.

What this bill also tells us is that Trump is going to find it very difficult to get the budget under control. The Senate doesn’t care if the country goes bankrupt. They intend to spend our money like it grows on trees, to hell with the future. Shame on them.

Sadly, these senators know they have the backing of almost the entire press corp, which is why they are doing this. They figure they will get great press for “saving” NASA, even if it bankrupts the country. Worse, it appears the press is all for helping them do so.

R.I.P. America.

Launched in early 2024, the Pace orbiter was designed to track the evolution of the leaves of trees globally throughout the entire year. NASA has now released the data from the first twelve months, showing the seasonal changes of trees as the Earth rotates the Sun and the seasons change globally.

The map to the right is a screen capture from one of many videos showing these changes. The green indicates the global spread of tree cover in the middle of August in the northern hemisphere as well as in the equatorial regions of South America and Africa. Other movies focusing on North America, South America, Europe, India, etc, can be viewed here.

PACE measurements have allowed NASA scientists and visualizers to show a complete year of global vegetation data using three pigments: chlorophyll, anthocyanins, and carotenoids. That multicolor imagery tells a clearer story about the health of land vegetation by detecting the smallest of variations in leaf colors.

…Anthocyanins are the red pigments in leaves, while carotenoids are the yellow pigments – both of which we see when autumn changes the colors of trees. Plants use these pigments to protect themselves from fluctuations in the weather, adapting to the environment through chemical changes in their leaves. For example, leaves can turn more yellow when they have too much sunlight but not enough of the other necessities, like water and nutrients. If they didn’t adjust their color, it would damage the mechanisms they have to perform photosynthesis.

In the visualization, the data is highlighted in bright colors: magenta represents anthocyanins, green represents chlorophyll, and cyan represents carotenoids. The brighter the colors are, the more leaves there are in that area. The movement of these colors across the land areas show the seasonal changes over time.

You can read the full paper describing the first year’s data here.

The Trump budget presently funds Pace for two more years of observations, at about $26 million per year. This is an obvious example of a satellite whose life should be extended for as long as possible. This long term data would likely confirm other data that indicates the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is greening the Earth, helping plant life that provides us oxygen to breath and food to eat.

To do so, however, other cuts in NASA will have to be found to pay for that extension. I once again wonder about the half a billion NASA spends for its “Mission Enabling Services”, which covers NASA’s human resources division, public relations department, and its equal opportunity division, as well as other more useful departments. Surely some money from these bureaucratic divisions could be found to finance this actual useful research.

For my entire life it has always been the same: Whenever any politician or elected official proposes any cuts to the federal budget, and most especially when those cuts are aimed at a popular government agency like NASA, the news reports in the mainstream press are uniformly hostile.

Trump’s proposal to cut NASA’s budget by 24% in 2026 has been no different. Here are just a few headlines:

• Ars Technica: Some parts of Trump’s proposed budget for NASA are literally draconian
• Sky & Telescope: Proposed NASA Budget Would Gut Space Science, Jobs
• New York Times: Scientific Discoveries, and Dreams, in the Balance
• Mother Jones: Donald Trump’s Proposed Budget Would Gut American Science
• Science: Dozens of active and planned NASA spacecraft killed in Trump budget request
• Space News: NASA budget would cancel dozens of science missions, lay off thousands

This list is only a sampling, but they are typical of almost all the reporting now and that always happens when big cuts are proposed in any government program. The spin is always the same: “These cuts are horrible, their acceptance would be the act of a barbarian, and by doing so will certainly cause the fall of civilization!”

Above all, the focus is always on the cuts themselves, and never on the larger picture.

I am not going to do that. I have reviewed in detail the proposed cuts to NASA, and am now going to take a detailed look, but will do so by considering the larger context of the overall federal budget and the need to get its spending under control.

And out of control that budget is, as indicated by the screen capture above of today’s US Debt Clock. The United States is bankrupt. If we don’t gain some control over federal spending in a very near future some very bad things are going to happen, and soon. And those bad things will likely shut down luxury items like NASA entirely, not just impose some cuts to its overall budget.

All Trump is doing is attempting a first stab at this problem. The real question is whether he has made a rational and reasonable attempt, or whether it should be revised in some manner.

This is the perspective I bring to this issue. I just wish others would do the same.

Click for larger more readable version

First, let’s look at what has Trump proposed. His basic proposal [pdf] is to cut NASA’s budget in 2026 by 24%, reducing it from just under $25 billion in 2025 to just under $19 billion in 2026.

Is this reasonable? I have to say, based simply on the state of the debt and deficit, it seems completely reasonable. Furthermore, based on NASA’s own generally poor use of its funding in recent years, with almost all of its projects going over budget and behind schedule almost routinely — sometimes by billions of dollars — these cuts seem reasonable as well. Moreover, this budget reduction merely brings NASA’s budget back to what it was in 2017. NASA was able to do quite a lot then with that amount of money. There is no reason it can’t function with that amount now.

The question then becomes: Has the Trump administration distributed the cuts within NASA in a rational and sensible way?

My overall sense of these cuts, based on my review of the full budget proposal [pdf], can be summed up in one word, “Yes.”

If you go through this budget line by line, several overall managerial strategies become obvious. First, the White House looked at each NASA line item and decided to fund it only if it supported the agency’s fundamental goal of space exploration and manned spaceflight. Projects that did not contribute to this focus were canceled. Others that did support these goals actually got more funding.

Second, the agency reviewed everything with an eye to increasing operational efficiency. Numerous duplicate programs are either eliminated or consolidated. While many news reports focus solely on the canceled programs, a closer look shows that many aren’t actually being cancelled, but are being consolidated into similar programs found elsewhere within NASA.

This review also took a hard look at many big projects, such as SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway, and recognized that these projects are doing little to achieve NASA’s primary goal of space exploration. SLS and Orion cost too much and cannot possibly launch often enough to make any manned program possible. Lunar Gateway meanwhile has no real purpose and doesn’t serve these goals well. All are to be eliminated.

Similarly, the Mars Sample Return Mission was cancelled because it was overbudget, behind schedule, and incoherently managed. There was no possibility it could do what it said, based on NASA’s plans. Better to dump it entirely so as to spend the money more effectively elsewhere.

The budget proposal was also brutal towards NASA’s educational programs, cancelling them entirely. The reasoning was simple.

NASA’s primary role is space exploration and, similar to prior generations that were inspired by the Apollo lunar landings, NASA will inspire the next generation of explorers through exciting, ambitious space missions. No funding is requested for Space Grant, EPSCoR, MUREP, and Next Gen STEM.

In other words, rather than spend money on education directly, NASA will fund actual space exploration, which in turn will do more to inspire kids than these bureaucratic efforts. This is what happened in the 1960s. There is no reason it can’t happen now.

Third, the renewed focus on space exploration and manned spaceflight meant that some programs needed more funds. The big news has been the decision to spend an additional $1 billion on manned spaceflight, with a shift of focus that now includes both the Moon and Mars. Less noticed however were the budget increases for planetary defense (dealing with the threat of an asteroid impact) and space weather. The latter is not only aimed at better protecting Earth technology from a sudden powerful flares from the Sun, but it will also better protect astronauts from radiation when they travel in interplanetary space.

Thus, my careful review of the entire budget proposal reveals it to be rational and thoughtful attempt to gain control of the NASA budget, to refocus the agency’s efforts where it belongs, and to make the agency more efficient in doing so.

Having said that, there are of course places where we can argue specifics. For example, the budget ends funding for several functioning and very useful in-space facilities, such as the Chandra X-Ray Observatory ($69.6 million per year) and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory ($6 million per year). It also cuts funding to Osiris-Apex ($14.5 million per year), presently on its way to rendezvous with the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis. These particular cuts, especially for the latter two, seem penny-wise-pound-foolish, as to keep them operating is relatively cheap. It should be possible to find money for them elsewhere.

I am sure others can find other projects they think should not be cut. If so however we cannot demand that NASA increase its budget to fund our pet projects. Other cuts must be found to pay for them. For example, I think NASA could save many millions by consolidating many of its very centers located scattered across the country. Some could be eliminated entirely. The cost savings just in overhead could fund these important missions already in space.

And if eliminating centers isn’t possible (at least for now), there are many other overhead costs at NASA that should be reviewed again. For example, NASA has a line item of half a billion dollars for what it calls “Mission Enabling Services,” but in reading the description of what it does, it seems to me that there is a lot of bureaucratic waste here that can be cut or eliminated:

Mission Enabling Services (MES) ensure NASA mission success with foundational support services using enterprise service delivery, while promoting engagement to enhance problem solving and agile responses to evolving requirements. Using an enterprise approach, the MES program eliminates duplicative capabilities, provides opportunities for employees to collaborate across geographic boundaries, and remains agile to shifting demands and surge requirements, while ensuring the health, safety, and security of NASA people, property, and the public. Missions rely on MES’ institutional capabilities to accomplish their objectives. Enterprise management ensures that critical agency operations are strategic, mission-focused, agile, and streamlined.

A lot of words that say practically nothing. When I read this kind of bureaucratic jargon, my immediate instincts say it is providing nothing of value, and should be eliminated entirely.

Janet Petro, acting NASA administrator

The bottom line is that this Trump budget is not evil or barbaric. It does what few in government, in academia, and in Washingtion have wanted to do in years. It faces the reality of the deficit and attempts to deal with it. It seems to me it deserves a hearing on that basis, rather than the typical “We’re all gonna die and civilization will end if these cuts are passed!” tactics seen for decades.

One last note: This budget proposal seems to have been shepherded largely by the acting administrator of NASA, Janet Petro. It appears she was told by the White House to cut the budget by 1/4, and she then went through NASA’s spending with a fine tooth comb, finding as best as she could what was needed and what could be cut. This effort on her part recommends her highly for the job. Her background, having previously been head of the Kennedy Space Center, recommends her as well. She knows the inner workings of NASA.

It could very well be that Trump was so impressed by her effort putting this budget together that this was a factor in his decision to withdraw Jared Isaacman’s nomination. Trump might have decided he was better off with this NASA insider running things, especially because she apparently is 100% behind his own goals.

Minor addendum: I realized while working out at the gym after completing this essay that those who haven’t read my earlier work might wonder why I seem so unconcerned about these cuts at NASA, despite being a big advocate of space exploration. For some clarification, see this essay earlier in the week: Trump’s NASA budget cuts and rejection of Jared Isaacman for NASA administrator signal a very bright future for American space. The conclusion is the most important part.

All of that seems true, but it really is not. Both of these actions by Trump are simply what may be the last acts in the major change that has been engulfing the American space industry now for the past decade.

Jared Isaacman

Jared Isaacman during his spacewalk in September 2024

First, let’s consider Isaacman. Before Trump had nominated him for NASA administrator, he had been a free American doing exactly what he wanted to do. As a very wealthy and successful businessman, he had decided to use that wealth to not only fly in space — fulfilling a personal dream — but to also use those flights to raise money for St. Jude’s Children’s hospital, whose work he considered priceless and wanted supported. He ended up flying two space missions, becoming the first private citizen to do a spacewalk, while also raising more than $200 million for St. Jude’s.

Isaacman’s second flight was also the first in what he hoped would be his own long term manned space program, which he dubbed Polaris. The first mission did this spacewalk from a SpaceX capsule. The second would hopefully do a repair mission to Hubble, or if rejected by NASA some other work in orbit. And the third would fly in SpaceX’s Starship around the Moon.

As this program was funded entirely by Isaacman and used no government funds, it was generally free from criticism. If anything, Americans hailed it as ambitious and courageous. He was following his own American dream, and doing it on his own dime.

This history however made him appear on the surface to be a perfect choice for NASA administrator under Trump, especially in a time where America’s space effort is shifting more and more to the private sector.

Everything changed however once Trump nominated him. He had to suspend his private Polaris program. He had to kow-tow to politicians, telling them what they wanted to hear. And he was no longer his own boss.

As a government nominee Isaacman was now subject to extensive criticism and pressure from across the political spectrum. Furthermore, his personal political leanings now became an issue. It appeared he tended to lean left. He had donated to Democrats. His companies had enthusiastically embraced DEI racial quotas. And it appeared more and more during the confirmation process this spring that he opposed the deep cuts at NASA that Trump was proposing.

Politics is a poison. As power is its main coinage, it forces those who participate in it to play games for power. Quid pro quo becomes the rule. Truth must take a back seat. What you actually believe must always be sacrificed to the faction you have agreed to join.

Apparently, Isaacman and Trump found themselves at loggerheads. Though Isaacman appeared to play the game during Senate hearings, his apparent political differences with Trump made him for Trump increasingly a poor choice. The result was the decision this past weekend to withdraw Isaacman’s name for NASA administrator.

Most of the space community and the press immediately saw this as a disaster. My take is completely the opposite. First, during the nomination process Isaacman more and more seemed the wrong man for this job. As administrator it appeared he would end up fighting Trump over cuts when he should instead be finding the right way to make those cuts happen. This situation would not be good for either man or the agency.

Second, Isaacman is now once again a free man. He no longer has to cater to the political opinions of others. Nor does he have to pander to senators and Trump about what he believes. Instead, he can resume his own private space program, going where no man has gone before while also continuing his charitable work for St. Jude’s.

To my mind, I suspect Isaacman breathed a deep sigh of relief when Trump pulled his nomination.

Why cutting NASA’s budget makes sense

Next we have Trump’s proposed significant NASA budget cuts, as outlined in the graphic below. All told Trump wishes to cut $6 billion from that budget, about 24%.

As I noted when these cuts were first announced in early May, the changes to the manned part of NASA’s budget make great sense. Trump is getting rid of NASA projects that cost too much and accomplish little (SLS, Orion, Gateway) and shifting money to more effective commercial manned products. And despite the overall reduction in budget, in this area Trump is increasing spending.

The cuts to NASA’s science programs at first seem very painful, but a more objective look will see that this is not so. Many of these programs, especially in the climate field, have increasingly been less valuable or cost effective, producing results that are often questionably, often trivial, and many times poisoned by politics. Similar, the money spent in aeronautics and education has for decades been mostly nothing more than pork and of little use.

The time has come for a reckoning. The federal budget is out of control, and to get that annual deficit reduced and eliminated every single federal agency must play a part. All the Trump budget tries to do is parse out NASA’s contribution in the best way possible. By focusing on funding manned space linked to private enterprise, the hope is that these endeavors would help fuel funding in many other areas, including science research.

The bottom line

Both Isaacman’s withdrawal and Trump’s cuts to NASA’s budget however signal a much more fundamental shift that we all should celebrate. NASA — and the government — is simply becoming irrelevant to the future of space exploration.

You see, Isaacman’s private space program is not the only one coming out of the American private sector. SpaceX under Elon Musk intends to colonize Mars, and it is going to do using no government funds. Instead, the earnings the company is making from Starlink will pay for the entire program.

Similarly, Rocket Lab is funding its own mission to Venus, partly because its founder Peter Beck likes the idea and partly to highlight the company’s capabilities and products in the most spectacular way possible.

Four private space stations are presently being designed and built. One of those proposed stations is being built by Axiom, which has in the meantime been also flying commercial manned missions to ISS, with paying passengers. Its next mission, AX-4 and set to launch later this week, will take passengers from three different nations, India, Hungary, and Poland. The company has already signed additional contracts with Egypt and the Czech Republic.

Axiom is essentially proving that there is money to be made by American space companies, providing service to the international community.

Another space station company, Vast, is building on its own dime a small space station called Haven-1.

All four proposed space stations are vying for a big NASA contract to build their full stations. And in this area, Trump is not only not cutting the budget but increasing it over the next five years, with the long term goal of making the space stations that are built profitable and thus independent of government funding.

Freedom always enlightens everything!

The point is that there is no longer any reason to give NASA a big budget in order for America to explore space. By focusing NASA’s spending more wisely to encourage private enterprise, while also eliminating spending that is government focused, the agency will do more to promote the American space effort than it has ever done. Moreover, if private enterprise (made up of American citizens) is doing all the work, why give NASA a big budget? There is no reason.

Thus to me, Isaacman’s forced shift from government service to private enterprise this week signals in the coming decade the rise of a strong, competitive, and profitable American space industry doing all kinds of things in space. And it will be doing it under the basic American concepts of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. NASA and the government will become increasingly unimportant, and Trump’s budget cuts this year merely illustrate this change.

One last thought. While the mainstream press continues to push the old and very tired line that these spending cuts at NASA will “destroy” American science, the American people clearly think differently. There is no strong uprising to save NASA here. The public clearly wants space exploration (just witness its enthusiastic interest in the achievements of private space in the past decade), but it has never been enthused about using tax dollars to do it.

The United States is simply going back to its roots. Instead of pushing a government-run Soviet-style top-down “space program” — as we have sadly done since the 1960s — we are now transitioning back to a chaotic free industry eager to explore the solar system for both fun and profit and in its own way.

It is time to celebrate. Let freedom ring!

In the budget request, NSF [National Science Foundation]… says it will back only one of the two $3 billion optical telescopes that the astrophysics community wants to build. That honor goes to the Giant Magellan Telescope already under construction in Chile. Its competitor, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), “will not advance to the Final Design Phase and will not receive additional commitment of funds from NSF,” according to the budget request.

The NSF has never had enough money to finance both telescopes. The fact that TMT has been blocked for more than a decade by DEI protesters in Hawaii, with the aid of the state government (controlled entirely by Democrats), makes funding it pointless, and a waste of the taxpayers’ money. It long past time to pull the plug.

As I say, there is a lot more details to report in this budget proposal, including its effort to slash a lot of science government spending, but that will have to wait for later essays. I can promise you one thing, however: I will not do what the rest of the press does, and write a knee-jerk propaganda piece in support of that spending. The science mafia at NASA and the NSF and other agencies has funded a lot of junk in the last few decades. It is time for a reckoning.