Congress Comes Through for NASA Science, But Not Artemis

This is historically weird. Prior to 2015, there were 0 instances of Congress increasing NASA’s overall budget in response to a cut proposed by the White House. Since 2015 that has happened 4 times, 3 of which were during the Trump administration (in 2017, 2018, and 2019). As you might expect, these increases have primarily been directed toward congressional priorities, namely the SLS and major science missions. When the Trump administration did begin requesting increases in 2020, it was within the normal congressional scope (5%). But when the President requested an even larger 12% increase in 2021, Congress provided 3%, keeping pace with their recent historical average.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t long-lasting impacts made to space policy by the Trump administration, just that NASA’s priorities, as seen through the prism of funding, didn’t change significantly. It’s no accident that the amount of funding now going to the human landing system and the Gateway station is roughly the amount freed up by the completion of the Commercial Crew development program, about $1 billion per year. That was, in a sense, unclaimed money that was then directed toward a new project, regardless of need. It didn’t require substantial changes to any existing programs already endorsed by Congress.

This is all the more reason to engage in the political process; Congress continues to exert enormous influence over the practical implementation of NASA’s major programs. Congress can be the key to continued exploration, such as enabling the new batch of ambitious scientific missions, or stymie progress, such as its underfunding of human exploration projects beyond low-Earth orbit. This will be all the more important in the coming years, when the overall size of the budgetary pie may shrink, and NASA will need to compete to retain its larger slice.

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