ORLANDO, Fla. – President Donald Trump’s budget request delivered to Congress on Friday calls for a 24% cut in NASA funding from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion in “the largest single-year cut to NASA in American history,” according to the Planetary Society.
It allocates $7 billion for lunar exploration and adds $1 billion “in new investments for Mars-focused programs.”
NASA’s press release, “President Trump’s FY26 Budget Revitalizes Human Space Exploration,” detailed the cancelation request of the grossly over-budget and long-delayed Artemis moon missions after the third flight.
[Watch video below to see News 6 report]
“Transition the Artemis campaign to a more sustainable, cost-effective approach to lunar exploration. The SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion capsule will be retired after Artemis III, paving the way for more cost-effective, next-generation commercial systems that will support subsequent NASA lunar missions,” the release said.
[See previous coverage about the Artemis program below]
NASA has not said what the “more sustainable, cost-effective approach” and “next-generation commercial systems” would be.
Trump’s plan during his first term was to launch Artemis II with astronauts to circle the moon and then Artemis III would’ve landed astronauts on the surface of the moon before the end of his first term.
Artemis I ultimately launched uncrewed in 2022.
Artemis II is now scheduled to lift off no earlier than 2026.
Artemis III is slated for 2027.
Last time
The last time the Space Coast and the Kennedy Space Center lost NASA’s primary spaceflight program, the Space Shuttle, an economic downturn followed.
News 6 reported on home values dropping and shops closing in Titusville and surrounding Space Coast cities after some 7,000 employees related to the Space Shuttle program lost their jobs after Atlantis flew its final flight in 2011.
By 2012, less than a third of the 7,000 laid off at the Kennedy Space Center had found work, many of them outside Florida.
It took 11 years for NASA to launch its next rocket. The Space Launch System (SLS) with the human-rated Orion capsule on top lifted off from the Kennedy Space in 2022 as the first Artemis moon mission.
But in that time, the Space Coast evolved independently of NASA.
The old Space Shuttle runway became the Launch and Landing Facility (LLF) available for use for commercial customers. Specialized car manufacturers began renting the runway to test their hypercars.
Commercial rocket builder SpaceX launched its first Falcon 9 rocket in 2010 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and landed its first booster in 2015.
SpaceX, owned by billionaire electric car builder-turned presidential advisor Elon Musk, negotiated a long-term lease with NASA of the Kennedy Space Center’s historic launchpad 39A.
In 2020, SpaceX ferried American astronauts to the International Space Station for the first time on a commercial rocket.
SpaceX has grown to become the most successful commercial rocket-building company in the world by far, launching more rockets to orbit per year than all governments and private companies combined.
In 2015, another billionaire, Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos, announced plans to build and launch heavy-lift rockets on the Space Coast.
Blue Origin’s cavernous complex on Space Commerce Way began rising above the tree line outside the Kennedy Space Center and has expanded its footprint ever since.
In January, Blue Origin’s heavy-lift rocket, the New Glenn, launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for the first time and reached orbit.
New Glenn, while it did not stick the landing, is designed to be reusable. Falcon 9 has landed itself more than 400 times.
Both Blue Origin and SpaceX have invested billions of dollars on the Space Coast and together employ tens of thousands of people, many of whom live on the Space Coast. SpaceX is currently building a launch site at Pad 39A for its mega Mars-bound rocket still in development, Starship.
The workforce dedicated to Artemis at the Kennedy Space Center is now a fraction of the aerospace workforce employed on the Space Coast and in Brevard County.
“Almost 6,118 contractor workers were employed at the spaceport,” according to a 2021 NASA report. “And the $869.4M in contractual obligations ultimately generated an economic output effect of approximately $1.70B for the state of Florida. This supported about 11,557 jobs and approximately $916.9M in total income (i.e., value added), with the bulk of impact – 84% – felt in Brevard County.”
Still, any job loss of course would hurt. A union official who represents around 1,000 Artemis workers at KSC did not want to comment since the president’s budget is only a request to Congress but admitted he is concerned about potentially losing so many good-quality, good-paying jobs.
The problem
NASA’s Artemis moon rocket, the SLS, unlike SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Blue Origin’s New Glenn, is not reusable. Only the Orion capsule comes back to Earth.
And it is not cheap, projected to cost taxpayers $4 billion per launch. And that’s just the rocket.
The Artemis moon missions utilizing the SLS were sold to Congress as a (relatively) quick and cheap option to take astronauts back to the moon by, in large part, piecing together tried-and-tested hardware from the Space Shuttles.
It turned out, the only thing quick about Artemis was how quickly SLS and Orion development costs spiraled out of control.
NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has projected the Artemis program overall will cost at least $93 billion by 2025.
A 2024 investigation from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) alone, responsible for the construction of all ground supports systems required to launch and recover the Artemis moon missions, will cost about almost $4 billion through 2029.
In August 2024, NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found the new Mobile Launcher alone, Mobile Launcher 2 (ML2) currently under construction - that’s the second steel tower engineers are building to launch the Artemis IV and V missions - has nearly tripled in cost and is at least three years behind schedule.
The OIG estimated ML-2 development costs will continue to soar to nearly $3 billion and delivery will miss the Artemis IV launch date by at least a year.
Refurbishing the first Mobile Launcher (ML-1) from its originally-intended use in the now-canceled Constellation program and converting it as the Artemis I launcher soared to more than $1 billion.
What else
Gateway, a mini-space station that would orbit the moon and enable the SLS astronauts to dock, would also be canceled immediately.
“The budget also ends the Gateway Program, with the opportunity to repurpose already produced components for use in other missions. International partners will be invited to join these renewed efforts, expanding opportunities for meaningful collaboration on the moon and Mars.”
The president’s proposed budget also includes:
- Continue the process of transitioning the International Space Station to commercial replacements in 2030, focusing onboard research on efforts critical to the exploration of the moon and Mars. The budget reflects the upcoming transition to a more cost-effective, open commercial approach to human activities in low Earth orbit by reducing the space station’s crew size and onboard research, preparing for the safe decommissioning of the station and its replacement by commercial space stations.
- Focus NASA’s resources on its core mission of space exploration. This budget ends climate-focused “green aviation” spending while protecting the development of technologies with air traffic control and other U.S. government and commercial applications, producing savings. This budget also will ensure continued elimination any funding toward misaligned DEIA initiatives, instead designating that money to missions capable of advancing NASA’s core mission. NASA will continue to inspire the next generation of explorers through exciting, ambitious space missions that demonstrate American leadership in space.
Now that Congress has received the budget request, it must begin discussion and debate. House and Senate committees will spend the next several months reviewing and negotiating the proposal. That process will continue into the fall until a final vote before Congress.
Lawmakers will almost surely push back on the Artemis cancelation. The SLS rocket is manufactured across the U.S. and assembled in Florida.
NASA has claimed all 50 states benefit from the Artemis program.
Congress still has not confirmed Trump’s pick for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman.