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On April 3rd, the Administration released the 2027 President’s “skinny” budget, and several days later NASA released the full NASA FY27 Presidential budget request (PBR). You can download and read the budget request from NASA’s website. The FY27 budget request provides an eerie feeling of déjà vu. Like the FY26 PBR it again proposes existential cuts to NASA and to NASA’s Science budget specifically.
Following months of diligent advocacy by GESTA members and tens of thousands of citizens across the country, Congress passed, and the President signed into law a NASA budget that funds the agency from February 1st through September 30th, 2026. A Planetary Society article gives a detailed overview of the topline funding as well as a mission-by-mission comparison between the budget as passed and the FY26 President’s Budget Request (PBR). With the exception of Mars Sample Return, all missions that were threatened with premature termination under the PBR received funding in the budget as passed. Furthermore, the Safety, Security, and Mission Services (SSMS) budget received nearly-flat funding ($3B in FY26, as compared to $3.1B in FY24 and FY25). SSMS funds the Center Engineering, Safety, and Operations (CESO) budget, which includes institutional and technical capabilities, facilities, and technical authority functions at Goddard Space Flight Center.
We want to highlight several GSFC-specific points included in the budget that will be of interest to readers: On December 16th Russ Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced the Administration would be dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. This institute is a critical asset to our nation and world providing support for weather and climate data and modeling. NCAR is also a critical partner to NASA, including our members and employees at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has an action webpage where you can send a letter to your representative asking them to stand up for NCAR in upcoming appropriation bills: https://agu.quorum.us/campaign/151565/
As many are aware, union members and colleagues at the Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) were forced out of their current office space on May 31st, with no alternative office space yet identified. GESTA has been talking to employees at GISS in New York and meeting with management officials at Goddard to attempt to alleviate the impacts of the forced move out of the GISS building.
 We recently learned that the termination of the lease for our employees at the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) is scheduled for May 31, 2025, with no replacement office yet identified. GISS is a laboratory within the Earth Sciences Division of Goddard Space Flight Center, affiliated with Columbia University, in New York City. GISS is a leading center for Earth and planetary science research. Our GISS employees produce a suite of datasets fundamental to the understanding of our planet Earth and their work has aided in the prediction of storms, including Hurricane Sandy, California wildfires, and tornadoes and tsunamis affecting the entire globe. We urgently ask if you may write or call the political leaders in New York State, as well as your own congressional representatives, and ask them to support GISS. Please do so on your personal time, on a personal device in accordance with the Hatch Act. To help you advocate, templates with talking points and the representatives' contact information, can be found here.
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