The White House released its FY2027 NASA budget proposal on 3 April, one day after four astronauts left Earth orbit1. The request: $18.8 billion, a 23% cut from the $24.4 billion Congress enacted for FY2026, identical in top-line to the FY2026 proposal that Congress rejected.
Artemis receives $8.5 billion, a 10% increase, with $731 million more than the prior year and a new $175 million investment for robotic missions near the Moon's South Pole. The cost falls on science: the Science Mission Directorate loses $3.4 billion, a 47% cut that eliminates 40+ missions2. STEM education is zeroed out entirely. The ISS budget drops $1.1 billion.
Administrator Jared Isaacman stated NASA must "spend smarter, not spend more"3. Representative Zoe Lofgren, Ranking Member of the House Science Committee, called the proposal a document that "should be ignored"4. Over 100 Congressional members had already requested $9 billion for NASA science in a 13 March letter.
Congress mandated $1.025 billion annually for SLS through FY2029 via the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which means Artemis continues regardless of what The White House proposes. Isaacman had already cancelled SLS Block 1B and Block 2 upgrades in February; the budget proposes redirecting $2.6 billion from the cancelled Gateway programme toward a lunar base camp. Whether Congress writes a different number, as it did last year, is the open political question.
