I don’t have a typical blog post this month. Instead, I am sharing a letter I wrote to my government officials in response to the Big Beautiful Bills proposed budget cuts to NASA. While there were a lot of other things I would have liked to protest, I can only do so much, and this issue is something I felt I have a bit more of a persuasive connection to. Rather than letting this writing fade into the oblivion of whatever happens when I sent it to them, I decided to post it here. This went out to Representative Kat Cammack, Senator Rick Scott, and Senator Ashley Moody. Only Rick Scotts office responded in the 2 weeks since it was sent, and that response was boilerplate.
Dear XXXXXXXX,
I am writing to express deep concern with the recent Presidential Budget Request (PBR) which includes severe cuts across NASA particularly targeting the Science Mission Directorate. The proposed budget includes the termination of 19 active science missions (illustrated below), consequently wasting billions of taxpayer dollars that have already been invested. More specifically, NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences Division (BPS), which funds my current research and future work, faces a draconian 72% reduction in funds from $87.5M to just $25M. This budget includes only $13M for Physical Sciences research, $4M for Space Biology, and $4M for the Commercially Enabled Rapid Space Science Initiative (CERISS) initiative.
NASA funding is less than 0.5% of federal spending yet returns over $75 billion and supports over 300,000 jobs and hundreds of students, trainees, and workers from across the country many within Florida. Cutting this will impact the $5.9 contribution of space activities to Florida’s economy, reduce STEM training, and collapse our space science infrastructure.
I personally have received a dissertation improvement fellowship funded by NASA that enabled me to conduct experiments, gather data, build skills, and present findings at a national conference beyond the original scope of my degree that would not have been possible otherwise. Cutting funding to NASA, and subsequently the programs it supports removes these workforce development opportunities for your constituent students, looking to study and work in Florida’s space industry.
I urge you to oppose these cuts that undermine scientific progress and workforce development. At a minimum, please support a bipartisan funding floor to maintain the FY25 budget ($87.5 million) for the Biological and Physical Sciences Division within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD). Doing so ensures the education, recruitment and retention of a skilled workforce, like myself, dedicated to serving Florida and its world-class space industry the likes of which takes decades to develop.
Your constituent,
Donald S. Coon
Ph.D. Candidate, University of Florida, Agricultural and Biological Engineering
Education and Outreach Student Chair, American Society for Gravitational and Space Research
Proudly written without large language models
©Donald Coon 2025 available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15783948
This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Donald S. Coon 