{"id":21406,"date":"2025-04-28T22:16:28","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T14:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/republicans-call-for-more-nasa-science-funding\/"},"modified":"2025-04-28T22:16:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T14:16:28","slug":"republicans-call-for-more-nasa-science-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/republicans-call-for-more-nasa-science-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans call for more NASA science funding"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"img-border featured-image\">\n<p>\t<img width=\"100%\" src=\"https:\/\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2025\/04\/54187531586_395a3ffb84_o-2.jpg?quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1600\" class=\"skip-lazy wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2025\/04\/54187531586_395a3ffb84_o-2.jpg?w=320&amp;quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2025\/04\/54187531586_395a3ffb84_o-2.jpg?w=640&amp;quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2025\/04\/54187531586_395a3ffb84_o-2.jpg?w=1024&amp;quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2025\/04\/54187531586_395a3ffb84_o-2.jpg?w=1500&amp;quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;ssl=1 1500w\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" data-attachment-id=\"43198\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/spaceexplored.com\/2025\/04\/28\/republicans-call-for-more-nasa-science-funding\/54187531586_395a3ffb84_o-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2025\/04\/54187531586_395a3ffb84_o-2.jpg?quality=82&amp;strip=all\" data-orig-size=\"2000,1000\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-title=\"nasa mars tv\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\n\n<p>Image: NASA<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; data-large-file=&#8221;https:\/\/spaceexplored.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2025\/04\/54187531586_395a3ffb84_o-2.jpg?quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1024&#8243;><figcaption>\n\t\t\t\tImage: NASA\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It what normally doesn\u2019t happen often, former Republican politicians have called out President Trump\u2019s over-the-top NASA budget cuts as \u201creckless\u201d and would cede space dominance to China. This is only the latest in a small but growing list of former and current party members that are going against their sitting president on this matter.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-43196\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In an op-ed titled \u201cNASA Needs Rational Reforms, Not Reckless Cuts,\u201d former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former Representative Robert Walker, and former NASA senior adviser during the previous Trump administration, Charles Miller, discuss that NASA\u2019s science budget is the wrong course of action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Earlier in the month, co-chair of the Planetary Science Caucus, Rep. Don Bacon, publicly came out against the reporting of NASA Science\u2019s large budget cuts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCertainly, the space agency needs to modernize and reform practices and personnel management \u2013 but not at the expense of world class science programs,\u201d the three start out. The Republicans stated that throughout NASA\u2019s existence, it has been the leader in space exploration and science, and that still reigns true. However, these cuts could put that in jeopardy.<\/p>\n<p>\t<span class=\"outbrain-ad-label\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t<script type=\"text\/plain\">\n\t\t\twindow.adSlotsConfig = window.adSlotsConfig || [];<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tadSlotsConfig.push( {\n\t\t\t\tslotID: '\/1049447\/Outbrain',\n\t\t\t\tslotName: 'div-gpt-ad-outbrain-ad-43196',\n\t\t\t\tsizes: [300, 250],\n\t\t\t\tslotPosition: 'mid_article'\n\t\t\t} );\n\t\t<\/script><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIn 2018, President Donald J. Trump declared that \u2018we must dominate space\u2019 and \u2018we must beat China in space.\u2019 We are quite sure he did not mean \u2018let China become the world leader in science\u2019 or cut NASA\u2019s science budget in half.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">China\u2019s science and exploration programs have been ramping up in recent years. In LEO, their space station will outlive the ISS and the nation has continued human operations in recent years, having its astronauts spend six-month stays before a rotation mission is launched. On the Moon, China has already achieved a first by returning samples from the far side and expects to land humans by the end of the decade. And unlike NASA\u2019s milestones, China tends to complete them on time or even early.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe recommend bringing new science leadership into NASA,\u201d the op-ed writes. \u201cAmerica needs NASA programs and policies that reflect new realities posed by world competitors \u2013 China in particular.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jared Isaacman, whom the three writers support, vows to bring a new level of urgency and efficiency to NASA if he\u2019s confirmed. He has been publicly negative about how some decisions are made at the agency and has long been against the use of SLS for NASA\u2019s deep space exploration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNASA\u2019s science programs do amazing things, but they have huge cost management problems. Projects that once cost $250 million now consistently exceed $1 billion,\u201d the op-ed continues. \u201cNASA\u2019s approaches to science program management and acquisition must be dramatically transformed. The space agency needs to cut committees, speed up reviews, address risk aversion, and reform procurement. Isaacman will do this as NASA Administrator.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">President Trump\u2019s budget would instead just cut the Science budget of NASA nearly in half and would shut down many amazing programs that could be revolutionary in planetary science and exploration. However, NASA isn\u2019t without fault. Mars Sample Return\u2019s costs have ballooned to nearly $11 billion and would have an extremely small chance of even launching this decade.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even when presented with commercial partners offering cheaper and faster alternatives, like Rocket Lab\u2019s proposal, the agency drags its feet in making a decision. NASA even decided to let the Hubble telescope solely decay than risk a servicing mission, pitched and paid for by Isaacman himself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe are strong advocates for human spaceflight, but world class science at NASA is also critically important to humanity\u2019s future in space. Both sides of NASA should be transformed, not mindlessly cut,\u201d the op-ed concludes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21406"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}