Scientists Make the Case for NASA Science

Government shutdown notwithstanding, 20 scientific organizations and the Congressman who represents NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center made the case for NASA science during a rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. At the same time, some scientists see this as a time to begin thinking differently about how NASA science missions are developed because funding challenges are not likely to disappear soon.

The Planetary Society organized a “Day of Action to Save NASA Science” on Capitol Hill October 6 bringing together nearly 300 people to speak directly to members of Congress about the need to support science at NASA and the National Science Foundation.  During a press conference in front of the Capitol, Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye was joined by Rep. Glenn Ivey (D) from Maryland’s 4th congressional district that includes Goddard.

Ivey is a member of the House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee that funds NASA as well as NSF and NOAA and is a strong advocate for science. The House and Senate appropriations committees rejected the almost 50 percent cut to NASA’s science portfolio proposed by President Trump in their markups of the FY2026 appropriations bill.  The details are different and the Senate would keep NASA science at its current level of $7.3 billion while the House would cut it to $6 billion, but both are much better than the President’s proposal of $3 billion.

Calling the President’s proposed budget “an extinction-level event” for NASA science, Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye warned about the consequences. “It shatters our STEM talent pipeline. It abandons our international partners. And it risks surrendering U.S. leadership in space science to China and other nations.”

Ivey agreed. “This is a critical moment for the United States when it comes to science” because “we’re falling behind with respect to China.” Instead of “choking off the pipeline of talent, we need to expand it.”

Right now, however, NASA has no funding because of the government shutdown that began October 1.  Essential activities to protect life and property — like operation of existing spacecraft and the International Space Station — are continuing, but employees are not being paid. The Senate did not vote today on passing either the Republican or Democratic Continuing Resolutions (CRs) to reopen the government, but will try again tomorrow, the sixth attempt.

Even once the government reopens under a CR, the FY2026 CJS appropriations bill still needs to pass before NASA knows how much money it’ll have for FY2026. Until then, NASA has been directed to operate in accordance with the version that cleared the House Appropriations committee, which provides $6 billion for the Science Mission Directorate.

All this uncertainty is a challenge for scientists working on these programs. At a meeting of the Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in Irvine, CA yesterday, California Institute of Technology Professor Fiona Harrison pointed out, however, that it also is an opportunity to rethink about how missions are implemented because budget challenges are not likely to disappear anytime soon. “I think there’s a need for the community and the developers and space missions to think about things differently, possibly extending well past this Administration.”  Uncertainty is the worst situation for developing and implementing space missions and “I believe this will be a permanent change.”

Harrison quoted from a recent commentary by Thomas Zurbuchen, former NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, in Nature Astronomy about future astrophysics funding. Zurbuchen wrote that while it’s important to reassert the value of astrophysics, “we must also shed the sense of entitlement, communicate more broadly, and focus on the key enablers. No mission, however scientifically compelling, can ignore cost constraints or add technical complexity without justification.”

Harrison warned against the attitude that it is OK to be less than forthcoming about a mission’s cost and complexity on the premise that once the data starts coming back everyone will forget about it, using the James Webb Space Telescope as an example. JWST is indeed sending back stunning images of the cosmos, but it was billions over budget and years late. She said she’s been spending a lot of time on Capitol Hill and Congress has not forgotten as NASA makes the case for the Habitable Worlds Observatory, the next “flagship” space observatory.

Let’s start then by thinking about Habitable Worlds.  The approach that was taken on JWST — we’ll provide a cost, we don’t necessarily know that we can implement it for that, and we’ll just keep going to ask for more money and everything will be forgiven the minute that you get the first image, right? Well, I can tell you that’s not true. The Hill people, they remember. They love the images, but they remember.  … The question is how can you do things differently? How can you try to instill a sense of cost constraint, not a cost cap, but a cost target for flagship missions and get the community to realize its responsibility to think differently when developing requirements?” — Fiona Harrison

She used the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, formerly the Wide-Field Infrared Space Telescope (WFIRST), as an example of how it can be done effectively. Roman is planned for launch in 2027 and is currently under budget, but she doesn’t sense that NASA is “embracing” that paradigm for Habitable Worlds. Today’s environment is an opportunity to show Congress “we can do this” differently and end up with a more “robust space astrophysics program.”