This is not a new idea. Following the successful launch of the Artemis II mission this week, NASA will fly the SLS rocket at least a few more times, perhaps through Artemis V, as ordered by Congress. The budget proposal released Friday supports the plan. Isaacman has expressed a desire to see NASA move away from the expendable SLS rocket when commercial alternatives such as SpaceX’s Starship or Blue Origin’s New Glenn become available for human launches. That’s still at least several years away.
“To execute missions beyond Artemis V, NASA will initiate a new procurement to acquire commercial transportation services to launch astronauts to rendezvous with lunar landers,” the agency said in a budget summary published Friday. This new procurement is expected to begin in fiscal year 2027, NASA said.
Elements of the vision unveiled last week by Isaacman and other NASA officials, such as deep space nuclear propulsion, nuclear reactors on the Moon and the possibility of lunar resources, will require significant investment in new space technology. A new space technology project to be initiated by NASA under this budget is funding to support a commercial effort to produce, store, transfer, and test rocket propellant generated from resources on the lunar surface.
But the overall news is not good for NASA’s space technology portfolio. The White House has proposed cutting NASA’s Space Technology Directorate by $297 million over this year — and $476 million over 2025 — with cuts aimed at what the Trump administration calls “frivolous technology projects with no application.”
The White House Budget Office has also proposed a $1.1 billion cut in funding for the International Space Station, keeping the ISS’s retirement and de-orbit on track for 2030. This is in contrast to a congressional bill supported by key lawmakers, including Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), which is extending the ISS until 2032.
NASA last week announced a new strategy to help commercial companies develop their own crewed outposts to replace the ISS in low-Earth orbit. Despite delays and concerns about preparing a new commercial station when NASA retires the ISS, the White House requested only a small increase in funding for the program in 2027.
The administration’s spending plan would continue Trump’s long-running effort to zero out funding for NASA’s education programs.
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