Phil PlaitI am furiously, flamingly, incandescently, *supernova-levels* of angry right now.
Trump is trying to kill NASA science. And hoo boy, do I have something to say about it.
https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/trump-threatens-to-eviscerate-nasa-cb96
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)When communicating this, I'd focus on this paragraph:
That means the NASA budget was only 0.004 of the national budget — less than half a percent
More specifically, don't talk about the percentage cut. Talk about what they're reducing it to: 0.2% of the national budget.
A few years ago (I don't have the source to hand) there were some interesting surveys of perceptions of NASA funding. There were two conclusions:
- Most people thought NASA received too much money.
- Most people believed the funding should be reduced to around 3-5% of the national budget.
People generally thought NASA received more than an order of magnitude more money than it did. Telling them that this budget is being but by more than 50% will have them nodding and saying 'good, they can become more efficient'. Telling them that it's cut back to 0.2% of national budget will have them saying 'How can they possibly survive on less than a tenth of what they got last year?'.