Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science · The Planetary Society

Looking back: Space policy and advocacy in 2025

·58 min·5 clips

The White House proposed halving NASA's science budget, threatening dozens of missions and sparking a historic fightback.

This episode of Planetary Radio reviews the pivotal space policy and advocacy efforts of 2025, hosted by Sarah Al-Ahmed of The Planetary Society. She is joined by the organization's space policy team: Chief of Space Policy Casey Dreyer, Director of Government Relations Jack Corelli, and AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow Dr. Ari Kopel. The discussion centers on the historic threat to NASA's budget and the unprecedented public campaign that countered it. The White House proposed cutting NASA's science budget by 47%, the largest single-year reduction in the agency's history, which the team describes as an "extinction-level event." This proposal jeopardized dozens of active missions and created significant uncertainty, even under a continuing resolution, about whether Congress-approved funds could be spent. In response, The Planetary Society and a coalition of 19 other space organizations mobilized a massive advocacy effort. This included a second "Day of Action" in Washington D.C., where over 250 advocates from more than a hundred countries met with 254 congressional offices. The event featured a press conference with Congressman Glenn Ivey and generated widespread media coverage. The advocacy campaign leveraged data visualization, with charts shared under a Creative Commons license, and utilized responsible AI tools to accelerate outreach. The team conducted over 200 press interviews, and their advocacy videos garnered more than 9 million views on Instagram. A key insight was the power of framing the budget cuts with compelling, data-backed language, such as the "extinction-level event" phrase that spread through media. The team's speed and agility allowed them to shape the narrative quickly, a significant advantage over larger, more consensus-driven organizations. The episode highlights that congressional pushback was directly fueled by constituent engagement, with over 84,000 advocacy messages sent through The Planetary Society's portal. Dr. Ari Kopel shares the personal significance of seeing the ESCAPADE mission, which carries an instrument he helped develop, launch successfully amidst the political turmoil. The confirmation of a new NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, occurred literally during the recording of this episode, adding another layer to a turbulent year. The tone is conversational, reflective, and deeply earnest, blending policy analysis with personal stories from the advocacy frontline. The style is educational and motivational, celebrating collective action while soberly outlining ongoing challenges. This episode will deeply resonate with space enthusiasts, policy wonks, and anyone interested in civic engagement and how grassroots advocacy can influence high-stakes government funding decisions. Listeners seeking only mission updates or pure astronomy science might prefer to skip it, as the focus is squarely on political process and public advocacy.

As heard by us

A clear look at how space policy gets fought for, not just debated.

Planetary Radio takes on the politics behind space exploration, and it treats 2025 as a turning point for U.S. space policy. It lays out the White House proposal for the largest single-year cut to NASA in the agency's lifetime, the near-halving of NASA's science budget, and the…

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For when you want the inside story on NASA science policy.

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