April 11, 2025 | 7:29 a.m. PT
Near-final passback budget shows 50% cuts to NASA science
Casey Dreier, Chief of Space Policy
Passback is when the Office of Management and Budget — the White House’s accounting arm — provides a near-final budget proposal to NASA prior to its official release. It’s not set in stone, but it’s very close to being so. Today, reporting indicates that NASA’s passback decimates science: a 50% cut, falling particularly hard on Astrophysics (cut by 70%) and Earth Science (-53%). Planetary Science and Heliophysics suffer cuts that, in any other year, would be considered extraordinary: X and X, respectively.
The reporting, unfortunately, was true. There is still time for the White House to reconsider, but this is a very bad sign.