Casey Dreier

2 weeks ago | planetary.org | Casey Dreier

April 11, 2025 | 7:29 a.m. PTCasey Dreier, Chief of Space PolicyPassback is when the Office of Management and Budget — the White House's accounting arm — provides a near-final budget proposal to NASA prior to its official release. It's not set in stone, but it's very close to being so. Today, reporting indicates that NASA's passback decimates science: a 50% cut, falling particularly hard on Astrophysics (cut by 70%) and Earth Science (-53%).

3 weeks ago | sltrib.com | Casey Dreier

Roughly 120 light-years from Earth sits K2-18b, a planet bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, orbiting a cool dwarf star at just the right Goldilocks-like distance where it's not too cold and not too hot for liquid water to form. Some scientists suspect the planet's surface has a warm liquid ocean hundreds of miles deep.

Dec 9, 2024 | planetary.org | Casey Dreier

Canceling VIPER undermines the scientific credibility of NASA’s Artemis campaign and the goal of establishing a permanent human presence on the lunar surface. The rover — managed by NASA’s Ames Research Center and built by Johnson Space Center — would help determine the origin, distribution, and abundance of water on the Moon at scales relevant to future human explorers. It is the most significant U.S. science mission planned at the Moon this decade.

Sep 9, 2024 | planetary.org | Casey Dreier

By Casey Dreier, Planetary Society Chief of Space PolicyJupiter's moon Europa is one of the most promising targets in the search for life beyond Earth. Beneath its icy crust lies a layer of liquid water that may be hospitable to life as we know it. The Europa Clipper mission, which at the time of writing is due to launch in early October 2024, will make at least 45 flybys of Europa, maybe even soaring through plumes of water that shoot through the moon’s crust.

Mar 1, 2024 | scientificamerican.com | Casey Dreier

NASA’s proposed Mars Sample Return mission faced another setback in February, when its lead facility, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, laid off nearly a tenth of its workforce.