NASA: Severe case of dehydration?

How is NASA being cut off from valuable resources, and what implications does that have for the future of the organization?

Since its founding in 1958, NASA has served as the US’ primary body for outer-space exploration and aeronautics research. Over the years, NASA has achieved milestones that have completely transformed our understanding of the cosmos and our own planet: from the Apollo moon landings that placed humans on another world for the first time to the current Artemis missions. NASA’s robotic explorers such as Curiosity and the James Webb Space Telescope have recorded invaluable scientific data, revealing complex secrets about our universe. But now, the entire administration is being dried out from within. Why?

In recent times, NASA has faced budgetary and strategic shifts that have gradually drained its resources. Although Trump’s administration has prioritised deep-space programmes like the Artemis lunar initiative, it has cut Earth science and climate research initiatives. These cuts starve critical satellite and observational programmes of funding they need. Furthermore, frequent policy reversals such as cancelling ISS mission extensions and redirecting exploration goals have led to long-term planning being hampered and workforce investment to decrease. NASA has been pushed to emphasise space defence and reduce climate studies, leading to cancelled projects and postponed launches. By favouring short‐term and high‐profile objectives over balanced science portfolios, current policies have significantly dried NASA’s broader research capacity.

But now, the problem is even worse with Elon Musk and Trump’s newest breakup. Tensions between Trump and Musk have led Musk to target SpaceX toward purely commercial and international contracts and break up with NASA partnerships such as Commercial Crew and cargo services. This will surely lead to NASA losing both technical expertise and cost-saving launch options, likely prompting NASA to rebuild in-house capabilities or pay higher prices to other vendors, but this paired with cost cuts from Trump’s latest policies means that NASA is being severed from every avenue, draining its resources and options, making a possible collapse something not completely unfathomable as it was the case a mere year ago.