White House Works to Ground NASA science missions

[Byrd]

In another sign that the Trump White House is aggressively moving to slash NASA’s science programs, dozens of mission leaders have been asked to prepare "closeout" plans by the end of next week.

The new directive came from NASA's senior leadership on Monday, which is acting on behalf of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Copies of these memos, which appear to vary a little by department, were reviewed by Ars. The detailed closeout plans called for must be prepared by as soon as July 9 for some missions, which has left principal investigators scrambling due to the tight deadline and the July 4 holiday weekend.
 
From: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/07/tr...-missions/


The article goes on to say that they haven't been directed to submit a fiscal budget plan, and without that, there ain't no budget.

As someone who grew up during the space race, I'm livid.  We don't need to hand space development over to individual companies.  This will turn our part in space development into chaos (instead of coordinated efforts towards specific goals.)  Things developed under government programs become available to all (think: materials, computing advances, etc.) -- this can cripple advances and lead to a slowing down in innovation.

As soon as I think of how to word things politely, I'm sending off a few letters to my congresscritters.  Not that I think they'll react (in spite of Houston being a big center for NASA) but I'll speak up anyway.

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

That's a shame isn't it?

Guess there's no room in the inflated DOD budget for scientific research anymore, or to study the ability of ants to sort tiny screws in space. 

But this is a conspiracy site, right?

I know what satellites in low earth orbit look like. And I know what formation flying looks like. I saw a combination of the two.

I assume this because I read it's 1.5 km for every minute, so if I saw something reflecting light I shouldn't have, they were at about 180 km of elevation at minimum.

We have things in low earth orbit moving fast and faster than satellites doing top gun formations. They even flared when the accelerated to catch up. Go secrets of The Space Force, I guess.

Maybe Trump just knows about whatever these craft are, I'm guessing the Aurora (or something like it) is real, and he just views it as a redundant waste of money for all the crap in space we don't need to know about. 

I'm sure all THEIR funding is intact.

And on that, I have to wonder what the real list of people that have been in space looks like?

[Sirius]

That's a shame isn't it?

Guess there's no room in the inflated DOD budget for scientific research anymore, or to study the ability of ants to sort tiny screws in space. 

But this is a conspiracy site, right?

I know what satellites in low earth orbit look like. And I know what formation flying looks like. I saw a combination of the two.

I assume this because I read it's 1.5 km for every minute, so if I saw something reflecting light I shouldn't have, they were at about 180 km of elevation at minimum.

We have things in low earth orbit moving fast and faster than satellites doing top gun formations. They even flared when the accelerated to catch up. Go secrets of The Space Force, I guess.

Maybe Trump just knows about whatever these craft are, I'm guessing the Aurora (or something like it) is real, and he just views it as a redundant waste of money for all the crap in space we don't need to know about. 

I'm sure all THEIR funding is intact.

And on that, I have to wonder what the real list of people that have been in space looks like?

YUP


edit: or someone....

[Halfswede]

To be fair, and this applies to DoD as well, these programs need a wake-up call. NASAs SLS has been a colossal waste. NASA and DoD need massive cuts so people quit treating them like a cash-cow career. I live in Huntsville, AL and work and know people on both sides so I see the waste fraud and abuse daily. 

To be clear, I am not advocating for privatizing everything, just to stop throwing money at programs just because you always have. It will take lean times to get back the efficiency of days past. OF course, this is an over-simplified approach, but just keeping the money train going isn't the right way and the government simply doesn't have the money.

I would be fine if DoD and NASA got their overall budgets slashed in half -- even if I was collateral damage.  The amount of engineers sitting on their asses doing literally nothing but checking a few emails, is off the charts. It is by far the majority. At best, 20% are doing all of the work.  The issue is they will cut based on cronyism and their friends will stay and the efficiency will not be gained.

This is a systemic problem rooted in decades of bad habits passed on to each successive group. Couple that with "work from home", a horrible system of government acquisition and contractor relations, an insane fear of failure tied to hyper-focus on MBSE, "agile", etc., it's a huge mess.  Cutting funds is part of it, but not even the tip of the iceberg.

[andy06shake]

As someone who grew up during the space race, I'm livid.  We don't need to hand space development over to individual companies.  This will turn our part in space development into chaos.

Keep it up all this Handmaid's Tale nonsense.

And America won't even be in the next space race.

It will be China, India, and Japan.

[MichSwampbuck]

All that reverse engineered ET space tech makes the preschool show-and-tell sessions put on by NASA a big waste of time and money. While we shoot sparks out of bottle rockets for show, the big high-tech space stuff is kept top secret.

They are likely already playing around with hyperspace engines and warp-drive, making rocket propulsion look like medieval fireworks, but a great display of physical brute force. The common people are always centuries behind the elite in most every way. Once some technology is surpassed by research the older models are sold off on the open market to the corporations that mass produce junky versions to sell to the public.

Cutting edge tech eventually becomes toys for children.  Consider the stereoscope that became the ViewMaster, or the optical microscope, or telescope, etc, that became toys for kids. Things that changed science, now cheap plastic toys, and of a design that would have blown away the early scientists like Galileo Galilei who made their own instruments.

[UltraBudgie]

nasa was useful as a pipeline to disclose and commercialize secretly developed technology

as well as perpetuate the "space race" psyop to justify large military budgets to the boomers

but with space force being militarized and all new spacecraft other than boosters being entirely secret, with the lines between governmental military and private commercial concerns essentially eliminated, it's no longer necessary

now if someone works at nasa it's like "oh, couldn't get a job at lockheed boeing or spacex, huh?"

but they still do make some pretty pictures although esa has really been eating their lunch at that lately

ah what the heck throw them a few dozen billion for old times sake, maybe they can use it to build a nice museum

[Kurokage]

Thats sad to read, but thanks for the post Bryd.

The rest of the World looked on with awe at NASA and its work in advancing science and technology since before the Apollo missions.
It now looks like Trumps White House is handing China the lead in the new space race.

[sahgwa]

In another sign that the Trump White House is aggressively moving to slash NASA’s science programs, dozens of mission leaders have been asked to prepare "closeout" plans by the end of next week.

The new directive came from NASA's senior leadership on Monday, which is acting on behalf of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Copies of these memos, which appear to vary a little by department, were reviewed by Ars. The detailed closeout plans called for must be prepared by as soon as July 9 for some missions, which has left principal investigators scrambling due to the tight deadline and the July 4 holiday weekend.
 
From: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/07/tr...-missions/


The article goes on to say that they haven't been directed to submit a fiscal budget plan, and without that, there ain't no budget.

As someone who grew up during the space race, I'm livid.  We don't need to hand space development over to individual companies.  This will turn our part in space development into chaos (instead of coordinated efforts towards specific goals.)  Things developed under government programs become available to all (think: materials, computing advances, etc.) -- this can cripple advances and lead to a slowing down in innovation.

As soon as I think of how to word things politely, I'm sending off a few letters to my congresscritters.  Not that I think they'll react (in spite of Houston being a big center for NASA) but I'll speak up anyway.

The conspiracy side of me, is this a conspiracy board or are we full political now? says this is a sign that the 'secret space programmes' are merging with the Corporate world, and we are going from the faux pretend pubic Space programme we never had , which was military, to a corporate space programme.
Its just more of the tearing of the veil. 
The illusion of democracy that we had since the 80s or 90s is now slowly being ripped away, to show how it actually has been, since World War 2. 
And people think votes count.

[sahgwa]

That's a shame isn't it?

Guess there's no room in the inflated DOD budget for scientific research anymore, or to study the ability of ants to sort tiny screws in space. 

But this is a conspiracy site, right?

I know what satellites in low earth orbit look like. And I know what formation flying looks like. I saw a combination of the two.

I assume this because I read it's 1.5 km for every minute, so if I saw something reflecting light I shouldn't have, they were at about 180 km of elevation at minimum.

We have things in low earth orbit moving fast and faster than satellites doing top gun formations. They even flared when the accelerated to catch up. Go secrets of The Space Force, I guess.

Maybe Trump just knows about whatever these craft are, I'm guessing the Aurora (or something like it) is real, and he just views it as a redundant waste of money for all the crap in space we don't need to know about. 

I'm sure all THEIR funding is intact.

And on that, I have to wonder what the real list of people that have been in space looks like?

Exactly!

I saw 'stars fighting' in the Sand Dunes.  it was intense.