On Monday, shortly after the Artemis II crew completed hours of observations of the far side of the moon, President Donald Trump called to congratulate the astronauts on their feat.
“Hello to Artemis II. Today, you’ve made history and made all [of] America really proud, incredibly proud,” Trump, alongside NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, told the crew on a call that was beamed to their Orion spacecraft. “Humans have really never seen anything quite like what you’re doing in a manned spacecraft. It’s really special.”
The Artemis II crew, which includes NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, set a record Monday for the farthest any human had traveled from Earth—surpassing that of Apollo 13 in 1970. At the farthest point, they were 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers) from Earth, according to NASA. The crew also observed a solar eclipse as the moon passed in front of the sun.
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Yet although President Trump exchanged pleasantries with the Artemis II astronauts, the White House federal budget proposal for fiscal year 2027 has been working its way through Capitol Hill. It proposes to reduce NASA’s overall funding by nearly a quarter and to slash NASA’s science budget by nearly half. In inflation-adjusted dollars, if enacted into law, the White House’s spending plan for NASA is estimated to be the smallest budget the space agency has seen since 1961. (The previous White House budget proposal for FY 2026 sought similar cuts for the space agency but was rebuffed by rare bipartisan pushback from Congress.)
Advocates for space exploration have condemned the budget cuts. Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the non-profit Planetary Society, told Nature that the latest White House budget proposal was “an extinction-level event for science” at the space agency. “It would undermine and prevent NASA from being the world leader in space exploration.”
In a previous statement, Isaacman said he “strongly support[s]” the president’s fiscal policies. “The requested funding levels are sufficient for NASA to meet the Nation’s high expectations and deliver on all mission priorities,” he said. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump appeared to reference his support for the agency’s work in his call on Monday, noting his first-term decision to back space exploration and set up the U.S. Space Force. “You know, I had a decision to make in my first term, and the decision is ‘What are we going to do at NASA?’” the president told the crew.
The conversation appeared to hit a hiccup midway through, with neither the astronauts nor Trump speaking in an extended silence. After a full minute, the crew asked for “a quick comm check,” only for Trump to reply that he was still on the line.
“I want to look forward to seeing you in the Oval Office," Trump said on the call. “I’ll ask for your autograph, because I don’t really ask for autographs much, but you deserve that.”
Editor’s Note (4/6/26): This is a developing news story and will be updated.
