The Senate’s NASA budget bill appears to push back on plans by Donald Trump and Elon Musk to shift priorities for the space agency while scaling back funding for climate alarmism and other “science” research.
The NASA Transition Authorization Act legislation, an early copy of which was obtained by Politico last week, makes little in the way of cuts, with a budget proposal of $25.4 million along the lines of previous years.
A Senate aide told Politico that the bill, which largely preserves the status quo at NASA, is deliberate.
Via Politico:
That focus is intentional, said a Senate aide familiar with the plan, who was granted anonymity to discuss the bill prior to its release. Extreme changes to NASA risk demoralizing the workforce, waste money, and stymie progress on missions that can take decades to pull off, the person said.
With the support of Musk, whose SpaceX recently rescued the pair of NASA astronauts stranded in space by Boeing and Joe Biden, the Trump administration has outlined ambitious plans for space exploration – none of which seem to be addressed in the Senate’s bill.
In his remarks to Congress, President Trump promised to land a human astronaut on Mars, a goal long shared by Musk. The DOGE chief also wants to scrap NASA’s Artemis program, the planned mission to the Moon plagued by delays, and deorbit the International Space Station prior to NASA’s proposed date of 2030.
According to Politico, the Trump administration is also eyeing NASA’s $7.4 billion science mission budget for cuts, a trough of taxpayer money that has been used to fund “climate change” studies. NASA’s senior climate advisor has already been laid off along with the agency’s DEI staff in Trump administration cuts.
Changes to NASA to bring it in line with the vision of Donald Trump and Elon Musk do not seem to have made it into the Senate’s bill, which is being overseen by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA).
In announcing the bill, Sen. Cruz said, “As Chairman of the Commerce Committee, I am committed to refocusing NASA’s efforts on its core priorities — championing space exploration and ensuring American leadership in the final frontier. The space industry is vital to the Lone Star State’s economy and has cultivated extraordinary job growth for Texas and the entire nation. NASA has long been at the forefront of our national security and economic interests, and I am proud to work with my colleagues on this bipartisan bill that allows commercial space ventures to flourish, builds up a U.S.-led low-Earth orbit economy, and takes the first step towards returning America to the Moon and ensuring we will be first on Mars.”
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
