Trump's budget 2026 suggests reducing NASA financing by 6 billion US dollars

According to President Trump's proposed budget, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would largely become the National Moon and Mars administration, with an almost unique focus concentrated to bring astronauts to these two destinations.

The Trump government proposes a budget of $ 18.8 billion for NASA, which corresponds to a decrease of 24 percent compared to $ 24.8 billion in the current financial year. The plan would introduce new investments of 1 billion US dollars for Mars to fulfill Mr. Trump's promises during his speech to the Congress in March to “plant a flag on Mars”.

This change in budget is also what Elon Musk priorities, who founded his SpaceX Rocket Company with dreams of one day two decades ago to send colonists to Mars.

The budget proposal does not contain any details of how the 1 billion US dollars would be output, or a schedule to bring astronauts to Mars. Mr. Musk said that he would start the new huge Starship vehicle for Mars, which SpaceX is currently developing at the end of 2026 -without someone on board, and would probably look for NASA's Mars money to pay for it.

“This proposal includes investments to pursue the research of the moon and Mars at the same time and at the same time prioritize critical science and technology research,” said Janet Petro, the reigning NASA administrator, in a statement.

Deep cuts would lower the expenditure elsewhere at NASA, in particular the agency's robot world -science science missions. The proposed cancellations include a mission to bring rock patterns back from Mars, and satellites of climate surveillance. The space start system and the Orion crew capsule, which bring astronauts back to the moon, would be canceled according to Artemis III, the first occupation mission that would land near the south poles of the moon. Gateway, a small space station around the moon in orbit, would also be canceled.

When he is adopted, “this is the largest one -year -old in NASA in American history,” said Casey Dreier, the head of the planetary society's space policy, a non -profit organization that works for space research. “This is a budget that says that America leads the world in space, that we are a nation that rotates inwards.”

The budget plan also calls for the scaling of operations at the international space station, whereby there are fewer astronauts on board and a scanning research program. It also suggests the elimination of NASA's educational efforts and shows them as “waking up”. President Trump had tried to terminate NASA's educational efforts in his first term – as well as President Obama – but in both cases the congress restored the money.

For aviation, the budget would remove research to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft.

The budget also proposes a reduction of more than 1 billion US dollars of “mission support”, and there are savings that achieve savings by reducing the employees of employees, maintenance, construction and “environmental agency activities”.

A report by the National Academies last September, however, called for NASA to significantly increase its expenses for improving their infrastructure, a large part of which corresponds to the 1960s.