Where NASA made cuts in its budget request

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With regard to NASA, the budgets make for some dismal reading. A year ago, the space agency was seeking budgets of $27.2 billion and $27.7 billion for 2024 and 2025, respectively. Now, more than $2 billion worth of those ambitions has been shaved off from each year – the agency’s final 2024 budget passed by Congress was $24.9 billion, and the 2025 request is now $25.4 billion.

So what’s losing out in the leaner budgets? 

A quick look at what’s different between NASA’s budget plan for 2025 as of a year ago versus now reveals that the requests for three of its largest Mission Directorates – how its annual budgets are split up at the top end – were cut by between $200 million to $400 million, while its Deep Space Exploration Systems (effectively the Artemis program) is $513 million less. And then there’s the Science directorate, with nearly $900 million sliced off NASA’s prior 2025 ambitions.

The policy folks over at The Planetary Society specifically called out the ripple effect of the decreased 2025 request on NASA’s science efforts, pointing out the agency is “canceling, delaying, and pitting various missions against others for funding.”

“If these budgetary trends continue, no top-priority flagship missions will be possible within a balanced portfolio in any of NASA’s science divisions,” the independent space advocacy organization wrote.

Moreover, NASA’s budget remains a tiny fraction (less than 0.4%!) of what the U.S. government spends each year, despite its historical economic return-on-investment and continued popularity among taxpayers. Put simply, the request hampers an already comparatively miniscule agency’s budget at a time when global space ambitions are in a new era of expansion and exploration.

On the military side of things, the Space Force’s budget isn’t in as rough of shape. But the branch isn’t exactly enthused, with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall giving the 2025 request an “acceptable” grade.

Space Force’s budget has already surpassed NASA’s, and the Pentagon is seeking $29.4 billion for the branch in 2025. That’s still a cut from the $30 billion the Space Force asked for in 2024. But two of the Space Force’s most significant programs for the space industry, NSSL (National Security Space Launch) and PWSA (Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture), are still planning to buy from companies heavily in 2025, with $1.8 billion allocated for NSSL and $1.7 billion for PWSA development.

Overall, the federal budget’s allocations for space feel bizarrely at odds with the domain’s importance to the country, and muted in the context of geopolitical ambitions. Whether civil or military, space is increasingly a priority of governments around the world – but the latest funding plans of the most influential spacefaring nation doesn’t reflect that.

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