Quote from: RedditsevgonlernassauThe new budget request completely cancel SLS/Orion/Gateway and transfer exploration to a commercial to Mars program. Pretty clear what they want to dohttps://www.reddit.com/r/fednews/comments/1ippdo2/comment/mctwl18/Quote from: RedditsevgonlernassauNo action will be taken until the new admin gets swore in. Fwiw, the new budget request cancel the entirety of Artemis and focus on “commercial” to Mars, so there’s no moon.https://www.reddit.com/r/nasa/comments/1ipim2s/comment/mcs63l3/Quote from: Redditsevgonlernassau[His source for the information:] People in DC. [$]1B cut to SMD [Science Mission Directorate], eliminating ESD [Earth Science Division]. New commercial program is a giveaway to musk.https://www.reddit.com/r/nasa/comments/1ipim2s/comment/mcscpea/I am not sure if this is true but it would align with some of Eric Berger's reporting.
sevgonlernassauThe new budget request completely cancel SLS/Orion/Gateway and transfer exploration to a commercial to Mars program. Pretty clear what they want to do
sevgonlernassauNo action will be taken until the new admin gets swore in. Fwiw, the new budget request cancel the entirety of Artemis and focus on “commercial” to Mars, so there’s no moon.
sevgonlernassau[His source for the information:] People in DC. [$]1B cut to SMD [Science Mission Directorate], eliminating ESD [Earth Science Division]. New commercial program is a giveaway to musk.
- President-elect Trump may release a summary of his FY26 Budget in February. With competing House and Senate plans, a detailed economic agenda is unlikely to emerge before March.- Release of the full FY26 Trump Budget will be delayed to late April or early May (the norm for incoming administrations).
Well, the next budget is gonna be a catastrophe.https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/white-house-may-seek-to-slash-nasas-science-budget-by-50-percent/
The President is expected to deliver his FY26 Budget to Congress in mid-May, delaying the start of the annual appropriations process. The lack of detail in the FY25 CR and the potential for funds being moved, cancelled or impounded will make review and evaluation of the President’s FY26 budget recommendations more difficult. Combine that with, the absence of an agreement on a topline for FY26 spending, and it is likely that FY26 appropriations process will be controversial and late.
If this is accurate, Isaacman is being handed a really crappy hand to play with by the White House.https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/1910685981918847052https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/trump-white-house-budget-proposal-eviscerates-science-funding-at-nasa/~Jon
One concern, however, is that should the budgeting process be delayed—as is often the case with the federal budget—the White House could force agencies to make operational plans based on the president's budget request once the new fiscal year begins on October 1. Again this will depend on negotiations with Congress, but, using a process called impoundment, some Trump officials believe it may be possible to turn the budget request into an actual budget for all intents and purposes.
Quote from: vjkane on 04/11/2025 06:01 pmQuote from: VSECOTSPE on 04/11/2025 05:43 pmhttps://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/trump-white-house-budget-proposal-eviscerates-science-funding-at-nasa/Washington Post also has an article. Same big picture, some different details:https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/04/11/nasa-science-budget-cuts-trump/From the Washington Post article:Quote from: the articleThe budget plan, sent to NASA by the Office of Management and Budget, would give NASA’s Science Mission Directorate $3.9 billion, down from its current budget of about $7.3 billion, according to the individuals who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the details.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens issued a brief statement: “NASA has received the fiscal year 2026 budget passback from the Office of Management and Budget, and has begun the deliberative process.” [...]NASA’s astrophysics budget would take a huge hit, dropping from about $1.5 billion to $487 million. Planetary science would see a drop from $2.7 billion to $1.9 billion. Earth Science would drop from about $2.2 billion to $1.033 billion.
Quote from: VSECOTSPE on 04/11/2025 05:43 pmhttps://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/trump-white-house-budget-proposal-eviscerates-science-funding-at-nasa/Washington Post also has an article. Same big picture, some different details:https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/04/11/nasa-science-budget-cuts-trump/
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/trump-white-house-budget-proposal-eviscerates-science-funding-at-nasa/
The budget plan, sent to NASA by the Office of Management and Budget, would give NASA’s Science Mission Directorate $3.9 billion, down from its current budget of about $7.3 billion, according to the individuals who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the details.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens issued a brief statement: “NASA has received the fiscal year 2026 budget passback from the Office of Management and Budget, and has begun the deliberative process.” [...]NASA’s astrophysics budget would take a huge hit, dropping from about $1.5 billion to $487 million. Planetary science would see a drop from $2.7 billion to $1.9 billion. Earth Science would drop from about $2.2 billion to $1.033 billion.
According to sources familiar with the details of the passback, the budget would reduce NASA’s topline, or overall, budget to about $20 billion. NASA received about $25 billion for fiscal year 2025 in a continuing resolution (CR) that kept it and other agencies at 2024 spending levels.
My guess, this is who is making the cuts with a team around him.Background and personal CV are important.
You don't have to guess. It's him.
Russell Vought wouldn’t commit to having the federal government spend all the money Congress approves.[…]Vought repeatedly declined to elaborate on how he would approach the issue if confirmed to head the budget office.
Just to clarify a few things about how administrations run with respect to NASA and other agencies...The formulation of a new federal budget starts in the late spring/early summer when OMB sends out budget guidelines for the fiscal year in question. The NASA Administrator then submits a budget request to OMB in the fall. OMB reviews the budget request, works through several options with other Executive Office of the President functionaries in an process that I won’t bore you with, and then passes a revised budget back to NASA a short time from now (around Thanksgiving). The NASA Administrator can stand pat on the passback or appeal OMB’s decision. Those appeals can go all the way to the Vice-President or President. Once appeals are done, OMB locks the budget down and sends what is now the President’s Budget Request to print. Normally, the President’s Budget is released and transmitted to Congress in early February.So, while certainly powerful because it controls the pursestrings, OMB is not all-powerful. The NASA Administrator has a large hand in setting the table for budget deliberations with their budget submission. And if they’re not getting a budget back from OMB that they can live with, the NASA Administrator has opportunities to appeal to OMB and beyond in the White House, all the way up to the VPOTUS/POTUS. The best OMB staff work hand-in-glove with the agency to get good incoming budget submissions and to passback good outgoing budgets they know support Administration priorities and that are workable for the agency. While critical and skeptical, OMB staff are experts in the fields of the agencies that they work on, support those agency missions, are trying to improve the agency, and unlike political appointees, usually serve over multiple Administrations. I certainly saw it happen, but very, very rarely are draconian tactics like lowering budget totals with each appeal or threats to demand resignations from agency heads necessary to bring an agency or its leadership into line.
The Washington Post, however, reported on Friday, April 11th that when OMB completed “pass back” of the forthcoming NASA budget request for fiscal year 2026, it came to light that the administration intends to cancel Gateway.
Quote from: Senate Hearing Written QuestionThe Washington Post, however, reported on Friday, April 11th that when OMB completed “pass back” of the forthcoming NASA budget request for fiscal year 2026, it came to light that the administration intends to cancel Gateway.https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/5C22B600-2AAB-4ACF-AE89-FA78A04E602D
[...] an interesting find You have there! However, something's strange, I believe ...I checked the WaPo article dated April 11 to which Senator Cruz seems to refer in his question #10 — at least the online version of it. It makes no mention of a Gateway cancellation. In terms of specific cancellations, it only mentions Nancy Grace Roman — in line with the general topic of the article, i.e., the NASA science budget.And also, the senator's statement about NASA taking possession of the "main module of Gateway" (I assume that he means HALO) is not quite accurate, I'd say. TASinI shipped the pressure vessel to the industrial prime, Northrop Grumman. It is far from finished, so how could NASA take possession at this point?I am puzzled ...
Skinny FY 2026 Budget Drop This Week?QuoteAt today’s meeting of MEPAG a NASA speaker said that that an outline or top-level aka “skinny” budget for FY 2026 might be released in the next few days. The full-blown, formal FY 2026 budget proposal will probably not come out until the end of May.
At today’s meeting of MEPAG a NASA speaker said that that an outline or top-level aka “skinny” budget for FY 2026 might be released in the next few days. The full-blown, formal FY 2026 budget proposal will probably not come out until the end of May.
