New Delhi: In true Trump fashion, the United States President on 30 August hijacked the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s post-launch press conference on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to deliver an impromptu victory lap.
The interruption came roughly half an hour into a routine briefing at the Kennedy Space Center, where NASA’s head of science, Nicola Fox, was speaking to reporters on the mission’s progress.
In a clip, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman can be seen abruptly getting up mid-briefing and putting his phone to the speaker, saying, “You’re live, Mr President.”
Trump called in to praise NASA’s momentum in characteristically boastful terms, declaring the mission and the country “the hottest”, adding: “I just want to thank everybody and congratulate you.”
He further said that the launch had looked great on television and urged the team to keep the momentum going, calling them a big part of America’s space push. He also ribbed Isaacman, pointedly asking if there was any bad news he should be knowing about, such as the telescope being unable to return.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on Sunday morning.
NASA has described Roman’s field of view as roughly 100 times larger than that of existing space telescopes- the difference being Hubble and James Webb taking photographs of trees, while Roman can capture the entire forest. Roman has the capacity to image more sky in five years than Hubble managed in three decades. It is an unusual and ambitious milestone.
“Congratulations to NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, and the Great Patriots at NASA, on a successful launch. This is THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA,” posted Trump on Truth Social.
For NASA, Sunday marked the culmination of two decades of hard work. Meanwhile, the Trump administration sees it as another superlative to attach to an already unpopular President, making the internet’s frustration palpable.
The journey to Space
However, the irony of the moment is particularly rich considering that the Trump administration’s budget cuts tried to kill that very project. The $4.3 billion telescope narrowly survived three rounds of proposed White House budget cuts. Between 2019 and 2021, the administration proposed freezing the funding for the telescope, then called WFIRST, before being renamed after astronomer Nancy Grace Roman in 2020. However, Congress overrode the decision each time, including a $505.2 million appropriation that was written into law in December 2020.
The closest call came in April 2025, when leaked “pass back” budget documents proposed the largest cut in NASA history—roughly 24 per cent of the agency’s overall budget, with astrophysics research alone being cut by two-thirds and the total science funding being slashed by 50 per cent. The document reportedly preserved funding for the Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope but allocated nothing for “other telescopes,” including the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. This seemed like an effective death for the Roman telescope, because a separate proposal sought a 61.6 per cent cut from Roman’s fiscal 2024 operating level. Congress then passed a $24.4 billion NASA budget for 2026, which made Roman possible. Scientists finished assembling Roman in November 2025, and it now takes off to space. Roman is headed for the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2, roughly 930,000 miles from Earth, where it will study dark energy, hunt for exoplanets, and probe the physics of distant stars.
“It feels like I’m on the edge of a precipice, and we’re just about to set foot off into the unknown,” said astrophysicist Julie McEnry at Sunday’s press conference.
While NASA may have forgiven Trump, internet users, on the other hand, have a long memory, calling this another prop in his campaign to bask in the glory of a space mission he once tried to kill.
“Trump said ‘I supply you all the money’ while responsible for the biggest cut in NASA. Sure, the best POTUS ever; give him a medal. Oh, no need, he will give himself one,” read one X post.
“Trump has destroyed NASA and the science being led by NASA,” wrote another.
“NASA admits the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope will not be able to discover any intelligence in Trump,” posted another.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)