WASHINGTON — Over 40 House members have signed a letter requesting a significant increase in NASA’s science budget for 2025, a challenging request due to spending limits.
The May 1 letter The letter, signed by 44 members and addressed to the chair and ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee’s commerce, justice and science (CJS) subcommittee, urged appropriators to allocate at least $9 billion for NASA’s science programs in the 2025 spending bill. This amount is more than $1.4 billion above the administration’s request and $1.67 billion greater than the agency's 2024 science funding.
According to the letter, the additional funding would restore the purchasing power of NASA's science programs, which has been weakened by inflation and the substantial cut in 2024 resulting from budget caps linked to a deal to increase the debt ceiling. This funding is necessary for science missions recommended by various decadal surveys that are encountering restructuring, delays, or potential cancellation.
The letter states that under the agency’s 2025 request, NASA would be unable to fulfill the science goals outlined in the National Academies of Sciences’ Decadal Surveys, which were strongly endorsed in the FY 2024 Consolidated Appropriations Act.
The letter emphasizes that providing at least $9 billion would enable continued support for the Geospace Dynamics Constellation mission, the top-ranked mission in the latest heliophysics decadal, which NASA proposed to cancel in the 2025 request. It would also support the Earth System Observatory line of missions, Mars Sample Return, and early technology development for the Habitable Worlds Observatory. Moreover, the increased funding would support ongoing missions such as the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope, which are facing cuts in the 2025 request.
The letter was spearheaded by Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Judy Chu (D-Calif.), and Glenn Ivey (D-Md.). Bacon and Chu co-chair a reinvigorated planetary science caucus in Congress seeking to garner support for planetary science and related NASA science activities, including studies of exoplanets and the search for life. Chu’s district includes the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ivey's covers the Goddard Space Flight Center, two NASA facilities focused on science missions.
Forty-one other members of Congress from across the country also signed the letter. Except for 3 of the 44 signatories, all are Democrats.
The letter was sent to appropriators around the same time as a “Day of Action” lobbying effort by The Planetary Society. Nearly 100 members of the advocacy group traveled to Washington to meet with members and advocate for increased funding for NASA science programs.
However, congressional sources are skeptical that advocates will secure any increase in science funding beyond the request, let alone the substantial increase sought in the letter. With budget caps in place from the debt-ceiling deal for 2025, requests for funding increases will be a zero-sum game, requiring cuts either elsewhere in NASA or from other agencies funded by the CJS subcommittee.
Speaking at a May 8 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council — its first public meeting in nearly 16 months — NASA Administrator Bill Nelson expressed concern about the limitations imposed by a specific group in Congress, leading to budget cuts of nearly $2 billion for NASA science in fiscal years 2024 and 2025 without the possibility of recovery.
Another council member, Charles Bolden, suggested that the challenges faced by NASA science programs in obtaining sufficient budget support stem from their international focus, which may not align with the current interest of Congress in international matters.
Charles Bolden also emphasized the need for NASA to effectively communicate its role in rekindling global leadership, as failure to do so could result in further decline of the science budget.
