ICYMI: Kelly Pens New York Times Op-Ed Warning Against NASA Cuts, Advocates for the Next Generation of American Innovation 

“I’m worried that President Trump is about to slow that engine down—and with it decades of American progress.” 

Today, Arizona Senator and former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly published an op-ed in the New York Times warning that President Trump’s proposed 25 percent cut to NASA’s budget and gutting of the agency’s work force would derail decades of innovation, undermine U.S. space leadership, and hand strategic advantage to adversaries like China.  

Click here to read the full op-ed. See key excerpts below:  

On what makes NASA great: 

“There’s no country better at solving hard problems than the United States, and there’s no better example of that than NASA. We put people on the moon in the 1960s with computers less powerful than the smartphone in your pocket. We built and launched a reusable rocket ship in the 1980s and used that to build a space station where astronauts can live and work in orbit. Just last week, we watched four astronauts launch an American-made rocket to the space station from American soil. NASA makes us proud to be Americans. And even more so, the agency is an engine of discovery and innovation that benefits all of us.” 

On the dangers of Trump’s proposed cuts:  

“I’m worried that President Trump is about to slow that engine down — and with it decades of American progress. That includes progress made during his own first term. Mr. Trump’s ongoing attempts to slash NASA’s work force and gut its budget send a message that America’s leadership in space is optional. It isn’t. […]  

“NASA is reportedly losing up to 4,000 employees, including some of its most experienced and specialized workers, because Mr. Trump is trying to take a sledgehammer to the civilian work force. It has a stand-in administrator in Sean Duffy, who has a second job running the Department of Transportation. And in May the Trump administration proposed a 24 percent cut to NASA’s budget — the largest single-year cut in history.”

On American leadership and the stakes  

“The growth of these private space partnerships is making America safer — while China and Russia mainly stick with government-owned launch systems, the U.S. Defense Department uses commercial launch services. That means the satellites our military and intelligence community use to communicate, detect missile launches and track threats get to orbit potentially cheaper and faster than our adversaries. Here’s the crazy thing: All of this progress is now at risk, including the very things that made NASA successful under Mr. Trump’s first administration. […]  

“While the United States is debating the mission, China is on the move — it’s built its own space station, landed rovers on the moon and is planning crewed lunar missions to launch by decade’s end. Just as in other sectors, if America abandons space to China, China will get to write the rules of the road and other countries will partner with China instead of us.”