The State of NASA

Nearly eight months after Donald Trump resumed the presidency, the space agency still has no permanent administrator, no direction, and no discernable policy.

The First “The State of NASA” address, at Kennedy Space Center on February 2, 2015.

Ask typical Americans what they think is NASA’s most significant moment. My guess is they’ll name the Project Apollo lunar landings of the late 1960s through early 1970s.

From my political perspective, I’d name President John F. Kennedy’s address to Congress on May 25, 1961. Titled “On Urgent National Needs,” Kennedy proposed transforming the National Aeronautics and Space Administration into a propaganda tool which would demonstrate to the world that the United States was superior to the Soviet Union.

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

In its sixty-seven year existence, NASA has never had more support from a president for the agency than it did that day. Kennedy told Congress the legislative branch could expect to spend “an estimated seven to nine billion dollars additional over the next five years” for the crewed lunar program. In today’s dollars, that’s roughly seventy-five to one hundred billion dollars, using the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI inflation calculator.

By the end of the program, in today’s dollars Project Apollo cost more than $250 billion, according to an estimate by The Planetary Society. Apollo transformed a modest aerospace research and development agency into a nationwide jobs program. For decades now, NASA has justified its budgets by how many people are employed in each of the fifty states. To help convince members of Congress to continue funding programs, a website lets you search for how much money the agency spends each year by congressional district or state.

Other presidents have proposed big bold adventures, but rarely have they risked their political capital to make it happen. The closest, in my opinion, is President Barack Obama. He wanted to reform NASA, to transform the agency into an incubator for commercial space innovation. Legacy aerospace companies would have to compete on an equal footing with startups such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. NASA would be an angel investor, but the companies had to invest their own money to develop a product NASA could buy off the shelf.

NASA would no longer be about jobs. It would be about results.

President Barack Obama’s NASA space policy address at Kennedy Space Center on April 15, 2010.

Space Workfare

On April 15, 2010, at Kennedy Space Center, Obama proposed increasing NASA’s budget by $6 billion over the next five years. That included extending the International Space Station from 2015 (when the George W. Bush administration intended to deorbit ISS) through at least 2020, funding the commercial crew program (left unfunded by Bush), and $3 billion for a heavy-lift rocket that would be used one day to send crews to Mars. He also proposed a $40 million jobs program for Florida’s Space Coast, a concession to politicians fretting about jobs during the Great Recession.

Congress, predictably, rebelled.

In the end, Obama’s political capital was largely wasted. Congress failed to approve the Space Coast jobs transition program, creating instead its own heavy-lift rocket. The Space Launch System, or Senate Launch System to its critics, would send the Orion crew capsule to … somewhere. Where was a little vague. Congress ordered NASA to build the system using no-bid contracts issued to Space Shuttle companies such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and ATK (now part of Northrop Grumman).

It wasn’t until 2019 that all this was given a handy name, Project Artemis. Artemis I, the uncrewed SLS test flight, was in November 2022, twelve years after Congress mandated SLS. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that NASA spent $11.8 billion on SLS and $13.8 billion on Orion to achieve that first flight.

Artemis II, the first crewed test flight, is targeting April 2026. A crew of four will orbit the moon, but not land. Artemis III, the first landing attempt, is targeting mid-2027, but that depends on the availability of a Human Landing System from SpaceX or Blue Origin. The current consensus is that neither will be available for several years. In 2021, NASA’s Office of the Inspector General estimated that the cost of each Artemis flight will be about $4.1 billion through Artemis IV.

But jobs are guaranteed, workfare for the aerospace industry.

The Teeter-Totter NASA

Since the events of 2010, the NASA budget has been a delicate compromise, a teeter-totter balancing the interests of OldSpace companies and NewSpace startups. The bottom-line NASA budget has slowly increased each fiscal year, from $18.4 billion spent in Fiscal Year 2011 to $24.8 billion for FY25, the final NASA budget under the Biden administration.¹

Starting in 2015, each year’s NASA budget request was accompanied with a multimedia event called the State of NASA. The NASA administrator, or an acting official, delivered a video address that was broadcast live on NASA TV.

The last State of NASA address, March 11, 2024, delivered by then-Administrator Bill Nelson. Video source: Space SPAN YouTube channel.

The last address was in March 2024, during the Biden administration, by Administrator Bill Nelson.

No address was delivered this year by the Trump administration. No one knows why.

In December 2024, about a month after he was elected, Donald Trump nominated billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman to be the next NASA administrator. In retrospect, this was probably due to the influence of Elon Musk, who spent $288 million of his own money to help elect Trump. Isaacman had flown twice on SpaceX crew Dragons, privately funding missions that helped raise money for charities.

The quick nomination of a NASA administrator was a surprising departure from Trump’s first term. Trump took office for the first time on January 20, 2017. He didn’t nominate an administrator until September 1, 2017. Jim Bridenstine was a House Republican from Oklahoma who sat on the chamber’s space subcommittee. It took another six months for his nomination to be confirmed.

Trump’s first NASA budget proposal (for FY18) cut the agency’s earth science missions and would have reduce its bottom line by $600 million. In the end, Congress kept NASA’s budget largely intact.

Once Bridenstine took office, he brought order to the chaos. During Bridenstine’s tenure, NASA’s budget increased every year, from $20.7 billion for FY18 to $25.2 billion requested for FY21. That trend continued under President Joe Biden, who requested $25.4 billion for his final NASA budget (FY25) but wound up at $24.8 billion.

The Busted Budget

Trump began his second term intending to deeply slash the federal bureaucracy and its budgets, to fund various tax breaks. Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1) on July 4, 2025. According to the Tax Policy Center, the richest 20% of taxpayers will benefit from about 60% of the tax changes in the bill. According to the Tax Foundation, the bill adds at least $3 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years.

NASA was one of Trump’s victims. His administration proposed reducing the agency’s budget, from $24.8 billion for FY25 to $18.8 billion for FY26, a reduction of 24% ($6 billion). The agency’s supporting documentation provided little insight into the reasoning behind the major cuts, other than “beating China back to the Moon and on putting the first human on Mars.” It labelled other missions as “unaffordable,” describing the cut science programs as “a commitment to fiscal responsibility.”

Among the Trump administration’s more deplorable schemes is a plan to scrap NASA’s climate change satellites, perhaps by plunging them back into the atmosphere to assure that a future administration can’t resurrect the collection of climate change evidence. Trump himself many times has called climate change evidence a “hoax.” This could be the quid pro quo for the $1 billion Trump solicited from oil company executives during the 2024 election campaign. Fossil fuels are the largest contributor to climate change.

While the budget proposal was drafted, Jared Isaacman was out of the loop. The nominee’s confirmation hearing wasn’t until April 9. He said he supported the continuation of Project Artemis, but when asked about Trump’s proposed science cuts he only described those as “not optimal.” The Planetary Society labelled the Trump proposal “an extinction-level event” for NASA.

Elon Musk wore out his welcome at the White House and departed on May 30. The next day, Isaacman’s nomination was withdrawn by the White House. Isaacman had a vision for NASA. It was left with none.

With no one to advocate for NASA on Capitol Hill, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), chair of the Senate committe on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, successfully amended H.R. 1 to add $9,995,000,000 to NASA’s budget through September 30, 2032. (Section 40005 (a).) Among its significant provisions:

• $700 million for the procurement of “a high-performance Mars telecommunications orbiter” by the end of FY26 from a US commercial provider.

• $2.6 billion for the Gateway lunar orbital space station, which the Trump budget proposal intended to cancel.

• $4.1 billion for Project Artemis missions IV and V. Trump intended to retire SLS and Orion after Artemis III.

• $20 million to continue production of the Orion crew capsule.

• $250 million per year over FYs 2025-2029 to continue International Space Station operations. Trump intended to reduce ISS operations and research before the station’s retirement circa 2030.

• $1 billion for infrastructure improvements at various NASA centers.

• $325 million to continue development of the ISS deorbit vehicle by SpaceX.

Of particular contention was a mandate for NASA to transfer a formerly crewed “space vehicle” to a center “that is involved in the administration of the Commercial Crew Program.” The language is vague, but it was generally understood that Cruz and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) were trying to force the Smithsonian to transfer the Space Shuttle orbiter Discovery from its Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia to a privately owned non-profit called Space Center Houston. It’s unlikely this will ever happen. The title for Discovery was transferred to the Smithsonian in 2012, and the two Shuttle Carrier Aircraft that were used to transport the orbiters cross-country were retired long ago. The Smithsonian believes that trying to move Discovery over land or by barge would cause significant damage to the orbiter.

The legislation required the NASA administrator to identify the vehicle to be transferred, and to where. Trump signed the bill on July 4. Five days later on July 9, Trump assigned Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to be acting administrator. On August 5, Cornyn issued a press release in which he claimed Duffy had chosen Discovery to be sent to Space Center Houston.

Trump signed the bill that includes the attempted theft of Discovery, so history will attach his name to the orbiter’s demise should Texas attempt to take it. It’s more likely that the Smithsonian will tie it up in litigation until a future president and Congress reverse the legislation.

… Or The Chinese Win!

John F. Kennedy’s moon prestige program was conceived at a time when the public perception was that the US was losing a “space race” with the USSR. No “race” was ever declared. Sergei Korolev, the Soviets’ rough equivalent of Wernher von Braun, proposed in writing to his government as early as 1958 that the Soviet Union might be able to send crew to the moon in the 1960s after the development of capable launch vehicles, but Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev never formally ordered his government to embark on an Apollo equivalent. It wasn’t until 1964 that a Soviet military-industrial commission issued a five-year space plan that included piloted lunar missions.²

The “space race” mythology has persisted through the decades. Presidents, politicians, space zealots and pundits believed that, if only another president would propose an Apollo redux, the nation would unite, billions more would be spent on building Starfleet, and endless space jobs would be spawned. Several presidents have tried. All have failed.

Why? One reason is the myth that the “space race” had widespread public support. Historian Roger Launius documented in 2003 that a majority of Americans during the 1960s never supported the lunar program, except for one poll taken at the time of the first lunar landing, Apollo 11 in July 1969. If the voters are indifferent, then so will be their elected representatives.

Apollo-Soyuz in 1975 symbolized the end of the “race” and a new era of space cooperation between the two major spacefaring powers. In the final years of the Soviet Union and the early years of the Russian Federation, the United States and Russia signed agreements essentially merging their human spaceflight programs. Russian cosmonauts flew on the Space Shuttle. Shuttles docked at the Russian space station Mir. Parts for a Mir successor were the foundation for the International Space Station, a partnership that also includes Canada, Europe, and Japan.

And yet the myth has persisted that, if only we would do Apollo again, humanity would boldly go.

Project Artemis is the latest incarnation of this myth, with the Space Launch System and Orion as its critical systems. Both have proven to be expensive boondoggles.

But without an external antagonist to present a clear and present danger, how could politicians seeking to protect jobs in their districts and states continue to justify spending billions on these inefficient systems.

The People’s Republic of China is the 21st Century incarnation of a cold war red menace.

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing on September 3, 2025 titled, “"There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise: Why Congress and NASA Must Thwart China in the Space Race." Video source: Space SPAN YouTube channel.

On September 3, the Senate’s science committee held a hearing specifically intended to rekindle the “space race” flame. The opening remarks of committee chair Ted Cruz could have been taken out of an early 1960s congressional hearing, if you substitute “Soviet Union” for “China.”

Make no mistake: we are in a new space race with China, and if we fail, there will be a bad Moon on the rise.

“China has made no secret of its goals. It is investing heavily in its space capabilities, maintaining a permanent presence in low Earth orbit with its Tiangong station, and working to plant its flag on the Moon by 2030.

“The stakes could not be higher. Space is no longer reserved for peaceful exploration. It is a strategic frontier with direct consequences for national security, economic growth, and technological leadership. If our adversaries achieve dominant space capabilities, it will pose a profound risk to America. This is not just about exploration. The choices we make now will determine whether the United States leads in space or cedes it to an authoritarian regime.

“That is why continuity in NASA’s programs is not simply good practice — it is a matter of national security. Any drastic changes in NASA’s architecture at this stage threaten U.S. leadership in space. Delays or disruptions only serve our competitors’ interests.

Cruz made it clear that SLS and Orion must continue. If they don’t, the commies win.

There’s no doubt that China is building a significant space portfolio. China has landed robots twice on the far side of the moon — with Chang’e-4 in 2019 and Chang’e-6 in 2024. The Chang’e-6 mission returned 1,900 grams of lunar soil samples to Earth.

The US has never accomplished those specific feats, but the US has landed robots many times on Mars, starting with the Viking landers in 1976. The most recent was the Perseverance rover, launched in July 2020 from Cape Canaveral. Not only is the rover still active, but the mission also flew the first helicopter on another world. The Ingenuity copter flew 72 missions before it succumbed to the elements. China has landed one Mars rover, the Zhurong in 2021. As for returning lunar samples, six Project Apollo missions landed astronauts on the moon, returning 2,196 samples weighing a total of 382 kilograms (382,000 grams).

China has never sent astronauts beyond Earth’s low Earth orbit, nor have they demonstrated the technology to do so. They are trying to master an extended crew presence in low Earth orbit, with their Tiangong space station. Tiangong has a habitable volume of 3,884 cubic feet, while NASA’s 1970s station Skylab had a habitable volume of 12,750 cubic feet. The ISS has a habitable volume of 13,696 cubic feet. Tiangong typically hosts three astronauts, but can support six during a crew rotation. The ISS typically hosts seven crew members, but the record is 13 three times during the Space Shuttle era.

More or less, China’s crewed civilian space program is roughly equivalent to where the US was with Skylab in the 1970s, assuming the crewed lunar missions never happened.

That’s not to say that China isn’t a challenge to US interests. The latest Annual Threat Assessment published in March 2025 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) describes China as “the actor most capable of threatening US interests globally.” Here’s what the assessment says about China’s space capabilities:

China has eclipsed Russia as a space leader and is poised to compete with the United States as the world’s leader in space by deploying increasingly capable interconnected multi-sensor systems and working toward ambitious scientific and strategic goals.

The assessment notes China’s 2024 lunar sample return, and the goals of landing humans on the moon by 2030 and establishment of a lunar base by 2035. But that’s it. The DNI apparently doesn’t see this as a significant threat to the United States. The assessment certainly does list many significant threats. A Chinese astronaut on the moon isn’t one of them.

China can’t claim the moon as its own. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty specifies that no nation can claim sovereignty over any space object. Almost all spacefaring nations have signed the treaty, including China in 1983. Even if China did assert a claim, no one else would recognize it, nor could China enforce it.

Back to the Future

Outgoing NACA director Hugh Dryden introduces incoming NASA administrator T. Keith Glennan to NACA employees. Video source: Space SPAN YouTube channel.

NASA was born out of the political panic in the US following the Soviet Sputnik launches of fall 1957. Politicians mistakenly assumed that the US trailed the USSR in missile superiority. Their solution was to wed civilian space programs within the military to the existing National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.

At the time it ended on September 31, 1958, the NACA was the world’s elite independent aeronautical research institution. Its findings were shared with private industry and academic institutions.

When NASA began on October 1, 1958, the assumption was that it would continue the NACA’s tradition, applying its skills to the mastery of space.

President Kennedy took NASA in a direction it wasn’t intended to go. Academic research became secondary to what some critics call the “boots-and-flags” mentality. As in the olden days of imperialism, knowledge became secondary to conquest — the conqueror sets foot on a foreign land to plant his employer’s flag on it, such as Christopher Columbus claiming Caribbean lands for Queen Isabella of Spain.

This shift in NASA’s raison d'être is typified by a slightly heated conversation between Kennedy and his NASA administrator, James Webb, on November 21, 1962. Webb argued in favor of using Apollo to harvest space science along the way, but Kennedy insisted that boots-and-flags (he didn’t use that term) be the top priority:

Everything that we do ought to really be tied into getting onto the moon ahead of the Russians.

When Webb persisted, Kennedy replied:

I’m not that interested in space.

The only justification in Kennedy’s mind for the massive increase in NASA’s budget was “because we hope to beat them and demonstrate that starting behind, as we did by a couple years, by God, we passed them.”

Project Ranger was one casualty of this conflict. Originally conceived as a series of robotic lunar probes, by late December 1961 a number of science experiments were being dropped from the spacecraft designs in favor of equipment such as television cameras to identify potential Apollo landing sites.³

More than sixty years later, space sciences once again are a casualty of a boots-and-flags propaganda program. The difference this time is that, unlike Kennedy, Trump isn’t increasing NASA’s budget to pay for it.

The Trump administration sees NASA’s singular purpose as sending humans beyond Earth to plant US flags on other worlds. Everything else is “unaffordable.” This is a betrayal of NASA’s birthright, enshrined in its 1958 charter. The 1958 legislation, commonly known as the Space Act, listed a number of activities to which NASA could “contribute materially.” The first was:

The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space.

The closest the act comes to human spaceflight is the third activity:

The development and operation of vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies and living organisms through space.

“Contribute materially” reflects the agency’s NACA roots. NASA wasn’t meant to be in charge.

That is no more. NASA is now a propaganda stunt.

If the objective is to compete with China, boots-and-flags won’t do it. The DNI assessment is clear that China intends to compete with US commercial enterprises in low Earth orbit. China also poses an on-orbit military threat, having destroyed one of its own weather satellites in a 2007 anti-satellite test, and more recently testing counterspace weapon technologies such as approaching a satellite to disable or capture it.

Early NASA was expected to perfect space technologies that could translate into improving US launch and satellite systems, technologies that could have defense applications. Trump’s NASA seems destined to shake red, white, and blue pom poms as we waste money on boots-and-flags.

It’s a sorry state for NASA.

1. NASA’s annual budget data, present and past, are available on the NASA website at https://www.nasa.gov/budgets-plans-and-reports/.

2. An excellent resource for early Soviet space history is a two-volume work by Asif A. Siddiqi, Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge and its companion The Soviet Space Race with Apollo. Both are available from the University Press of Florida. Siddiqi wrote on page 396 that during the 1961-1963 time period Soviet leadership was “unusually indifferent” to Project Apollo.

3. For more about the conflict between Apollo and NASA’s space sciences division, see R. Cargill Hall, Lunar ImpactL The NASA History of Project Ranger, Chapter 8, “The Question of Science and Ranger.”