In a grand present of unity, all seven residing former Affiliate Directors of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate have signed a joint letter opposing the Trump administration’s proposed 47% lower to NASA’s 2026 science price range. They “unanimously urge Congress to reject the proposed cuts to NASA’s price range” and request that the NASA Science Mission Directorate retain its 2025 price range.
The seven signatories — John Grunsfeld, Alphonso Diaz, Lennard Fisk, Wesley Huntress, Alan Stern, Edward Weiler, and Thomas Zurbuchen — warn the “indiscriminate lower” would finish dozens of present and future missions, “severely [damaging] a peerless and immensely succesful engineering and scientific workforce” and “needlessly [putting] to waste billions of {dollars} of taxpayer investments.” Moreover, the price range lower would get rid of the US as a world chief in area science, ceding energy to China and different nations.
In addition they name consideration to the quite a few advantages of NASA’s science packages, which solely comprise about 3% of NASA’s complete price range. “The economics of those proposed cuts ignore a basic fact: investments in NASA science have been and are a strong driver of the U.S. financial system and technological management,” the authors write within the letter, pointing to profitable missions just like the Mars rovers, the Hubble House Telescope, the James Webb House Telescope and the Parker Photo voltaic Probe, amongst many others.
“These actions inevitably lead to novel applied sciences, algorithms, and superior supplies, whereas advancing the expertise and information of NASA engineers. Collectively these have direct, optimistic, and measurable advantages to our financial system and our nationwide safety,” they write.
The letter is simply the newest main response to the proposed NASA price range cuts. The Planetary Society, a nonprofit area advocacy group, beforehand known as the proposed cuts “an extinction-level event” for NASA science. The group’s “Save NASA Science” marketing campaign collected greater than 20,000 signatures from constituents throughout all 50 U.S. states and greater than 100 nations. Moreover, bipartisan teams in each the Home and the Senate have issued their very own letters opposing the price range lower.
“NASA’s science packages get pleasure from broad public and bipartisan help for good motive: NASA science delivers for the American folks, offering broad direct advantages along with giving residents the awe and inspiration that solely NASA can present,” write the previous NASA science chiefs on this latest letter. “The science that NASA produces ends in a optimistic view of America at dwelling and all over the world. They’re a visual instance of what makes America nice.”
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