As many of you are no doubt aware, in the past few days the US Congress voted to make major cuts to scientific research, and the president signed the bill. The government’s National Science Foundation has been cut by more than half, which means that its actual science budget has been cut by much more than that after you account for fixed costs. So vast, sudden and draconian are these cuts that it will take a long time for me and others in the field to figure out what has actually happened.
The reductions seem extreme, quite arbitrary and very poorly thought out. As an example, half of the LIGO observatory (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, whose amazing discoveries, such as this one and this one, earned the United States a Nobel Prize in 2017) is being hit hard. There are currently two interferometers, one in Washington state and one in Lousiana, but one has been largely defunded in this bill, if I understand correctly.
I can see the logic: the scientists have two interferometers, but in tough times they ought to be able to get along with just one, right?
Well, that’s like cutting off one of a runner’s legs. Two were built because two were needed.
With just one, the signal from most gravitational wave events is so weak that you can’t distinguish it from noise. Other interferometers around the world just aren’t working well enough to make up for throwing away one of LIGOs. (And besides, you need three or four interferometers around the world to be able to know precisely in the sky where the waves are coming from, knowledge which can make other major discoveries possible.)
According to Science magazine, “In a two-sentence email to Science, an NSF spokesperson said the plan reflects `a strategic alignment of resources in a constrained fiscal environment.’ “
This is not strategic. This is stupid. The amount of money saved, less than 10 cents per year per US citizen, is very small compared to what we as a nation have already spent on this wonderful facility, and cutting LIGO in half makes it dramatically less than half as good — so this is actually a big waste of money both past and future. The decision to make this cut in this way is nothing short of ridiculous and incompetent.
[Not to mention that “constrained fiscal environment” is quite a phrase when you’re increasing the budget deficit rather than shrinking it.]
I fear there are many other similar examples to be found.
20 Responses
Pleasant to hear from you, despite the political nature of the post. Do you foresee a brain drain from the US as a consequence of these cuts?
Matt, you are not Trump-MAGA electors, you are too intelligent. MAGA ppl in majority are low IQ and marginals. So you are cut, money goes to BBB that gives illusion to marginals that they become rich at last.
I see this from Europe (France) with consternation. LIGO was a great technological achievement, reaching a sensitivity never obtained before. To gain the most information from this instrument, you need the difference of time the signal reach different observatories to tell the direction where it comes from, and the astrophysical event it can be linked.
There are other Gravitional Waves observatories in the world (VIRGO), but these two were the most effcient and experienced.
I see with sadness America killing its greatests achievements, science, that led to many Nobel Prizes, to the developpement of technologies, that eventually let its enterprises at the forefront in the world. It even attacks its own universities, the best renowned in the world, like Harvard.
It paves the way for China to be the next science leader, and soon you will need to learn Mandarin, not English, to read the best science papers…
Trump presidence will not make America Great Again, bu to the contrary leads to its decline.
Dear Matt,
instead of saying «keep funding both LIGO detectors», the main Snowmass document said: «HEP communities must engage in … critical race theory». Before complaining about cuts, US physics should replace its leadership that politicised science but kissed the wrong ass.
Does anybody dare to disagree with the top HEPAP panel member who recently announced at the Socialism 2025 conference that “non-binary people find wave-particle duality very straightforward”? If not, don’t be surprised that the US president says that academia is “controlled by Marxist maniacs and lunatics” and cuts accordingly.
There may be hope because budget reconciliation (the bill that Trump signed into law on July 4th) is different from the process by which agencies and non-entitlement programs such as LIGO are funded (appropriations). https://aas.org/posts/news/2025/07/reconciliation-vs-appropriations. This is not to suggest that the former is unimportant, and more broadly of course it is deeply troubling what is afoot regarding higher education and science funding generally. However, I am hopeful that the PI’s for LIGO at both facilities still have time and opportunity to argue for preservation of funding via the ongoing appropriations process.
“The dread I’ve felt about the dissolution of the US exploratory space program is becoming more and more real every day.”
— Dr Glenn Orton, Caltech/NASA/JPL, planetary scientist (JUNO Jupiter mission)
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/07/trump-administration-moves-to-tighten-the-noose-around-nasa-science-missions/
“Science at risk
The Trump White House released its proposed budget for NASA a little more than a month ago, seeking to reduce NASA’s budget by about 24 percent, from $24.8 billion this year to $18.8 billion in fiscal year 2026. Some areas within the budget were hit harder than others, particularly the Science Mission Directorate, which sustained nearly 50 percent in proposed cuts.
The space agency has 124 science missions in development, prime operations, or extended operations. Effectively, the proposed cuts would cancel 41 of these missions, and another 17 would see their funding zeroed out in the near future. Nearly half of NASA’s science missions would therefore end, and dozens more would receive budget cuts of 20–40 percent.
This includes some high-profile casualties, including NASA’s only mission at Jupiter, an effort to explore an asteroid that will fly extremely close to Earth in 2029, two promising missions to Venus, and an effort to return samples from Mars.
“We would be turning off some fabulous missions that are doing extremely well,” said Jim Green, a physicist who led NASA’s Planetary Science Program for 12 years before his retirement in 2022.”
My understanding is that the huge thing passed last weekend was not actually intended to be the final budget, but rather a “let’s use the form of a budget bill to get as much of our real policy agenda enacted in One Big Blob” gambit.
Basically, the Republicans needed to get around the de facto supermajority 60 vote requirement in the Senate for normal legislation. The main hack the political parties use to do that is “budget reconciliation”- per the US Constitution, budget bills have to begin in the House & because of this there are some (relatively arcane) special Parliamentary rules that allow such a bill to avoid the Senate filibuster. So for Trump to enact a bunch of his policy goals he decided the only path to get them through Congress was to bundle them up into a giant “budget” bill that could be passed on a pure party-line vote. And that’s exactly what happened.
There’s already talk about follow up bills focusing on ACTUAL budgeting, not just using it as a cover for general legislation, such as the supposed “DOGE recissions” efforts. It’s in these follow-up bills that we citizens should focus on trying to undo the total mess the current blob makes of NSF & related science funding before it fully goes into effect. That’s where the focus of lobbying and political pressure needs to be made now. One strategy would be to offer to trade Trump something, like one of the pieces that didn’t survive into the final version of his blob, in exchange for undoing these science funding cuts. Heck, maybe pair legislating some of the DOGE cuts with restored science funding so that he brag about it being a “bipartisan” spending bill.
It may just be wishful thinking, but it’s the best approach I can think of for this. You ‘give’ the GOP something it could potentially ram through Congress on a party line vote anyway for something of nonzero value, namely undoing these disastrous cuts to scientific research.
That is indeed extremist anti-science. It was enabled by the extremist anti-science of the previous administration. To end this destructive game, we must reject it whichever team has the ball.
I mourn LIGO (and US science in general, as well as global health), but hold out hope for remedial action here. Even if not, KAGRA should be returning to operation as we write, and hopefully it can get closer to advanced LIGO sensitivity this time around.
And in the long term, Europe will launch LISA to complement the Earth based interferometers with a slightly different window into larger black holes and other astronomical systems.
America giving up its scientific global leadership because politicians don’t understand the science. Tragic!
Politicians never understood science. That’s not new.
What’s new is the previous government commanded the entire nation to take an experimental medication under penalty of law, lied about benefits and risks, censored disagreement, and demonized people who asked questions.
Because we Democrats let our party perpetrate this crime against humanity in the name of science, we lost the election and now have a govt that can shred legitimate science.
That’s an interesting take. I would point out that the Trump administration of 2016-2020 proposed equally draconian cuts to science. What’s new is that the Congress voted in favor of it this time.
It’s dumb all around, because if you’re right, we put medical research and government policy in the same bucket as astronomy. That’s really, really dumb.
we will have to cope.. perhaps by an international consortium for Science Physics and Maths research. As an artist who must exist art for arts sake I can offer that resource, finding physics virtually art I self tought contribute my researches… chronicle as best I can, will put out a book hopefully Oxford Press but otherwise for Physics which itself is art and likewise Maths I can only offer that solitary life style with amazement the priveleges of funding have been with drawn from the American State yet facts are facts… As the Iching puts it the times are not supportive and the world may well be out of time.
It is the life sciences that is hit hardest, with scientists scrambling to back up what was supposed to be open and imperishable data before the DOGE “forbidden terms” list using censors gets there.
The erased trust between the US administration and global science may become the consequence that will stay longest.
Be careful what you say. This is skirting treasonous territory!
Treason, to call acts of Congress stupid? Everyone in the country does that on a regular basis.
I was (bitterly) joking. I know the constitutional definition of treason well. But you-know-who has repeatedly called for people he dislikes to be prosecuted for treason, so …
Some would argue that the money is needed for military parades to honor Commander Heel spur.
Germany 1930s
After the war, Nuremberg trials established Informed Consent as a basic human right in medicine. The last administration violated that en masse. That’s why the current admin won, although it is also anti-science. We have to know the cause to find the cure!