Ammon News - U.S. President Donald Trump's budget proposal seeks to axe key parts of NASA's moon program with a $6 billion cut for the space agency's 2026 budget, but provides a boost to the Mars-focused agenda pushed by billionaire SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

The outline of Trump's proposed 2026 budget, released on Friday, would cancel NASA's over-budget Space Launch System (SLS), a gigantic rocket built by Boeing and Northrop Grumman, and its Lockheed Martin-built Orion crew capsule after their third mission in 2027 under the agency's Artemis program.

Cutting 24% of NASA's current $24.8 billion budget, the proposal threatens to cancel major science programs affecting thousands of researchers worldwide. It would upend active contracts defended for years in Washington by an array of established NASA contractors and overturn missions and programs in which U.S. allies play key roles, such as the European Space Agency, Canada and Japan.

Nearly all parts of NASA face deep cuts except for its human exploration portfolio, in which the administration proposed a $1 billion boost for "Mars-focused programs." This portends a major revision to the Artemis effort that leans toward SpaceX CEO Musk's vision to send humans to the Red Planet. Reuters