On the brink of its greatest achievement in decades, NASA is facing science budget cuts | CNN

As four astronauts soar deeper into space than humans have traveled in decades, a quarter million miles away, back on Earth, the White House has proposed slashing the budget of the space agency that sent them there. The proposal, released Friday, includes a request to give a billion-dollar boost to the agency’s moon-focused Artemis program. But President Donald Trump is also requesting deep cuts to NASA’s science budget — nearly 50%. Overall, the budget proposal would cut the agency’s top line by $5.6 billion, or 23%. But this latest White House proposal raises questions about how space agency leadership intends to execute on its vision of sending humans to explore the cosmos while also gutting the research efforts that underpin the United States’ leadership in scientific endeavors. “There’s cuts to outer solar system programs, astrophysics, heliophysics — all things that feed into the human program and enable the human program,” said Jack Kiraly, the director of government relations at nonprofit exploration advocacy group The Planetary Society. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, who assumed the top role in December after a yearlong confirmation process, said he s