NASA is pulling funding from the independent scientific groups that have advised the agency on planetary exploration for decades, a decision that has left researchers scrambling to understand the rationale.

In a letter posted January 16, Louise Prockter, NASA's Planetary Science Division director, announced that the "Analysis and Assessment Groups" will lose funding toward the end of April 2026. The letter cited "several recent changes in the NASA landscape," including executive orders and a "highly constrained" budget.

What makes this particularly puzzling is what these groups actually do.

What's being lost

The assessment groups aren't bureaucratic overhead. They're working scientists - planetary geologists, astrobiologists, mission specialists - who provide independent community feedback to NASA on research priorities.

They've been instrumental in missions we all know: New Horizons to Pluto, the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on Mars, upcoming missions to Europa and Titan.

Jack Kiraly from The Planetary Society told Scientific American this is "such a strange decision with no clear rationale." He emphasizes that "consulting outside experts is critical for the success of the agency."

He's right to be puzzled. In science, peer review and external input aren't luxuries - they're how you avoid costly mistakes.

The cost-benefit doesn't add up

Here's what strikes me as particularly odd: these groups operate on shoestring budgets. We're not talking about massive savings here. What you're losing is institutional knowledge - the kind of expertise that prevents missions from overlooking critical science questions or engineering challenges.

When Curiosity landed in Gale Crater rather than somewhere else, that decision was informed by years of community input about where the most compelling science questions could be answered. When we chose Europa as a target for exploration, it was because the ocean worlds community had been making the scientific case for decades.

You can't recreate that overnight.

A broader pattern

This comes during a week when NIH advisory councils are being systematically emptied, potentially freezing billions in research funding. The U.S. has withdrawn from the World Health Organization. The pattern suggests a broader shift in how government agencies engage with scientific expertise.

NASA declined to provide additional comment beyond Prockter's letter.

Here's the thing about space exploration: it's expensive and it's long-term. Missions take a decade or more from concept to launch. You need continuity. You need people who remember why you made certain decisions, what alternatives were considered, what worked and what didn't.

The universe isn't going anywhere. But the infrastructure we've built to explore it - not just the spacecraft, but the community of knowledge that guides them - that's more fragile than people realize.

And once you lose it, rebuilding takes generations.