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Five months into the fiscal year under consideration, Congress finally passed a budget for NASA on March 8, 2024. It provided $24.9 billion, a cut of 2% (about half a billion dollars) relative to 2023. This is NASA\u2019s first year-over-year cut since 2013, a direct result of congressionally mandated spending caps passed in the summer of 2023.<\/p>\n
As a result, funding for most NASA programs remained flat relative to 2023. The notable exception was Artemis, which saw a slight budget increase of $200 million to $7.7 billion. NASA\u2019s return-to-the-Moon effort again demonstrated the resilience of its political coalition by continuing to grow despite this year\u2019s budgetary pressure.<\/p>\n
Funding for NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate, on the other hand, shrank by $457 million.<\/p>\n
This cut was directed at a single project the Planetary Science Division\u2019s troubled Mars Sample Return (MSR) project. Originally requested at $949 million, Congress provided \u201cno less\u201d than $300 million, but removed $522 million from the Planetary Science Division’s total budget. If NASA wants to provide additional funds to MSR in FY 2024, money would have to come from other projects. Whether this will occur is uncertain given the negative politics of such a decision and the program\u2019s current development freeze during its extended reformulation\/replanning process.<\/p>\n
Regardless, it\u2019s not too much to say that MSR took it on the chin in FY 2024 to preserve the space agency\u2019s other science initiatives.<\/p>\n
Despite these difficulties, many of The Planetary Society\u2019s top advocacy and policy goals ended up fully or partially included in the final congressional budget.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n