Senate Saves NASA Science Budget From 24% Cuts

NASA scientists can finally breathe easier after Congress delivered unexpected good news for America's space program.

The Senate passed a funding bill Thursday that protects NASA's scientific work from devastating cuts proposed earlier this year. President Trump's budget plan called for slashing NASA's funding by 24%, which would have forced the agency to cancel 55 missions and gut its science division by nearly half.

Instead, Congress approved a budget that cuts NASA's funding by just 1.6%, bringing it to $24.4 billion for 2026. The difference is enormous: NASA can now continue nearly all its groundbreaking work exploring our solar system and beyond.

The agency's science budget will total $7.25 billion, down only 1.1% from 2024. That means missions like New Horizons exploring the outer reaches of our solar system and studies of the Sun's behavior can continue without major disruption.

"It's almost everything we had been asking for," says Casey Dreier, chief of policy at the Planetary Society, a space advocacy group founded by Carl Sagan. "It's very encouraging to see a House and Senate run by the president's own party agreeing that we need to keep investing in things like NASA science."

The bill also rescued programs targeted for elimination. NASA's STEM education office, which inspires young people to pursue careers in science, kept its full funding despite proposals to shut it down completely.

Congress also stepped in to protect the Goddard Space Flight Center, the legendary facility that helped build the James Webb Space Telescope. The campus had already lost a third of its staff and shut down dozens of laboratories, including NASA's largest library with irreplaceable space race documents.

The Senate directed NASA to "preserve all the technical and scientific world-class capabilities at Goddard." This language protects not just buildings but the brilliant minds working there.

Even NASA's controversial heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System, survived budget threats. The rocket remains the only spacecraft currently ready to carry astronauts to the Moon, despite being billions over budget.

The Ripple Effect

This budget victory ripples far beyond NASA's walls. When space missions continue, they create jobs for engineers, scientists, and technicians across America. Every dollar spent on space exploration generates new technologies that improve life on Earth, from medical devices to environmental monitoring.

The Goddard Institute for Space Studies, one of America's leading climate research labs, was nearly shut down last spring. Now it can continue tracking changes to our planet that affect billions of people.

Young students dreaming of becoming astronauts or planetary scientists can still count on NASA's education programs to guide them. The discoveries these missions make belong to everyone, expanding human knowledge about our place in the universe.

Congress will face another budget battle soon, but for now, America's space program can look toward the stars instead of wondering if it has a future.