“Floating in the Pacific Ocean on Friday, the four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis II mission had achieved more than just a historic return to human spaceflight around the moon,” the New York Times reports.

“The successful conclusion of Artemis II sets NASA on a path to extend the agency’s achievements in space exploration, and, for now at least, the United States is ahead of China in a 21st century space race.”

Wired: “After traveling a greater distance from Earth than any humans before them, the astronauts of Artemis II have safely returned home.”

“NASA is hiring new talent to rebuild its ‘core competencies’ and meet the agency’s aggressive moon deadlines,” the Houston Chronicle reports.

“This push could reinvigorate the workforce and help NASA launch its moon rocket about every 10 months. But the timing comes just two months after thousands of civil servants received their final paycheck from last year’s buyouts, suggesting the workforce reductions were not conducive to NASA’s long-term goals.”

“Congress is racing to undo thousands of cuts to federal science programs that President Trump called for last year when planning the government’s current budget,” the New York Times reports.

“If enacted, the president’s bid for an overall cut in scientific funding to $154 billion from $198 billion — a plunge of 22 percent — would have been the largest reduction in federal spending on science since World War II, when Washington and the seekers of nature’s secrets began their partnership.”

“This week, the Senate Appropriations Committee released a bipartisan package of bills that largely scraps Mr. Trump’s planned cuts. Analysts say that, if the proposed budgets hold up in the weeks ahead, Congress will set aside roughly $188 billion for federal research — a drop of about 4 percent from the most recent annual budget.”

Washington Post: “Researchers and activists increasingly fear that under the Trump administration, the U.S. government is abdicating its historic role as a clearinghouse for reliable information — a momentous shift for what has been the world’s foremost producer of widely accepted data for everyone including academic researchers, local governments and ordinary citizens. Despite sharp swings in the worldview of successive presidents, most agencies have maintained their reputation for evenhanded information.”

“That may now be under threat.”

“American science is wobbling right now,” the New York Times reports.

“After cuts to federal funding and the firing or early retirement of thousands of government scientists this year, another blow to scientific research landed this week. The Trump administration on Tuesday night announced a plan to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., one of the world’s premier climate and weather science institutions.”

“News of the planned closure rippled through the annual gathering of the American Geophysical Union, an organization of Earth and space scientists, being held this week in New Orleans.”

“It used to be that once your star had fallen in Donald Trump’s orbit, it was destined never to rise again. Any number of discarded former allies stretching back to Trump’s first term of office could testify as much,” The Guardian reports.

“One who has emerged from a political black hole to return to the president’s firmament is the billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman, who will on Wednesday tell senators – for the second time – why he is the best person to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.”

“Isaacman’s return to the launchpad is an intriguing tale of politics, ambition and above all the vanity of a president determined to ensure the US flag is planted back on the surface of the moon before he leaves office in January 2029.”

“President Donald Trump’s pick to lead NASA, Jared Isaacman, will face another Senate confirmation hearing on Dec. 3, following the administration’s renomination of the fintech billionaire to run the agency,” Bloomberg reports.

“Some five months after President Trump abruptly yanked the nomination of the person he had chosen to lead NASA, he finally put forth a new nomination on Tuesday — of the same person,” the New York Times reports.

“Jared Isaacman, 42, a billionaire entrepreneur who led two private missions to orbit on SpaceX rockets, is again in line to become the next NASA administrator.”

“Jared Isaacman’s bid to take the top job at NASA — once thought dead in the Senate — has found renewed life as Sen. Tim Sheehy and a handful of high-profile supporters seek to help the tech billionaire supplant the acting head of the space agency, Sean Duffy,” Politico reports.

A new study of cognitive decline finds “individuals best suited for high-stakes decision-making roles are unlikely to be younger than 40 or older than 65.”

Jill Lawrence: “The trajectory from heart and lung transplant surgeon Bill Frist of Tennessee to gastroenterologist Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is emblematic of the dark Republican Party journey on science and health — from the Bush family to the Trump family, from American greatness to self-defeating denialism on everything from vaccines to cancer research.”

New York Times: “In rapid bursts, Mr. Trump has also laid off large teams of scientists, pulled the plug on thousands of research projects and proposed deep spending cuts for new studies. If his proposed $44 billion cut to next year’s budget is enacted, it will prompt the largest drop in federal support for science since World War II, when scientists and Washington began their partnership.”

“Few if any analysts see Mr. Trump as a Stalin, who crushed science, or even as a direct analog to this era’s strongmen leaders. But his assault on researchers and their institutions is so deep that historians and other experts see similarities to the playbook employed by autocratic regimes to curb science.”

Scientists are removing words like “diverse” and “disparities” from hundreds of federal grant renewals to avoid getting flagged in the Trump administration’s focus on eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows.

Franklin Foer: “Last year, 95 percent of the rockets launched in the United States were launched by SpaceX. NASA was a mere passenger. Musk has crowded low Earth orbit with satellites (nearly 8,000) that are becoming indispensable to the military’s capacity to communicate and the government’s surveillance of hostile powers. Even if Trump had pushed to dislodge Musk, he couldn’t. No rival could readily replace the services his companies provide.”

“That Musk has superseded NASA is a very American parable. A generation ago, NASA was the crown jewel of the U.S. government. It was created in 1958 to demonstrate the superiority of the American way of life, and it succeeded brilliantly. In the course of landing humans on the lunar surface, NASA became the symbol of America’s competence and swagger, of how it—alone among the nations of the Earth—inhabited the future. NASA’s astronauts were 20th-century cowboys, admired in corners of the world that usually abhorred Americans. The Apollo crews traveled to the heavens on behalf of ‘all mankind,’ a phrase that appeared both in the act that created NASA and on the plaque left on the moon by Apollo 11. Even NASA’s engineers, with their skinny ties and rolled-up sleeves, became the stuff of Hollywood legend.”

“NASA was born at the height of liberalism’s faith in government, and its demise tracks the decline of that faith. As the United States lost confidence in its ability to accomplish great things, it turned to Musk as a potential savior, and ultimately surrendered to him. This isn’t an instance of crony capitalism, but a tale about well-meaning administrations, of both parties, pursuing grandiose ambitions without the vision, competence, or funding to realize them.”