While plenty of confusion remains over the fate of over 1,000 NASA employees who were put on the chopping block by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency last month — only to be told that they weren't being fired after all — the space agency may still be in for a rude awakening.

As Ars Technica's Eric Berger reports, the Trump administration is expected to slash the space agency's science budget by as much as 50 percent, which could prove disastrous for the future of space research.

Sources told Berger that NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) could soon face an existential threat.

"If this is implemented, it would be nothing short of an extinction-level event for space science and exploration in the United States," Planetary Society chief of space policy Casey Dreier told Ars. "Losing this much money, this fast, has no precedence in NASA's history."

"It would force terrible decisions, including turning off scores of active, productive, irreplaceable missions, halting nearly all new mission development, and decimating the country's space science workforce," he added.

The Directorate's associate administrator Nicola Fox didn't deny the reports, but responded with optimism when Ars asked her about possible cuts during a Thursday news conference.

"We haven't had any information yet about the budget, and I hate planning something on rumors and speculation," Fox told reporters. "You know, we will continue to do great science. We'll continue to have a balanced science portfolio, for sure. And you know, we'll be grateful for what we get, and we'll do great stuff with it."

The SMD, which represents roughly a third of NASA's overall budget, has been a core part of some of NASA's biggest achievements, including deep space missions to Pluto, observations by its groundbreaking James Webb Space Telescope, and asteroid sample return missions.

According to Dreier's analysis of NASA's science budget over the decades, a 50 percent budget cut could bring science spending down to what the agency spent in the early 1980s, even when adjusted for inflation.

It could also allow other world powers, most notably China, to soar into the future of space science and exploration while America languishes under austerity.

To be clear, a 50 percent cut to NASA's SMD is far from set in stone. It's a budgetary proposal, not a final decision, and Congress will be negotiating to adjust the agency's funding.

But as Berger points out, lawmakers haven't really stood in the way of the Trump administration's bidding so far, suggesting space science really could be facing an existential threat.

The Trump administration is expected to release its budget request in a matter of weeks, so we'll know more then.

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