Nasa brought crashing down to earth as budget threat follows lunar success

Artemis II inspired the public but the Trump administration wants to slash the science underpinning human spaceflight

It should have been a victory lap for Jared Isaacman. The Nasa administrator was in Washington DC for what he surely hoped would be a celebration with lawmakers and the US president, little more than two weeks after the successful conclusion of the first human journey around the moon in more than half a century.

Instead, last week began with some difficult questions in Congress about the Trump administration’s unpopular plan to slash the space agency’s budget. It ended at the White House with the president appearing to poke fun at his prominent ears, watched by four bemused Artemis II astronauts waiting in vain for any question about their historic mission.