President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposal would allocate $19.1 billion for NASA, which represents a $561 million reduction from the agency’s budget under the FY 2017 omnibus spending bill, Space News reported Tuesday.
Trump proposed scrapping five Earth science programs to help NASA save approximately $191 million and shut down the agency’s Office of Education, according to the report.
Those projects include the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem satellite; Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory Pathfinder; Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 instruments; Deep Space Climate Observatory Earth-viewing instruments and the Radiation Budget Instrument.
NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot said in a statement posted Wednesday the White House’s budget request would fund 18 Earth-observing programs and airborne missions and continue support for various research programs.
Trump also wants the agency to discontinue the Asteroid Redirect Mission and retain some technologies developed under the program to aid future deep space missions.
NASA would receive $1.8 billion for its Earth science program and another $1.93 billion for planetary science under the budget request — a $167 million decrease and an $83.5 increase from the agency’s 2017 budget, respectively.
