15.04.2025

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. (7News) — NASA's scientific research could get slashed in half in one current budget proposal.

A lot of that work was done from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center just outside the Beltway in Prince George's County.

"We are really concerned both for what this will mean for our leadership in astronomy and astrophysics," said Dara Norman, an astronomer and president of the American Astronomical Society.

Before going to graduate school, she worked at NASA Goddard.

"The money that’s given to NASA that goes out to researchers is spent in important ways for our economy," she said. "Both on students and training students."

Lawmakers, including Senator Chris Van Hollen, met with Goddard leadership Monday and spoke afterward about the potential cuts.

"When you pull the plug on major space science, it’s like eating your seed corn; it’s so damaging to our entire ecosystem when it comes to American leadership and innovation in this area," Van Hollen said. "We will lose engineers, we will lose others to China. In fact, they are launching a major space exploration initiative."

According to NASA, the facility employs more than 10,000 civil servants and contractors.

Congressman Glenn Ivey said it's much more than it forms an ecosystem with the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins, the Army Research Lab and the NSA.

"We have all these assets that are working together, working on behalf of American people," Ivey said. "If you break it off, it undermines the work they are doing to keep America safe and keep us in front of technological advances."

The President and Elon Musk-led DOGE are trying to rein in what they call government waste.

Musk said last week he anticipates his initiative will save $150 billion, which is down from the $1 trillion he pitched.

"We are happy to work with anybody who wants to work with us to understand the importance of science in our community and for our leadership in the world," Norman said.

7News also reached out to Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, as they have been involved in the launch of the Webb Telescope, but they said they could not comment given their close work with NASA.

Quelle: 7News