NATIONAL AERONAUTICS and SPACE ADMINISTRATION
The Budget continues to support the safe and timely return of Americans to the Moon and funds the first elements of a permanent American presence on the lunar surface. Across the board, the Budget leverages the expertise and ingenuity of America’s commercial space industry to advance the Nation’s interests in space. By cutting unnecessary and overpriced activities, the Budget strengthens the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) focus and ensures that every dollar spent propels America’s dominance in the final frontier.
The Budget requests $18.8 billion in discretionary budget authority for NASA for 2027, a $5.6 billion or 23-percent decrease from the 2026 enacted level.
The President’s 2027 Budget:
Investments
• Landing Astronauts on the Moon by 2028 (+$731 million). The Budget requests $8.5 billion for NASA’s Artemis program, which will land American astronauts on the Moon by the end of 2028. The Budget fully funds the lunar landers, space suits, lunar surface systems, and astronaut transportation systems necessary to safely and cost-effectively expand America’s presence to the surface of the Moon. The Budget supports NASA’s efforts to keep the mission on schedule by eliminating unnecessary requirements and simplifying complex operational procedures to take a more direct path to the Moon.
• Establishing a Lunar Base Camp. The Budget provides a new $175 million investment for robotic missions to the Moon that, along with astronaut missions, would deploy the initial elements of a permanent outpost near the south pole of the Moon. The base camp would establish U.S. dominance on the Moon, enable more intensive use of lunar resources by NASA and U.S. companies, and also serve as a proving ground for technologies and systems that would be used for future Moon activities and a mission to Mars.
• Landsat Program. The Budget provides $109 million to support a phased transition of the Landsat program to a commercial solution. The Budget supports development of one final Government satellite while concurrently working with industry to transition to commercial approaches.
Program Cuts and Eliminations
• Science (–$3.4 billion). The Budget terminates over 40 low-priority missions to transform the Science program into one that is more focused and fscally responsible. Examples of wasteful, terminated spending include:
- The grossly over-budget Mars Sample Return mission, which an independent review team concluded would likely cost $8 billion to $11 billion and whose goals would be achieved by human missions to Mars; and
- The SERVIR program, a $10 million per year partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development that imposed climate extremism on developing countries.
• Legacy Human Exploration Systems. The Budget continues development of commercial replacements for the grossly expensive and delayed Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule. Replacement of SLS and Orion with more cost-effective systems is critical to supporting more ambitious lunar missions, including the lunar base camp.
- Between 2005 and 2025, SLS and Orion and their ground systems cost taxpayers nearly $65 billion and few once.
- The Budget allows the Agency to work with the Congress to repurpose Gateway funding provided by the Working Families Tax Cut Act toward accelerating development of the lunar base camp and other priorities as outlined in the President’s Executive Order 14369, “Ensuring American Space Superiority.”
• Space Technology (–$297 million). The Budget prioritizes early-stage research and development for technologies required for future lunar missions as well as advancements to support a competitive space industry, including commercial programs to produce rocket fuel on the Moon and to develop small radioisotope nuclear power systems.
The Budget reduces funding for technology research and development that is not driven by user needs or wastes limited resources, including:
- The closeout of the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, known as DRACO, an in-space nuclear thermal rocket engine demonstration in collaboration with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which faced technical and design challenges that prevented it from achieving intended performance goals and would have resulted in significant budget overruns; and
- Frivolous technology projects with no applications such as funding that promotes so-called “in-space sustainability” goals.
• International Space Station (ISS) (–$1.1 billion). The Budget reflects the upcoming transition to a more cost-effective commercial approach to human activities in space as the costly to operate and maintain ISS approaches the end of its life cycle. The Budget prioritizes the rapid development and deployment of commercial space stations, while also keeping the safe de-orbit of the ISS on track for 2030, by:
- Reducing funding for operations, maintenance, and transportation to the ISS that is unnecessary given its looming retirement; and
- Reducing funding for the expansive bureaucracy that has grown unchecked over time and cutting back on duplicative facilities spread across multiple NASA centers.
• Office of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Engagement (–$143 million). NASA will inspire the next generation of explorers through exciting, ambitious space missions, not through subsidizing woke STEM programming and research that prioritizes some groups of students over others and has had minimal impact on the student outcomes. Examples of terminated activities include:
- The Minority University Research and Education Project, which funneled millions of dollars to Historically Black Colleges and Universities for woke, misguided initiatives on diversity in engineering and “Data Science Equity, Access and Priority”; and
- K-12 STEM engagement activities that had limited impact on student outcomes and are better executed by States and school districts.
