Mixed reactions to NASA budget; 'NASA Force' launched
Reporting shows some NASA veterans appearing relaxed about the proposed budget cuts while outlets called the administration’s NASA proposal vague and likely to face congressional pushback. Separately, NASA has launched 'NASA Force', a talent initiative aimed at attracting technical staff for mission‑critical roles. (theregister.com) (futurism.com) (nasa.gov)
NASA is recruiting engineers through a new program called NASA Force even as the White House again proposes deep cuts to the agency’s budget. (nasa.gov) NASA Force is a hiring track NASA launched with the United States Office of Personnel Management for early- to mid-career engineers, technologists, and innovators in mission-critical jobs. NASA says the roles are typically 1-2 year term appointments, with a first application window opening April 17 and closing April 21 through USAJOBS. (nasa.gov) The jobs NASA lists under the program include Orion flight software, propulsion support for Commercial Crew and Artemis, lunar sample curation, deep-space logistics, and artificial intelligence and machine learning for air traffic control automation. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the program is meant to help attract “the next generation of innovators and technical experts.” (nasa.gov) The hiring push lands as the Trump administration’s fiscal year 2027 outline proposes cutting NASA’s overall funding by 23 percent and its science budget by 47 percent. Futurism reported April 14 that critics called the document unusually vague and said it omitted standard prior-year funding comparisons. (futurism.com) Casey Dreier of The Planetary Society told Space.com, as quoted by Futurism, that the request was the least transparent NASA budget he had seen and said it included errors, including a Mars Sample Return line after that mission was canceled and a mistaken fiscal year for James Webb Space Telescope funding. (futurism.com) Some longtime NASA hands sounded less alarmed than outside critics. The Register reported April 14 that veterans it spoke to expected Congress to reject the cuts again, as lawmakers did after a similar fight over the fiscal year 2026 budget. (theregister.com) That expectation has support on Capitol Hill. Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA, told Politico on April 13 that it would be a “mistake” to protect exploration funding while gutting science and said he would try to keep NASA near its 2026 level. (politico.com) Congress had already overridden the administration once. Politico reported lawmakers gave NASA a $24.4 billion budget for fiscal year 2026 after rejecting the White House’s earlier proposed cuts to science programs. (politico.com) NASA’s own budget page shows the fiscal year 2026 request was posted on May 2, 2025, and the agency is now advertising new technical hiring while the next budget fight moves to Congress. The immediate split is between a government asking NASA to do more in human spaceflight and a budget plan that would sharply shrink other parts of the agency. (nasa.gov)
