Comment: Can NASA’s popularity save it from deep budget cuts?

By Adam Minter / Bloomberg Opinion

President Trump’s budget cutters have turned their attention to the one government agency that almost everyone likes. Last week, his administration proposed a roughly 25 percent trim to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration budget and a whopping 47 percent hit to its science funding. Adjusted for inflation, that’s the smallest White House allocation request for NASA since 1961, the year that the first American flew into space.

The damage to U.S. leadership in science and technology will be significant. That part is clear. But the harm to the country’s image at home and abroad deserves closer attention because by chopping away at NASA, the Trump administration is marring one of America’s most powerful brands and instruments of soft power.

You don’t need to visit the United Nations to understand NASA’s influence. Just check out a Target Corp. store. T-shirts and hoodies displaying the NASA logo and brand are mainstays in adult and kids apparel (the company sells hundreds of varieties on its website). Can’t make it to Target? Gap Inc.’s Old Navy, Hot Topic, and other American retailers have their own NASA merchandise.

The phenomenon isn’t just American. Chinese e-commerce sites are filled with NASA-branded apparel, even as tensions between the countries rise. Travel almost anywhere in the world, and sooner or later, someone — probably a young person — will walk by wearing a NASA backpack, hat or shirt.

Let’s face it: These are unusual fashion choices. After all, even the most patriotic senior citizen isn’t likely to wear a Social Security Administration hoodie. National park fans might occasionally wear a Yellowstone or Yosemite tee, but those parks, as beautiful as they are, don’t inspire luxury collections from Coach and Vivienne Tam; and NASA has.

What makes the agency so different? No doubt, some people are attracted to the retro-chic look of its two logos (affectionately known as the worm and the meatball).

But NASA’s brand and reputation isn’t just about fashion, of course. For decades, the agency has embodied can-do American positivity and ingenuity. Amidst growing techno-pessimism (especially regarding artificial intelligence), the agency still represents techno-optimism and a belief that good old-fashioned innovation can build a future that benefits everyone.

It’s a reputation built on six decades of scientific achievement and discovery. From the Apollo moon landings to the remarkable 2022 unfolding of the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s science always manages to engage a distracted public. A 2023 Pew Research poll taken months after NASA shared the first images from the Webb found that 26 percent of the American public had seen an image from a space telescope, including the Webb, in the last year.

Perhaps most remarkably, the anti-government populism that’s eroded trust in so many institutions hasn’t dented NASA. In 2015, Pew found that 68 percent of Americans viewed the agency favorably; in 2024, Pew found that 67 percent of Americans still felt that way.

Globally, its reputation is just as solid. Foreign space agencies, research institutes and universities clamor to collaborate with NASA. Likewise, 55 foreign governments have signed onto the Artemis Accords — a set of principles and guidelines for how space can be used — which the agency helped develop and was announced during Trump’s first term.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise. The president was an advocate for NASA then. He boosted the agency’s budget and set ambitious exploration targets, including a rapid return to human exploration of the moon. In doing so, he seemed to recognize that NASA — and its sterling global reputation — could enhance his political prospects and cement his legacy.

Trump’s second term hinted at a continued embrace. For example, Jared Isaacman, the president’s selection for NASA administrator, is an e-payments pioneer who has flown on two private space missions with SpaceX. That’s an ideal background for working with the private sector companies increasingly critical to American pre-eminence in space.

But over the last several days, Trump has shown that his support for NASA and space exploration was, at best, a phase. In a shocking move, he pulled his support for Isaacman’s nomination despite broad bipartisan support for the entrepreneur.

Far worse are Trump’s proposed budget cuts. Eviscerating the science budget by nearly half means the end of dozens of missions, many of which have and continue to deliver data and images that tantalize scientists and the global public. It also means that potentially thousands of experienced NASA employees — including engineers and scientists— will be cut with them. Among the expeditions that are in danger are deep space missions, such as New Horizons, that can take decades to conceive, launch and reach their destinations. One such endeavor, OSIRIS-APEX, can also contribute to planetary defense from asteroid impacts.

Those are precisely the kinds of missions that Americans want more of; and that have made NASA a global brand.

Some expeditions were preserved, and human exploration will continue and even expand. But hitting the collective shutdown button on dozens of active missions that have fascinated and inspired many is a challenge to NASA’s can-do reputation.

While no single budget cut can completely extinguish the public’s passion for NASA, signaling that an agency known for expanding horizons is now narrowing its vision sends a disheartening message about our commitment to innovation and wonder.

Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of sports. He is the author, most recently, of “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale.”