ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Trump administration has been disrupting the infrastructure of U.S. science over the last few months, its latest blow being a 2026 budget proposal that would cut NASA's science funding in about half. If passed by Congress, this budget would be devastating, scientists say. It would cancel a number of in-development and currently operational missions, lead to significant layoffs and force the shutdown of some astronomy facilities.
"It basically slashes science just about everywhere," Neill Reid, the multi-mission project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, said during the 246th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) here last month. "NASA science is cut by a factor of two; astrophysics is cut by two-thirds."
