Amid federal research cuts, some Antarctic tourist cruises are sponsoring scientists

During Antarctica’s warm season, the sleek Norwegian passenger ship known as the MS Fridtjof Nansen departs regularly from Argentina for its journey south across the turbulent Drake Passage, down to the Antarctic Peninsula. The cruise carries wealthy adventurers, bucket listers and, increasingly, polar scientists looking to gather data as public funding for Antarctic research vanishes under the Trump administration. 

The National Science Foundation is one of the largest funders of scientific research in the world, with an annual budget of roughly $9 billion that supports the bulk of U.S. Antarctic research. Over the last few months, the Trump administration has ordered deep cuts to the agency, leaving scientists to wonder how they’ll study everything from melting glaciers and ice sheets to the impact of pollution from power plants and wildfires.

On Thursday, Sethuraman Panchanathan, the director of the National Science Foundation, resigned after the White House directed him to slash the agency’s budget and staff by more than half, according to exclusive reporting from Science. 

Panchanathan’s resignation follows an earlier order from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to freeze funds for all new research grants at the National Science Foundation, and last week’s announcement that DOGE will be terminating over $200 million in “wasteful” research grants awarded by the agency. 

Some experts are concerned that the Trump administration’s ongoing cuts to the National Science Foundation may signal the end for American research in Antarctica.

James Barnes, the co-founder of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, an international alliance for environmental nongovernmental organizations focusing on Antarctic conservation and research, says that the National Science Foundation has become an “evil word” among many in the Trump administration.

“It’s tragic to me having the National Science Foundation’s budget cut,” he said in an interview with NBC News. “For what reason? It’s not good for us on lots of levels, because there’s lots to be learned in Antarctica.” 

President Donald Trump’s directives specifically targeting Antarctic research include high-profile firings of several National Science Foundation staffers working on Antarctic projects and cuts to essential construction funding for McMurdo Station, the biggest U.S. research base on the continent. 

Research operations based in Antarctica had already been dwindling for several years — decades of robust field work were disrupted and never recovered from Covid-19 restrictions. Now, research on the world’s southernmost continent is facing several years under Trump’s slash-and-burn policies. 

But aboard the MS Fridtjof Nansen and its sister ship, the MS Roald Amundsen, polar scientists have reliable funding for their research. HX Expeditions, which operates the two Antarctic ships, hosts researchers from institutions like Western Washington University; the University of California, Santa Cruz; and the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Their room and board is covered by ticket purchases from tourists sailing to Antarctica for their once-in-a-lifetime trips. 

“We would not be able to support the research that we are supporting if we did not have paying customers that would allow our ships to go down south,” Verena Meraldi, chief scientist of HX Expeditions, said. “It’s not easy [to get there]. There are not many flights going down here and there are fewer and fewer research vessels.”

The tourists traveling with HX Expeditions are part of the exploding ecotourism industry, which centers on experiencing nature while supporting local conservation. The number of visitors to Antarctica has increased from around 8,000 every year in the 1990s to more than 120,000 annually, according to the latest data from the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators. By 2035, the ecotourism market is projected to grow to over $550 billion. 

On its late March expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula, the MS Fridtjof Nansen was home to more than 400 ecotourists and several researchers, including Freya Alldred, a doctoral student from Durham University in England who says that without this cruise, it’s unlikely she would have been able to get to Antarctica. 

Alldred traveled with sterilized bags to collect samples of seaweed growing in Antarctic waters and snow algae, which blooms on the continent’s vast expanse of snow. She is studying how climate change affects the carbon content of these Antarctic species, and the cruise offered a unique opportunity to collect new samples. 

“We’ve not been to anywhere with a research base,” Alldred said. “If instead, I’d gone to the British Antarctic base, I could only sample within my area. Whereas here, we’ve been to five different sites across the peninsula that have potentially not been studied before.”

The boat housed scientists and ecotourists in close quarters, giving scientists the rare opportunity to explain their work directly to nonscientists through interactive sessions in the onboard lab. For 10 days, eager passengers attended lectures from resident researchers, ate with them in the ship’s restaurants and shared their first steps on the vast polar desert that is Antarctica.

“To share these experiences with people and then explain why we do the research, what types of questions we’re answering with it, and for them to see it firsthand is incredible,” said Chloe Lew, a researcher working with California Ocean Alliance to capture the impact of tourist boats on humpback whales in the Antarctic. “It kind of fires me up at my passion for the work.”