NASA's shift toward "good deals" in international spaceflight has already reshaped its lunar program. According to Ars Technica, the agency has dropped the Lunar Gateway station and the Mars Sample Return mission, and Administrator Jared Isaacman has pressed partners to make meaningful contributions rather than join as junior partners. An ESA proposal for a cargo lander was dismissed, while Japan's pressurized rover and Italy's planned habitat are cited as examples of contributions NASA wants.
One partnership that fits the new mold is LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. ESA will lead the mission, launching three spacecraft around 2035 to detect low-frequency gravitational waves from a heliocentric orbit. Each spacecraft will carry free-floating gold-platinum cubes, and lasers will measure changes smaller than an atom. NASA will supply laser transmitters, telescopes, charge management devices, and data analysis support. Ira Thorpe, the NASA science team lead, says the arrangement is a very good deal: the US pays roughly a third of the mission's cost and gets 100 percent of the science data, compared with an estimated $3 billion if NASA attempted LISA alone.
The article frames LISA as the kind of partnership NASA should preserve, especially after canceling projects where NASA was the lead. It does not present a competing view or note any disagreement with that assessment. Instead, it uses LISA to illustrate how a smaller US contribution can still buy access to a flagship science mission.