Acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy says the agency will ‘move aside’ from climate sciences to focus on exploring moon and Mars

NASA’s acting Administrator Sean Duffy says the agency will step back from climate science to focus on space exploration — highlighting a growing shift in the agency’s overall mission.

The remarks echo President Trump’s NASA budget proposal, which seeks steep cuts to NASA’s Earth science initiatives, potentially putting several key missions at risk and raising concerns among researchers about gaps in climate monitoring and weather forecasts.

Speaking on Fox Business on Aug. 14, Duffy said NASA’s purpose is the exploration of space — not Earth’s climate. “All of the climate science and all of the other priorities that the last administration had at NASA, we’re going to move aside,” Duffy told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. “All of the science that we do is going to be directed towards exploration, which is the mission of NASA. That’s why we have NASA, is to explore, not to do all of these earth sciences,” he said.

During the program, Duffy criticized NASA’s “smorgasbord of priorities” and said future science will be focused on missions to the moon, Mars and low Earth orbit destinations following the decommission of the International Space Station (ISS), which is expected sometime after 2030.

He underscored how such exploration has inspired the U.S. in the past, referencing the Apollo missions, and drawing a parallel to current programs like Artemis that aim to return astronauts to the moon.

Duffy clarified his comments during a visit to NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in Houston on Monday, Aug. 18, saying that while other agencies have the opportunity to take the lead on climate science, NASA is the only agency capable of supporting human spaceflight. “That doesn’t mean that Congress hasn’t told us to do a few other things,” he said, confirming that NASA will still adhere to upcoming budget directives, adding, “We’re going to do those, but we are the only agency that’s going to explore [space].”

In an email to Space.com, a NASA spokesperson said Duffy’s remarks reflect a broad vision — not a directive — and that no missions have been cut or cancelled yet, citing pending congressional appropriations.

Duffy says tariffs haven’t hit consumer pockets — companies are eating the costs – YouTube

Watch On

NASA’s Earth science program has long stood as the world’s largest provider of climate and weather data, though both of Trump’s presidential terms have sought to minimize its focus at the space agency.

In Trump’s first term, Earth science faced repeated budget threats and potential cancellation of missions like Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3) and CLARREO Pathfinder. Now, the FY 2026 proposal seeks to cut NASA’s science funding by 47%, slashing Earth science by more than half.

Such cuts put long-term data records — like sea level measurements, carbon cycles and atmospheric dynamics — at risk. Proponents of the shift away from climate research argue this type of monitoring could be taken on by agencies like NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), freeing more resources at NASA to focus more on space exploration.

Despite political pressure at the time, several climate science satellites and ISS-based instruments moved forward under Trump’s first term, were launched and are still operational. OCO-3 was installed in the space station to monitor carbon dioxide levels in 2019, Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich launched in 2020 to measure sea level rise, and Landsat 9 launched in 2021 to continue a 50-year legacy of continual Earth imagery collected by the Landsat family since 1972, to name a few.

Each is still operational and highlights the persistence of spaceflight to withstand political volatility, but new Earth science projects could be vulnerable. Proposed FY 2026 cuts could end support for nearly 40 active and planned NASA science missions — many of them Earth-focused. Such a loss would be an unprecedented reduction in NASA’s science portfolio, with ripple effects for climate research worldwide.

Ultimately, the survival of these missions will hinge on Congress, which has the final say in NASA’s funding allocations. Appropriation decisions are expected by October — the start of the new fiscal year — though lawmakers in both chambers have already signaled resistance to the steepest science cuts presented in the president’s budget proposal.

Inside NASA, employees and contractors are also voicing concern. Some workers tied to missions flagged in the budget for cancellation have already received “at risk” notices warning their jobs may not be extended beyond Sep. 30, causing unease as political higher-ups duke it out over NASA’s future.