Budget Stability, Safety, and the National Interest
NASA’s scientific enterprise has long served as a cornerstone of American leadership in discovery, innovation, and aerospace safety. Through Earth-observing missions that inform climate resilience and disaster response, planetary science that advances fundamental knowledge, and astrophysics missions that push the boundaries of engineering and technology, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) delivers national value that extends far beyond individual mission lifecycles.
Today, however, NASA’s science portfolio faces growing structural pressures driven not by technical shortcomings, but by budgetary instability, funding misalignment, and an increasingly compressed execution environment. These pressures pose tangible risks not only to mission outcomes, but also to the highly specialized workforce, civil servants, federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs), and industry partners that are required to execute NASA science safely and effectively. In this sense, budget instability functions as a workforce risk multiplier, compounding programmatic risk and eroding institutional knowledge over time.
AIAA offers this assessment and accompanying policy considerations not as an advocate for any single mission or organizational model, but as a neutral technical convener representing the engineers and scientists responsible for executing NASA’s mission.
The Problem: Budget Volatility and Programmatic Risk
NASA science programs are uniquely sensitive to funding instability. Flagship and medium-class missions are developed over long time horizons, rely on deeply specialized technical teams, and require disciplined systems engineering to manage cost, schedule, and risk. When appropriations fluctuate year to year or when portfolios are reshaped midstream, program managers are often forced to make technical and workforce trade-offs that degrade safety margins and reduce scientific return.
Recent budget cycles illustrate that these risks are no longer theoretical. Proposals to reduce or restructure science funding, coupled with increasing pressure to rebalance portfolios within constrained toplines, have introduced uncertainty across mission formulation and execution. Even when proposed reductions are not enacted, prolonged uncertainty can delay early-phase work, slow hiring, disrupt contracts, and prompt experienced personnel to exit the workforce.
In practice, this instability manifests through delayed mission starts, disrupted procurement timelines, and pressure to absorb cost growth internally. These responses often take the form of deferred testing, instrument descoping, or postponed follow-on missions, actions that may appear manageable in the near term but introduce downstream technical and safety risk. Over time, these dynamics strain workforce continuity at NASA centers and FFRDCs such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), while also eroding the predictability required for industry and academia to sustain critical capabilities.
Safety Is Not Separate from Budget Policy
NASA’s safety culture is deeply embedded in its science programs. Redundancy, independent verification, rigorous testing, and conservative design margins are not optional features; they reflect decades of hard-earned lessons from complex mission execution.
Budget compression and instability place these principles under sustained pressure. When programs are asked to accommodate late funding changes or prolonged uncertainty, safety and mission assurance functions are often among the first areas scrutinized for efficiencies. Reduced test scope, deferred integration activities, and attrition among senior engineers correlate directly with increased technical risk and reduced margin.
Preserving safety requires more than internal agency policy. It requires congressional budget decisions that align with the realities of complex aerospace development and treat mission assurance as a foundational program element rather than discretionary overhead.
Preserving Science as a Strategic Capability
NASA science is not solely a research endeavor; rather, it is a strategic national capability that sustains a highly specialized workforce, supports university research pipelines, and underpins industrial capabilities essential to both civil and national security space missions.
Disruptions to science programs ripple outward across the aerospace ecosystem. Early career researchers face uncertainty, suppliers struggle to plan production, and experienced engineers may exit for more stable opportunities. These effects often lag initial budget decisions but later reappear as integration challenges, schedule slips, or reduced mission robustness. Once lost, institutional knowledge is costly and sometimes impossible to rapidly reconstitute.
From a policy perspective, preserving NASA science is inseparable from sustaining the nation’s long-term technical competitiveness and aerospace workforce.
NASA as Executor and NASA as Force Multiplier
Recent leadership statements have emphasized NASA’s role as a “force multiplier” for scientific discovery, particularly through expanded partnerships with industry and academia. In practice, this framing reflects an evolution, not a departure, from how NASA science has long operated.
Historically, NASA’s science enterprise has balanced two complementary roles. In some cases, NASA serves as the executing organization, responsible for end-to-end mission development, integration, and operations. In others, NASA acts as an enabling institution, amplifying discovery through partnerships with universities, industry, and international collaborators.
Partnerships can accelerate innovation and reduce time-to-science, but they shift risk rather than eliminate it. Government responsibility for mission assurance, systems integration, and long-term stewardship remains essential, particularly as architectures become more distributed or commercial. For NASA to function effectively as a force multiplier, budget stability and institutional continuity remain prerequisites.
The Role of the National Academies and Decadal Surveys
NASA science missions are not selected arbitrarily. They are the product of years of community-driven prioritization through the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and their decadal surveys. These surveys represent a non-political, consensus-based process that balances scientific ambition, technical feasibility, and budgetary realism.
Decadal surveys provide Congress, NASA, and the scientific community with a long-range roadmap that supports mission continuity and strategic sequencing. Disruptions to these planned priorities, whether through abrupt funding shifts or inconsistent execution, undermine both scientific return and cost efficiency.
Recognizing and reinforcing the role of the National Academies in setting science priorities strengthens transparency, accountability, and confidence in NASA’s science enterprise.
What Congress Can Do
Congress plays a decisive role in shaping the conditions under which NASA science succeeds. While individual mission choices remain within the agency’s purview, congressional budget and oversight decisions establish the structural environment that determines whether science programs can be executed safely, efficiently, and in alignment with long-term national priorities.
First, Congress can improve outcomes by prioritizing budget stability and sustained commitment to established science priorities. Where feasible, predictable funding profiles across a mission’s development lifecycle reduce cost growth, enable disciplined systems engineering, and lower overall technical risk. This stability is particularly important for missions aligned with priorities established through the National Academies’ decadal surveys, which represent a non-political, consensus-based roadmap developed years in advance. Disrupting these priorities midstream often increases costs and reduces scientific return rather than generating meaningful savings.
Second, Congress can protect early-phase mission formulation and technology maturation, which are among the most cost-effective investments NASA can make. Stable funding for pre-Phase A and Phase A/B activities allows NASA and its partners to mature technologies, conduct robust architecture trades, and retire technical risk early. When these activities are delayed or underfunded, risk is simply pushed downstream where it is more expensive to address and more likely to affect safety, schedule, and workforce stability.
Third, Congress can reduce inefficiency by minimizing disruptions caused by extended continuing resolutions. Science programs are particularly sensitive to delayed starts and constrained contract authority, which impede workforce planning and increase lifecycle costs. Targeted anomaly authority for critical science activities during temporary funding gaps could help preserve momentum and reduce avoidable cost growth without undermining fiscal discipline.
Fourth, Congress can play an important role in sustaining NASA’s science workforce and institutional knowledge base. Budget instability often manifests first as hiring freezes, delayed onboarding, and attrition among experienced personnel, including civil servants and staff at FFRDCs such as the JPL. Encouraging NASA to report periodically on science workforce health indicators, skill gaps, and institutional knowledge risks would provide policymakers with greater visibility into how funding uncertainty affects long-term capability, not just near-term program execution.
Fifth, Congress can help limit unintended risk by avoiding late-stage statutory direction that significantly alters mission scope, architecture, or requirements without corresponding adjustments to funding or schedule. Changes imposed late in development often introduce cost growth and technical risk that outweigh their intended benefits. Aligning direction with technical reality preserves mission integrity and improves the likelihood of successful outcomes.
Finally, Congress can continue to benefit from engagement with independent technical conveners. Neutral organizations such as AIAA can support policymakers by convening engineers, scientists, and program managers to provide non-advocacy, technically grounded insight into program risk, workforce impacts, and long-term capability trade-offs. Such engagement strengthens oversight by grounding policy decisions in engineering and programmatic reality.
Taken together, these actions reinforce a central principle: budget discipline and scientific ambition are not competing goals. When aligned with technical realities and long-term planning frameworks, they are mutually reinforcing and essential to preserving NASA’s science enterprise as a national capability.
AIAA’s Role Going Forward
AIAA does not take positions on individual missions or funding lines. Our role is to ensure policymakers understand the technical consequences of budget decisions and the conditions required for safe, successful aerospace programs.
As Congress evaluates NASA’s priorities in a constrained fiscal environment, sustained engagement with the technical community will be essential. Budget discipline and scientific ambition are not mutually exclusive, yet aligning them requires policy choices informed by engineering reality.
Preserving NASA’s science enterprise is ultimately about preserving national capability. With thoughtful congressional action, the United States can continue to lead in discovery, safety, and innovation without compromising the foundations that make that leadership possible.
References
- NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG). NASA’s Top Management and Performance Challenges. November 2024.
https://oig.nasa.gov/office-of-inspector-general-oig/2024-report-on-nasas-top-management-and-performance-challenges/ - Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP). 2024 Annual Report. February 2025.
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/asap-2024-annual-report-web.pdf?emrc=6944ac46622db - Government Accountability Office (GAO). NASA: Assessments of Major Projects. Annual series (most recent edition).
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107591 - American Association of Universities (AAU). AAU Signs Letter Opposing Proposed Cuts to NASA Science. 2025.
https://www.aau.edu/key-issues/aau-signs-nasa-letter-rejecting-proposed-47-cut-fy26 - American Astronomical Society (AAS). AAS Statement on Proposed Cuts to NASA Science Programs. 2025.
https://aas.org/press/aas-statement-nasa-cuts - The Planetary Society. Revisiting NASA Funding as the Government Reopens. 2025.
https://www.planetary.org/articles/revisiting-nasa-funding-as-the-government-reopens - Scientific American. Fedor, L. NASA Employees Warn Science and Safety Are at Risk from White House Budget. 2025.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasa-employees-warn-science-and-safety-are-at-risk-from-white-house-budget/ - Congressional Research Service (CRS). NASA: Budget, Authorization, and Appropriations Overview. (CRS report number varies by Congress; available to staff via CRS.)
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R43419
