NASA has reduced $ 420 million for climate science, moon modeling and more

NASA has canceled contracts and subsidies of a value of up to $ 420 million, following the advice of the Department of Efficiency of the Government of the Trump Administration (DOGE). Cups will have an impact on research projects and educational programs across the United States, but NASA is close to confirming exactly the affected organizations.

After Doge, an independent working group directed in force by the technological billionaire Elon Musk, announced the cuts, NASA confirmed the amount but refused to specify which programs have been canceled. Casey Dreier At the Planetary Society, a non -profit organization based in California, compiled a list Programs that recently lost funding using the agency’s public subsidy database. NASA has since eliminated the database and has not answered questions about the accuracy of the list.

Numerous discounts of the Dreier list align with the skepticism of President Donald Trump towards climate science and the aggressive targeting of his administration of his interpretation of the programs of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

Climate cancellations include a project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which uses satellite sensors to map the impacts of extreme heat, air pollution and floods on prisons. Another target was research at the University of Oklahoma to develop digital twin simulations which predict the effects of floods on tribal land.

But we do not know why NASA has ended other research, such as the use of bio-conceived cells to examine how space flight affects the human body or the modeling of how lunar dust could contaminate future moon missions.

NASA spokesperson Bethany Stephens said New scientist that the agency “optimizing its workforce and resources in alignment with the initiatives of the Ministry of Efficiency of the Government”. Doge pushed agencies through the United States government to Bar financing Or close quite.

But the cancellations of subsidies and contracts in progress fly in the face of the “rigorous” examination process which selected them first as “the most scientifically deserving proposals”, says Michael Battalio at the University of Yale. “Politics cannot and should not define what is worth being studied in terms of individual subsidies,” explains Battalio, who studies the atmospheres of March and Titan in preparation for future missions.

“The cuts linked to Dei disrupt me the most,” says Bruce Jakosky at the University of Colorado Boulder, who was the main scientist in NASA MAVEN Mission at Mars. “These subsidies aim to reach out to under -represented groups and to ensure that people have access to training and education – none of them seems to consist in promoting less qualified people compared to more qualified people.”

For example, NASA has reduced the financing of a conference organized by the National Society of Black Physicians, a long-standing non-profit organization that promotes the professional well-being of African-American physicists and physics. “We were told that the reason for the cancellation of the contract was to comply with the president’s decree concerning Dei,” explains Stephen RobersonPresident of the National Society of Black Physicians. “We are looking to appeal this decision and receive additional clarifications on the reasons why our annual conference where people of all races and academic levels present their scientific work are considered to be dei.”

New scientist Tense to researchers and organizations who seem to have been assigned, but with the exception of the National Society of Black Physicists, most of them did not respond. The San Diego Air & Space Museum, which appeared on the Dreier’s list, said that its NASA financing for educational events seems to be always intact despite the NASA database showing a change in the end of the grant. NASA has not responded to a request to confirm the status of this funding.