NEW FROM NASA

NEW FROM NASA NEWS

NASA SCIENCE DECIMATED: PRESENT

NASA closed its Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy; the Office of the Chief Scientist; and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Accessibility branch on March 10 and made a severe reduction in force over the entire Administration.  NASA is still operating under an interim leader; the nomination of Jared Isaacman, a two-time Space tourist with strong ties to Elon Musk, was pulled on May 31.

The 2026 budget proposed for NASA would force the cancelation of 40 active and future missions.  Trimming back on future plans in one thing, canceling missions still in operation providing useful data is ounce-wise and tons-foolish!  The budget would also require NASA to terminate its participation in the creation/operation of multi-national missions, making us an unreliable partner in collaborations that benefit everyone.

Such draconian cuts was labeled by the Planetary Society as being “nothing short of an extinction-level event for Space science and exploration by the United States.”   The Planetary Society’s dashboard section has some interesting information about how NASA spending benefits each State in the Union, and how the proposed cuts will affect each State; see: https://dashboards.planetary.org.

Artemis would take a big hit, too, with the SLS and Orion mission elements being replaced and deletion of the Gateway lunar orbiting station.

NASA scientists, and University scientists with NASA support are already feeling the loss.  Both NASA and NSF canceled their usual presence at the recent annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society.  The AAS is one of America’s premiere scientific groups; this last meeting was its 246^th annual meeting.  If scientists and their students cannot meet to interact and share ideas, Science is crippled.  For more on this story, see: https://www.space.com/astronomy/nasas-been-pulling-out-of-major-astronomy-meetings-and-scientists-are-feeling-the-effects.

Further information about NASA’s value to he U.S.A., see the Benefits section below and on the A+StW website, and also the past Item of the Week, “NASA Benefits Everyone!,” at:  https://www.airandspacethisweek.com/assets/pdfs/20221107%20NASA%20Benefits%20Everyone!.pdf.

NASA SCIENCE DECIMATED: FUTURE

Scientists and engineers will follow the funding and the opportunity to do research.  When the USSR dissolved, many of its top space/planetary scientist found research opportunities in the United States.  Our gain, USSR’s loss.

When the Red Scare of the 1950s was at its height, Qian Xuesen (Tsein Hsue-Shen), a Caltech rocket scientist and co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was placed under a travel ban because he was a Chinese national.  His work on rocketry, jet propulsion, and high-speed aerodynamics would help lead to the Space Shuttle, but he was harassed by Senator McCarthy and others.  China offered the return of several American pilots captured in the Korean War for the lifting of the travel ban, which occurred in August, 1955.  Qian immediately returned home and became the father of the Chinese missile program, their Robert Goddard and Wernher von Braun, with a dash or two of Robert Oppenheimer thrown in.  Our grave loss, China’s great gain.

The same thing is now happening to us again.  Obvious deep cuts in American rocketry and Space exploration are driving researchers and students away, attracted by funding opportunities from ESA and other European interests.  For more on this unforced error, see: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/amid-u-s-science-funding-cuts-europe-seeks-top-american-talent.

MISSIONS CANCELLED

If the cuts in NASA’s budget for 2026 go through as planned, NASA will have to shut down many missions that are presently in operation still providing the data they were built and paid for to acquire.  Exploration spacecraft often produce valuable results long after their nominal lifetime (like Voyagers 1 and 2!); the additional cost of doing so is extremely small compared to the overall cost of the mission.  Shutting operational missions down saves almost nothing yet significantly reduces the total benefit of the mission to America.  Further, canceling so many missions, and severely cutting the budgets of NOAA and the U.S. Geological Survey, both customers for NASA launches, would cause extreme harm to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Here's a partial list of the more than 40 operational missions that would be terminated if the 2026 NASA budget is implemented:

• The Juno spacecraft presently in orbit around Jupiter producing data about its interior structure and its four large moons.
• The New Horizons spacecraft that flew by Pluto in 2015 and is now exploring the Kuiper Belt. NASA intends to turn off both Voyager spacecraft, too.  New Horizons is still going strong, and the Voyagers could continue to supply useful data from the heliopause for a few more years at very low cost.  But all interstellar exploration must stop, just as a third interstellar object is coming our way; see also: https://nasawatch.com/exploration/nasa-is-ending-interstellar-exploration.
• Mars Odyssey, producing valuable data from Mars orbit for over 20 years, while serving as a communications relay for subsequent missions.
• The Mars Atmospheric and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft has been studying Mars’ upper atmosphere for 21 years and recently confirmed the process by which Mars lost much of its water.
• The Chandra X-ray Observatory, one of the Great Observatories and our only X-ray telescope now in orbit, still producing valuable data for over 25 years.
• NASA would have to terminate its support for ESA’s Mars Express mission, now in orbit around Mars.
• OSIRIS-APEX: It already has returned material from an asteroid, and since it was already aloft and fully operational, NASA sent it to visit asteroid Apophis for a close fly-by just after the asteroid visits Earth in 2029.

In addition to terminating 40 active and successful missions, NASA would have to delay, descope, or outright cancel the following missions now under planning/development.  Here are just a few examples:

• Mars Sample Return: The Perseverance rover on Mars has been acquiring rock samples from documented sites across the Crater Jezero for years, aiming for their eventual return to Earth. The 2026 budget would cancel the proposed return.
• Venus: The Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Nobel gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI) mission would be canceled outright. It would have helped us understand why Venus, which is very much alike Earth in terms of its bulk properties, could have a surface environment so different than Earth (IMO perhaps the single most important question for planetary scientists to answer),
• Venus: The Venus Emissivity, radio science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy (VERITAS) mission, like DAVINCI, is a Discovery-class mission and like DAVINCI, it would be cancelled by NASA’s proposed 2026 budget. VERITAS would have carried a powerful radar mapper and other instruments that would have provided detailed data on venusian topography, surface composition, and past/present volcanic activity.
• Roman Space Telescope: Nancy Roman was a former Chief of Astronomy at NASA. The telescope now bearing her name is presently nearing completion at NASA Goddard.  It will be a large-aperture infrared telescope capable of high-resolution wide-area surveys, sited at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point (required to shield its detector from heat from the Sun, Earth, and Moon, just like JWST).  It is designed to image a large field, rather than the narrow field produced by JWST.  The proposed 2026 NASA budget chops its development budget by more than 60%, which could adversely affect its launch date and overall capabilities.

AMERICA’S FUTURE HARMED

NASA and America responded to the USSR’s early lead in Space exploration with a huge amount of support for upgrading America’s education system, particularly in STEM subjects.  The scientists and engineers produced by that effort got us to the planets and beyond, gave us things like the Internet, cell phones, and GPS.

Many of NASA’s excellent education-related websites have already been shut down or turned into a propaganda tool.  Support for student programs and funding for student projects is gone or in great jeopardy.

But don’t just take my word on this tragic situation.  Here’s what the last (final?) NASA Administrator, Bill Nelson, told Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/ex-nasa-chief-sounds-alarm-over-space-agency-future-2092143.

INSULT TO INJURY

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum is hands-down finest Aviation/Space museum in the world, bar none, period.  It has been the place where America’s greatest accomplishments are celebrated, complete with the genuine artifacts involved.  Millions of people, many from foreign countries, flock to the Smithsonian (not just NASM) each year to see and learn more about America’s contributions to modern society.  One of NASM’s key artifacts is the Space Shuttle Discovery.

Everyone knows this.  Except for Texas Senators Cruz and Cornyn.  The two have been floating the idea of transferring Discovery to Space Center Houston for some time.  Cruz slipped language into the Senate version of the mega-bill now past that would allot $85 million to transfer the Space Shuttle Discovery from its rightful home at NASM to bring Discovery to Houston!  The actual cost of doing so will be more than five times higher than that, especially since the piggy-back carrier aircraft no longer exist.  Discovery has a bevy of experts taking care of it now so that your great-grandchildren can see it essentially unchanged; that would not be true in Houston.  Millions now see the Discovery in a spectacular setting for free; moving it to a place where thousands would have to pay long green to see it makes absolutely no sense whatever.  The Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that the inclusion violated the “Byrd Rule,” so for now, Discovery stays where it belongs.  But in these uncertain times, who knows how things will turn out?

Egad.

FINAL WORDS

I once gave a talk to graduating students that closed with this:

“Your great-grandparents saved the world for Democracy.  Your grandparents took us to the Moon.  Your parents created the Internet.  Now it’s your turn.  What a YOU going to accomplish?”

This is the first time I am fearful of the answer, especially for the generation now being born.

Links to Supporting Information

NASA 2026 BUDGET REQUEST: https://www.nasa.gov/fy-2026-budget-request

Astronomy.com: https://www.astronomy.com/science/this-graphic-shows-whats-at-stake-in-the-proposed-2026-nasa-budget

Space.com: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/trump-administration-proposes-slashing-nasa-budget-by-24-percent and https://www.space.com/space-exploration/what-a-waste-us-scientists-decry-trumps-47-percent-cuts-to-nasa-science-budget

Space News: https://spacenews.com/white-house-to-withdraw-isaacman-nomination-to-lead-nasa

Space News: https://spacenews.com/nasa-budget-would-cancel-dozens-of-science-missions-lay-off-thousands

Planetary Society: https://www.planetary.org/articles/nasa-2026-budget-proposal-in-charts

Planetary Society: https://www.planetary.org/press-releases/the-planetary-society-condemns-damaging-cuts-to-nasa-budget

Planetary Society: https://www.planetary.org/press-releases/the-planetary-society-reissues-urgent-call-to-reject-disastrous-budget-proposal-for-nasa

NEW FROM NASA FYI

Another One Bites the Ocean: The ninth test launch of SpaceX’s Starship ended in another failure on May 27.  The booster was the first one used that had made a previous flight (SF-9), and performed OK, as had the previous few tests, but suffered a communications breakdown after the Starship separated from it.  It had telemetry equipment that would have made a “chopsticks” catch difficult, so the plan was for the booster to crash in the Gulf of Mexico.  However, the booster broke up at the starting its engines in preparations for its landing burn.  The Starship stage of the mission separated from the booster without problem.  It was carrying eight dummy versions of Starlink satellites to simulate a real payload.  The door enclosing mock satellites failed to open fully, prevented the deployment.  Soon thereafter, the Starship apparently suffered a fuel leak(s), began to tumble, and crashed.  For information current as of 5/28, see: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacex-launches-starship-flight-9-to-space-in-historic-reuse-of-giant-megarocket-video.

And Another One’s Gone: SpaceX Starship woes continued on June 19, when a Ship 36’s upper stage exploded on the test stand during preparation for a static test.  Ship 36 was destroyed, and the launch facility was seriously damaged.  Ship 36 had been slated to be the upper stage of SF-10, originally scheduled to launch on June 29.  There appears to be something seriously wrong with the upgraded upper stage; it blew up on Flights 7, 8, and 9 and the static test.  The Starship booster seems to be OK; it functioned correctly on Flights 7 and 8, but the controlled landing of the booster on Flight 9 was not possible due to a communications failure.

Egad!  Lest we forget….

NASA Put Three on TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions List: For the past two decades, TIME Magazine selects 200 new inventions in a wide variety of fields to promote as the “best” inventions of the year.  NASA placed three of the seven selected inventions in the 2024 “Aerospace” category!  For the full listing, see: https://time.com/collection/best-inventions-2024.

And see the information in the Spinoffs and Tech Transfer sections of A+StW!

NEW FROM NASA LINKS AND OTHER INFORMATION

Apollo 12 Graphic Novel Updated!  Tuesday (11/19) was the 55^th anniversary of the landing on the Moon of Apollo 12’s LM, Intrepid, with astronauts Pete Conrad and Al Bean aboard.  Celebrate this milestone two ways: See the two previous Items of the Week that spotlight the mission here and my personal hero, Al Bean, here.  Also, check out the NASA graphic novel of the Apollo 12 mission augmented by info about Artemis (The NASA links to it are dead, but I downloaded it from Wikipedia Commons, and it is listed as being fully in the public domain; you can find it in the “Archive: Other Stuff” section of my website at: https://www.airandspacethisweek.com/otherstuff. 

Preparing for Space: Space is hostile to people and equipment alike.  Have you ever wondered about how NASA makes sure its spacecraft can survive and operate successful in interplanetary Space and on other planets?  NASA recently streamed one of the JPL von Kármán Lecture Series entitled “Shake & Bake: How Spacecraft are Tested to Handle the Harsh Environment of Space.”  The featured lecturers are Brad Kinter, a Group Supervisor in JPL’s Environmental Thermal Testing unit at JPL and Pete Landry, Systems Integration and Test Engineer at JPL.  The lecture is now available on YouTube at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jpl-and-the-community/lecture-series/the-von-karman-lecture-series-2024/may-2024-shake-bake-how-spacecraft-are-tested-to-handle-the-harsh-environment-of-space.

Theodore von Kármán was an aerodynamics expert who came to the USA in 1930, fleeing rising tide of Nazism.  He was a member of the National Academy of Science and one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  The lecture series named for him routinely offers a number of interesting Space-related lectures, “Shake and Bake,” being one from last year.  For more information on von Kármán, see: https://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/von-karman-theodore.pdf.

Did you know that NASA has an entire Scientific Visualization Studio at the Goddard Space Flight Center?  The data they make relatable is really terrific, check it out at: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov.

Introducing NASA On-Demand Streaming Service: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrlDv-ts2f0&ab_channel=NASA!  As only NASA can.

Latest News Releases: https://www.nasa.gov/2025-news-releases

Media Contact Info: https://www.nasa.gov/news/media/info/index.html

JPL News: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news