When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.The NASA logo at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC, on June 7, 2022. | Credit: STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty ImagesThe new chief of the Planetary Society says she is prepared once again to fight NASA’s science budget cuts, after helping the advocacy group do so last year.Planetary Society CEO Jennifer Vaughn said the political environment is “so raucous” for space organizations like hers, in conversation with Space.com Editor-in-Chief Tariq Malik, along with Ad Astra editor-in-chief Rod Pyle, during the “This Week in Space” weekly podcast on Friday (April 24) that Malik and Pyle co-host.AdvertisementAdvertisement”They didn’t put any thought into this budget, from what we can tell,” Vaughn said of the White House request, which needs to be approved by Congress. “They really just cut and paste from the previous one [in fiscal 2026]. It’s not at all responsive to what happened last year. And I think they’re just not paying attention. And so we are trying to make everyone pay attention to say, ‘This is not thoughtful. This is not strategic. This is a very lazy and thoughtless way of trying to assert our continued leadership in space.'”[embedded content]Vaughn took over the role from Bill Nye earlier this year. The new Planetary Society CEO said NASA is having an exciting time in space these days due in large part to the historic Artemis 2 moon mission. But the cuts, she said, pose a “horrible threat to our future, especially the scientific exploration of space, which is what we’re all about.”While Artemis 2 was on its way to the moon, and on Good Friday as well as Passover, the Trump administration dropped a 23% cut to the agency that would slash spending in fiscal 2027 spending to $18.8 billion — similar to the request rejected by Congress in the last fiscal year.Vaughn added that especially with Artemis 2 showing what that leadership represents, her take is the budget is “going nowhere” with Congress. The Planetary Socie …
