The NASA Glenn Research Center, long considered the crown jewel of Northeast Ohio’s scientific community, faces a potentially devastating future under Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts.

In what Today in Ohio described as Trump’s war on science and intellectual pursuits, the administration’s plan would slash NASA’s overall budget by nearly 25 percent, with particularly severe impacts on the Brook Park facility.

“This is a gut punch for Northeast Ohio,” Leila Atassi explained. “Trump just proposed, or the administration just proposed, slashing NASA’s budget by nearly 25 percent. And that would mean some major cuts. At the NASA Glenn Research center in Brook Park, we’re talking about losing more than 550 full time jobs at Glenn alone, cutting the workforce from nearly 1,400 people down to just over 800.”

The broader implications extend far beyond Northeast Ohio. The cuts would reduce NASA’s overall budget from $24.8 billion this year to $18.8 billion next year—a level that, adjusted for inflation, would be the lowest since 1961, before the Apollo program that took humans to the moon.

Space advocates are calling these proposed cuts “an extinction level event for science, research and education, outreach and hundreds of local economies that are tied to the agency’s work,” according to Atassi. Major projects like the Orion Spacecraft and the Space Launch System—both of which NASA Glenn has played significant roles in developing—would be canceled entirely.

While experts suggest the proposal is likely “dead on arrival” in Congress, the mere suggestion of such dramatic cuts sends a chilling message about the administration’s priorities. Chris Quinn observed on the podcast that these cuts appear to be part of a broader pattern: “When you look at the last four months since Donald Trump has been in office and all of the attacks he’s made in certain areas, it seems like he’s against intelligence and science. He’s savaging Harvard University. He has attacked colleges left and right, and now he is attacking our most significant science industry.”

This comes at a time when international competition in science and technology is intensifying. Quinn noted that “the smartest scientists are fleeing the country looking for opportunities elsewhere. And all the other nations on the planet are looking to welcome them and drain our brains.”

Northeast Ohio has worked for decades to position itself as a hub for aerospace innovation. NASA Glenn has been instrumental in research on aeronautics, space propulsion, communications technology, and energy systems. The proposed cuts would not only devastate the local economy but potentially set back critical research in areas where America has traditionally led the world.

Atassi suggested the motivations behind the cuts reflect both “lack of foresight and a failure to see down the road” as well as a single-minded focus: “All of these cuts are in service to one thing, which are tax cuts for the wealthy. So he’s just trying to find a way to afford that, and he doesn’t care what the casualties are.”

Local leaders, including Congressman Max Miller, are pushing back. Miller has expressed strong support for expanding Glenn’s footprint and has even suggested moving NASA headquarters to Ohio.

As Congress begins budget deliberations, the future of one of America’s premier scientific institutions—and a critical piece of Northeast Ohio’s economy and identity—hangs in the balance.

Listen to the episode here.

Note: Artificial intelligence was used to help generate this story from Today in Ohio, a news podcast discussion by cleveland.com editors. Visitors to cleveland.com have asked for more text stories based on website podcast discussions.

Listen to full “Today in Ohio” episodes where Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with Editorial Board member Lisa Garvin, Impact Editor Leila Atassi and Content Director Laura Johnston.