Launch Point

By Aleena Shinde

In the middle of amazing discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope’s breathtaking images of ancient galaxies to plans for sending astronauts back to the Moon, it feels like space exploration is thriving. But there’s a serious problem where NASA is facing major funding cuts and that could slow down or even derail the future of space science.

In the proposed U.S. budget for 2025, NASA’s funding is set to be reduced by over $500 million compared to previous years. This may seem like a drop in the bucket for a government agency, but for NASA, every dollar is carefully allocated to ambitious missions and critical science. The cutbacks have already forced delays in the Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon for the first time since 1972. With each delay, our goal of reaching Mars moves further into the future.

Projects like the Lunar Gateway, a planned space station that would orbit the Moon and serve as a stepping-stone to Mars, may be scaled back or postponed. In addition, important Earth science missions, like those monitoring climate change, rising sea levels, and natural disasters from space, face uncertain futures.

But these cuts don’t just affect astronauts and rocket launches. NASA supports a vast amount of scientific research, university partnerships, internships, and STEM education programs. Many high school and college students, like myself, dream of contributing to these missions through internships or research. Reduced funding means fewer of those opportunities, which affects not just NASA’s future workforce, but also the innovation pipeline of the entire country.

NASA is also a driver of everyday technologies we now take for granted like GPS, weather satellites, water purification systems, and even some medical devices that began as NASA projects. The long-term, high-risk research that NASA pursues often leads to breakthroughs that private companies wouldn’t take on alone. When we cut NASA’s budget, we limit the discoveries that ripple out into medicine, transportation, communications, and energy on Earth.

Meanwhile, other countries, including China and India, are increasing their space investments. If the U.S. scales back its commitment, we risk losing leadership in space exploration and technology development. While commercial companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are doing exciting work, NASA plays a unique role. it leads international collaboration, sets safety and science standards, and conducts research that isn’t driven purely by profit.

As students, we have a stake in this. The decisions made today will shape the opportunities available to our generation tomorrow. Whether we dream of becoming astronauts, engineers, climate scientists, or biologists studying life in microgravity, space science needs public support.

Investing in NASA isn’t just about exploring distant planets, it’s about building a smarter, safer, and more inspired future here on Earth.