Overview

• The White House request would slash NASA’s budget from $24.9 billion to $18.8 billion and reduce its Science Mission Directorate by nearly 50 percent, jeopardizing dozens of space missions.
• The NSF faces a proposed 57 percent reduction that would shrink grant success rates from about 25 percent to 7 percent, eliminate physical-science postdoctoral fellowships and close key observatories.
• Both agencies are operating under acting leadership after Jared Isaacman’s withdrawn NASA nomination and the NSF director’s April resignation, diminishing their ability to lobby Congress.
• Lawmakers from both parties, including Rep. Zoe Lofgren and Sen. Susan Collins, have labeled the plan a nonstarter and pledged to push back during appropriations negotiations.
• Experts warn the cuts risk a multigenerational brain drain, erosion of U.S. research infrastructure and a potential loss of global science leadership to China.