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WASHINGTON — As the government shutdown drags on, scientists and advocates remain focused on the long-term effects of proposed budget cuts at NASA and other agencies.
Congress’ failure to pass a continuing resolution to temporarily fund the government at fiscal 2025 levels when the 2026 fiscal year began Oct. 1 has led to a shutdown that furloughed most NASA employees and halted nonessential activities. There is no sign of an imminent resolution.
While many have expressed concern about the shutdown’s immediate effects on agency employees and programs, much of the scientific community’s attention remains on the proposed deep budget cuts for fiscal 2026. The Trump administration’s proposal included a nearly 25% reduction in NASA’s overall budget and almost a 50% cut to its science programs.
“This is a turning point. This is a key moment in the history of space exploration,” said Bill Nye, chief executive of The Planetary Society, during a press conference last week outside the U.S. Capitol. Members of the organization and other groups met with congressional offices to push back against the proposed cuts. “Cuts to NASA science will not make the U.S. stronger,” Nye said.
Versions of the House and Senate appropriations bills would largely reverse the administration’s proposed reductions, though the House version provides less science funding than the Senate’s. Even so, final appropriations for fiscal 2026 may take months to complete, even without the added complications of the shutdown.
“The House and the Senate, we’re moving in a much better direction than the White House,” said Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., a member of the House Appropriations Committee. He said he hopes the House will ultimately agree to the Senate’s higher NASA science funding levels in a final bill.
Across the country, astronomers voiced similar concerns about funding instability.
“The worst thing you can do to a mission that’s building hardware or doing final design is give uncertainty in the budget,” said Fiona Harrison, a Caltech astrophysics professor and co-chair of the latest astrophysics decadal survey, Astro2020, during a meeting of the National Academies’ Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics in Irvine, California.
She noted that NASA, for now, is planning based on the House’s proposed 2026 funding levels rather than the administration’s budget request, “which is not bad.” Still, she said, that provides only short-term reassurance.
A key long-term concern is whether NASA will move forward with selecting a new probe-class mission, a category of missions larger than Explorer-class spacecraft but smaller than flagships. NASA selected two mission concepts last year for further study, planning to choose one in 2026 for development. However, the 2026 budget proposal would cancel the entire probe program.
Astro2020 recommended NASA pursue a probe line of missions “and NASA took it very seriously,” Harrison said. “NASA is still saying they will do the downselect,” she added, but the proposed budget has created uncertainty. She and others noted that the mission teams at the Goddard Space Flight Center have already lost staff through NASA’s deferred resignation program and face hesitation from industry partners wary of investing in a program proposed for cancellation.
The uncertainty extends beyond NASA. The National Science Foundation, which funds ground-based astronomy, also faces major cuts. The administration’s proposal would reduce funding for the NSF’s Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate, which includes astronomy, by two-thirds and eliminate money for new facility construction.
Richard Green, astronomer emeritus at Steward Observatory, said at the meeting there are rumors the NSF may dissolve divisions within the directorate, including the astronomy division, and shift its focus toward artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and quantum science. “Conspicuously absent is basic research in astronomy,” he said.
He added that the Senate bill is far more favorable to NSF astronomy programs, including directing the agency to continue supporting two observatories for the U.S. Extremely Large Telescope program rather than just one, the Giant Magellan Telescope, which NSF currently backs.
The outcome of the budget process for 2026 is “unknowable” now, said Dick Obermann, a former staff member of the House Science Committee. The most likely result, he said, is a budget that falls somewhere between a full-year continuing resolution, which would maintain 2025 funding levels, and the levels proposed in the House and Senate bills.
That still leaves little long-term certainty. “However, the outyears will still have to be considered question marks,” Obermann said.
Harrison echoed that sentiment, noting that missions are currently being told to plan to the House spending levels for 2026. “Great, we’ll staff up on engineering, get all of our industrial partners,” she said of probe-class and other early-stage projects. “But then, what about FY ’27?”
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