US President Donald Trump last week laid out one of the biggest challenges ever for NASA — to land the first humans on Mars.

But his detailed budget request for the fiscal year 2026 also proposed cancelling dozens of the space agency’s missions , including projects to study Earth, Mars and Venus. And the next day, on 31 May, Trump withdrew his nomination for NASA chief, the businessman and commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman.

All of this has left the space agency in turmoil, and the scientists who normally participate in NASA’s missions split over whether they support the push for the red planet.

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