INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
In the nearly two weeks since Ars reported on the Trump administration's proposed budget cuts for NASA's science programs, scientists and
Democratic lawmakers have both expressed deep concerns about the future of the space agency.However, in a pattern consistent across a host
of issues in which GOP lawmakers do not want to be seen to be publicly criticizing the Trump administration, the response to these sweeping
cuts from Republican officials has been much more muted.But this week, three prominent Republican space policy officials broke their silence
In an op-ed published Tuesday on Real Clear Science, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former House Chair Robert Walker, and the head of
the landing team for NASA for the Trump-Vance transition team, Charles Miller, said they were "deeply disturbed" by the proposed cuts
All three men have played an important role in setting Republican space policy over the last decade.The cuts were part of a "passback"
proposal sent to NASA leadership by the White House Office of Management and Budget two weeks ago
Overall, the White House sought a 20 percent cut for NASA, but by far the deepest cuts were earmarked for the agency's science division: a
two-thirds cut to astrophysics, down to $487 million; a nearly 50 percent cut to heliophysics, down to $455 million; a greater than 50
percent cut to Earth science, down to $1.033 billion; and a 30 percent cut to planetary science, down to $1.929 billion."Certainly, the
Republican officials wrote this week
