BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — Fresh off the success of NASA’s lunar flyby, attention is now shifting to the agency’s future and its funding.
A new White House budget request for fiscal year 2027 calls for broad reductions across NASA, human exploration programs are a notable exception.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman defended the proposal on Capitol Hill, saying the goal is to improve efficiency and better use taxpayer dollars.
“I very much support the president’s goal to more efficiently allocate resources within NASA,” Isaacman said. “There are a lot of examples of where we have not done a good job for the taxpayers on allocating resources and delivering outcomes.”
The proposed plan would reduce NASA’s overall budget to about $18.8 billion—roughly a 23% cut from enacted 2026 levels. Science programs would see some of the steepest impacts, with funding reduced by about 47%.
Isaacman says the agency can still deliver major missions with less funding.
“We’re not asking the world to live without the next great flagship mission,” he said. “We’re just saying we can go about and do it with less resources and we should be judged on outcomes.”
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