The Wrong Cut at the Wrong Time: Why America Must Not Retreat from Space

Right now, four human beings are doing something no one has done in more than half a century – flying around the Moon. The Artemis II crew – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen – is the living embodiment of what American ambition, engineering, and investment can achieve. The timing should feel triumphant.

Instead, it feels like irony.

Just days after those four astronauts climbed aboard their Orion capsule and rode an SLS rocket into history, the White House released its fiscal year 2027 budget proposal for NASA: $18.8 billion. That is a 23% cut — more than $5.6 billion — from the agency’s 2026 receipts.

It is a number that does not match the moment. Not even close.

The proposed budget would cut $3.4 billion from NASA’s science unit by terminating more than 40 missions labeled “low-priority.” Among those on the chopping block: the Mars Sample Return mission and the SERVIR program.

Space technology funding would be slashed by nearly a third. STEM education programs – the pipeline that grows tomorrow’s engineers and scientists – would be zeroed out entirely.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has defended the proposal, saying the agency doesn’t have a “topline problem” and just needs to focus on executing efficiently.

With respect, that framing misses something fundamental: you cannot execute a vision of American leadership in space by systematically dismantling the scientific and technological infrastructure that enables it.

The China Problem No One Wants to Confront

Let’s talk about what’s actually happening in the rest of the world, because it should focus every mind in Washington.

The country that gets to the Moon first – this time – could gain a decisive advantage in choosing where to build future lunar infrastructure, setting technical standards, and shaping the next phase of space exploration.

CBC News China understands this completely. Beijing has a clear goal to land its first taikonauts on the Moon before 2030 and establish an International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) in the decade that follows, with partners including Russia, Belarus, Pakistan, and South Africa already committed.

China’s Chang’e-7 mission will target the Moon’s south pole in 2026, and Chang’e-8 – scheduled for 2028 – will test resource utilization, specifically ice harvesting, that would eventually supply a crewed lunar base.

Think about that: while we are debating whether to fund our science programs at all, China is methodically executing a multi-decade roadmap that ends with a permanent, inhabited presence on the Moon.

Experts have warned that this is a fundamentally different kind of space race than the one with the Soviet Union. China is expanding across all sectors simultaneously – civil, commercial, and military – and the contest isn’t just about a single destination.

It’s about dominance in launch, operations, infrastructure, remote sensing, satellite communications, in-space mobility, and resource utilization.

Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations for the U.S. Space Force, has made the stakes plain: space assets are no longer just supporting elements of U.S. military operations – they are integral to them.

“I used to say that space was kind of the icing on the cake,” he said. “Now, the analogy I use is we’re more like the eggs in the batter. You cannot extract it out.”

Against this backdrop, cutting NASA by 23% is not efficient. It is unilateral disarmament.

The Science We’re Leaving on the Table

Space exploration is not a luxury. It is the mechanism by which humanity answers its most fundamental questions – and builds the technologies that transform life on Earth.

The programs quietly erased from NASA’s 2027 budget documents – the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the Astrophysics Probe mission, and OSIRIS-APEX – are not mere line items. They represent years of scientific work, international partnerships, and irreplaceable human expertise.

Once those programs are gone, the teams scatter. The institutional knowledge evaporates. Rebuilding takes a decade, not a budget cycle.

Each cycle of proposed demolition and congressional rescue inflicts cumulative institutional damage on NASA – damage that is already degrading the agency’s ability to plan missions, retain talent, and hold together international partnerships.

The cuts don’t have to pass to do their work. The mere threat of cancellation means contracts can’t be signed with confidence, hiring freezes become the default, and early-career researchers see the writing on the wall and choose other fields.

We will feel these losses for a generation.

The Economic Case Is Overwhelming

Here is the argument that should resonate across party lines: NASA spending is one of the best investments the federal government makes.

In fiscal year 2023 alone, NASA’s missions supported more than 304,803 jobs nationwide and generated an estimated $75.6 billion in total economic output, along with $9.5 billion in federal, state, and local tax revenues.

That’s a return of roughly three dollars for every one invested — and that’s before accounting for the long-tail value of spinoffs.

NASA’s economic impact extends to all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

This isn’t a coastal elite program. It’s a national jobs engine touching manufacturers, suppliers, universities, and small businesses in red states and blue states alike.

As I’ve written about before, memory foam, scratch-resistant lenses, water filtration systems, CAT scan technology, the cameras in your smartphone – all of these trace a direct lineage to NASA research.

The agency is arguably the most efficient technology-transfer mechanism the government has ever created.

The Pentagon Gets More. NASA Gets Less

Here is the comparison that demands a reckoning. The same budget that proposes cutting NASA by 23% requests a 28% increase in discretionary defense spending, bringing the Department of Defense budget to $1.5 trillion.

I don’t dispute the importance of a strong national defense. But consider the logic: we are increasing military spending by hundreds of billions of dollars while simultaneously cutting the civilian space agency that provides the scientific foundation for satellite communications, GPS, weather forecasting, and Earth observation on which the military itself depends.

We are investing in hard power while divesting from the soft power – the technological leadership, the international partnerships, the human capital – that gives hard power its meaning.

If anything, NASA’s budget should scale proportionally with the Pentagon’s. If we are serious about American dominance in space as a strategic domain, the civilian science and exploration programs that feed that dominance cannot be treated as discretionary excess.

Congress Said No Last Year. It Must Say No Again

President Trump requested similar cuts last year, but Congress pushed back and approved $24.4 billion for 2026. That was the right call. It needs to happen again – and this time with more urgency.

More than 100 members of Congress have already signed a letter asking House appropriators to increase NASA science funding by 25% for 2027 and to increase the agency’s overall budget to account for inflationary pressures in the aerospace industry.

That is not a partisan position. Space exploration has historically been one of the few areas where Americans of every political persuasion have found common ground, because it speaks to something deeper than policy – it speaks to who we are and what we believe we are capable of.

Right now, four people are flying around the Moon. They got there because generations of Americans believed the investment was worth making. The question before us now is whether we still believe that – or whether we will allow budget proposals to slowly, quietly, cut away the foundation of the most consequential enterprise humanity has ever undertaken.

The answer should be obvious. We don’t have a NASA spending problem. We have a NASA spending shortage.