Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot discusses the proposed 2018 budget put forth by the White House during an address on the State of NASA. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Winners And Losers In NASA’s Budget For 2018 And Beyond

Congress refused the majority of Trump’s proposed cuts to NASA’s budget. But many uncertainties remain.

On March 21st, 2018, both branches of Congress passed the United States’ Consolidated Appropriations Act, finalizing spending for the 2018 fiscal year. This omnibus spending bill clocks in at 2,232 pagesand a total budget of $1.3 trillion, and despite initial threats by the President to veto the legislation, it was signed into law on Friday, March 23rd. Under President Trump’s earlier proposal, many science-and-education-based organizations were facing dramatic potential cuts, including multiple branches of the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, the EPA, the US Geological Service, the National Institutes of Health, NOAA, and the National Science Foundation. But in an unprecedented move, the administration proposed cancelling the flagship mission of NASA Astrophysics for the decade of the 2020s: WFIRST, along with many other cuts to NASA. Thankfully, many of these cuts didn’t make it through. Let’s examine the winners and losers.

The breakdown of NASA’s different endeavors, with science receiving approximately 28% of the agency’s funding. This pie chart is less than one-tenth as big as it was back in NASA’s heyday of the 1960s, and many components of this pie have been threatened by the current administration. (NASA, as of 2015)