The Space Advocate Newsletter, February 2025

This month

📝 New executive orders disrupting NASA…
🏛️ The end of parochialism in space politics?...
🗣️ Join our Day of Action, March 23rd and 24th in Washington, D.C.

It’s back!

After an extended hiatus, I’m pleased to resume this monthly newsletter on space exploration and science policy. With the new Trump Administration in place and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk as a close (or, perhaps the closest?) adviser to the President, space policy is poised to occupy an unusually high profile in the coming years.

Disruption seems guaranteed, given the range of executive orders directed at the federal workforce. A recent directive to slash the size of the federal workforce means that NASA could be facing significant staff reductions (PDF), though the extent of the layoffs and how (or if) Congress decides to respond remains to be seen. One congressperson’s “pork” is another congressperson’s cherished local program, and NASA has over 17,000 civil servants across the country, with many of them located in states represented by the President’s political party. Tens of thousands of contractors are also based in those locations, supported by imperiled projects such as the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, so even more job losses are possible if those programs are canceled.

Congress typically resists such proposals. However, for the first time since the Apollo era, we're seeing a challenge to the parochial mindset that has governed congressional attitudes toward NASA. The intensity of partisan politics and the growing importance of symbolic alignment with party leaders mean that Republican representatives may be forced to choose between protecting jobs in their district and supporting Presidential initiatives. I’m honestly not sure what choice many will make. Voters may ultimately decide the matter.

NASA, meanwhile, is struggling to accommodate the onslaught of Executive Orders, leading to dramatic actions like removing websites sharing the agency’s internal policy directives and scientific grant reporting. Nearly all scientific and technical advisory groups have been suspended pending a review of offending activities and content. These actions have been taken without transparency or a clear timeline for restoration.

Through all of this, a fundamental challenge looms: the prospect of severe cuts to federal discretionary spending. Though nothing is certain, I would not be surprised if the President's 2026 Budget Request proposes cuts of a third or more to most agencies. This would be in line with current congressional budget initiatives to reduce non-military government spending by as much as $2 trillion over the next decade.

Regardless of one’s opinion on the proper levels of government spending, a sudden cut to NASA’s budget would result in a wave of mission cancellations, delays, and curtailment of ambitions, particularly to scientific endeavors, which have no straightforward commercial alternatives. The Planetary Society will vigorously argue for investment in NASA’s unique contributions to space science and exploration.

Please reach out with questions, suggestions, and ideas for what you’d like to see and hear about going forward. It will be a dynamic few years, but we will go on that journey together.

Until next month,

Casey Dreier
Chief of Space Policy
The Planetary Society

Want to do something?

The Planetary Society is hosting our annual in-person congressional visits event, the Day of Action, in Washington, D.C., on March 23 and 24, 2025.

Registration is open until March 10th, 2025. Learn more about how we train, prepare, and organize the event to help you to be the best space advocate you can be.

What I’m reading this month

The Center for Security and Emerging Technology published an important report on SpaceX's functional monopoly of U.S. national launch needs.

Carl Sagan’s “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”…a reminder that our co-founder did not just believe in the importance of science and space exploration, but relentlessly argued on their behalf.

Boeing has notified 400 employees of potential termination due to cuts to the SLS program.

…but that might have just been a shot across the bow by Boeing to pressure Congress to save the project, according to Eric Berger, who reported that NASA HQ was not told of the layoff notices in advance.

Ground Truth

Data visualization and analysis

The number of orbital rocket launches, per year, from the United States, excluding Starlink launches, with SpaceX rockets highlighted in orange, showing how the company has come to dominate the U.S. launch market. If SpaceX were its own country, it would rank 4th in total number of rocket launches in history, behind Russia/USSR, the United States, and China. Image credit: Casey Dreier/The Planetary Society, data from Jonathan McDowell’s GCAT dataset.