Bill Nye is in Washington, DC to Support NASA

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): An earlier image of Bill Nye showing his support for NASA employees. (The Planetary Society)

You may have heard that the federal government has shut down, but that did not stop the Planetary Society’s CEO Bill Nye from traveling to Washington, DC to protest NASA cuts. He was there with almost two dozen other organizations to protest the White House’s plans to cut 24 percent of NASA’s budget.

Highlighting the potential impact of cuts to NASA’s programs, Bill Nye stated:

The China National Space Administration is going fast, doing a lot of extraordinary missions very similar, almost mission for mission, to what the United States is doing and I’m telling you there’s going to be a Sputnik moment when Taikonauts, China National Space Administration space travelers, are on the moon in the next five years.

A recent report by the Ranking Member of the Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, titled The Destruction of NASA’s Mission, states the Trump Administration is already implementing the 2026 cuts at NASA even thought Congress has yet to approve a budget. The report summary notes:

As part of Ranking Member Cantwell’s oversight of the potential impacts of President Trump’s budget request (PBR) for Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26), Democratic staff of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation have uncovered evidence of an illegal plot already in motion. Based on whistleblower documents and interviews, this staff report finds that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has been directing NASA —since early summer— to begin implementing the devastating cuts demanded in President Trump’s proposed budget for FY26, in clear violation of the Constitution and without regard for the impacts on NASA’s science missions and workforce.

Not surprisingly, the law seems to be no barrier to bad behavior for this administration, yet Mr. Nye and others are not giving in or giving up. Nor should anyone who believes NASA represents the best of what our astronomers and scientists can accomplish. The size of the proposed NASA cuts for FY 2026 are shown below. It is brutal.

You can show your support for NASA by visiting the Planetary Society’s Save NASA Science page.

Image (Credit): Proposed cuts to NASA’s FY 2026 budget. (Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation)