NASA Staff To Mark Moon Landing Anniversary with a Protest Against Trump

On July 20, 1969, NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong took humankind’s first steps on the Moon. And now, 56 years later, a group of NASA employees are set to mark that giant leap this weekend with a protest against the Trump administration’s budget cuts to the agency.

The Goddard Engineers, Scientists, and Technicians Association (GESTA), an employee association from within NASA, plan to demonstrate on Sunday, July 20, in Washington D.C. against the cuts, which they say would effectively slice NASA’s science budget in half. The group also plan to protest against NASA’s current leadership, arguing that the agency has already started acting on the proposed 2026 budget with staff layoffs and contract terminations.

“We are gathering on the historically appropriate Moon Day, the anniversary of the first human to set foot on the surface of the Moon, to try and save the agency that has inspired the world,” the group wrote in a statement.

NASA is facing a $6 billion cut to its overall budget for 2026 compared to this year. Critics have argued that the funding shortfall will significantly affect the agency’s biggest science missions, and potentially delay it even further from its goal of landing astronauts on the Moon this decade.

Under the proposed budget, funding for NASA’s planetary science would drop from $2.7 billion to $1.9 billion, endangering dozens of active and planned missions. Among them are the iconic New Horizons probe, which in 2015 became the first mission to visit Pluto, and is still returning valuable data from deep space.

The budget would also gut the funding for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory: In this scenario, LIGO, which facilitated the first direct observation of gravitational waves, would receive $29 million instead of $48 million, and one of its two interferometers would be shut down.

The impact could be felt further afield: The European Space Agency recently revealed that three of its missions, developed in collaboration with NASA, are at risk of being canceled, including a space-based gravitational wave observatory, LISA. A contractor at NASA responsible for some of the staff working on LISA, which has been in the works for almost three decades, informed some employees that they risked termination by the end of September, Space.com reported.

The planned protest comes after NASA began implementing a reduction in force earlier this year, closing three offices and laying off staff in compliance with the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts. The agency also terminated $420 million in contracts.

“Current NASA leadership is already acting on the President’s and [Office of Management and Budget’s] proposed budget by beginning to greatly reduce the number of civil servants and contractors, which will be detrimental to the mission of this agency,” the NASA employee group wrote. “Cuts to NASA’s science budget will drastically hinder NASA’s ability to produce science from current and future missions.”

One small bright spot for the agency is the passage of President Donald Trump’s signature tax-and-spending measure: The law allocated about $9.9 billion extra funding to NASA to support the International Space Station, the Artemis missions, and other space exploration efforts, including potential missions to Mars.