Thanks, tech industry! A generational disruption in all forms of science and the destruction of the crown jewels of America’s last century, but at least now you get to be ruled by a violent senile pedophile and his deranged crackhead enablers.
FWIW, this is the brainworm faction that fought the techbro faction and got them kicked out of the throne room. Think Russell Vought and the OMB, not Elon. Elon registered his disapproval of the huge science cuts in the President’s budget request. The nominated techbro NASA administrator was cancelled because he wasn’t anti-science enough.
Many Americans are invested in getting rid of Earth science altogether. The less the people know about the state of the atmosphere, the better it is for Exxon. NASA had an extremely large Earth science mission.
I know a few of these people. The two I've spoken with since their resignation basically said, "we're definitely getting laid off unless something insane changes with the funding cuts so at least this way we get a severance."
It's really sad how our NASA funding is the lowest it's been since 1961.
I'm so sick of the not only incompetent leadership in the U.S., but the literal anti-science stance our government has taken. We're 6 months into this nightmare, I really can't see how it can get worse.
> The two I've spoken with since their resignation basically said, "we're definitely getting laid off unless something insane changes with the funding cuts so at least this way we get a severance."
I hope they did the math. The DRP is not a severance, and if they were laid off, they'd have been caught in a RIF and should have received an actual severance.
If there's a RIF, they get a severance of 1 week per year for the first 10 years of work, 2 weeks per year above that, and a bonus percent if over 40. It maxes at 52 weeks pay. If you have 18 years (at least 26 weeks of severance, more if over 40) with the fed, waiting for the RIF was always better than taking DRP unless you were going to retire or quit anyways. Under that, the choice should have been "Will a RIF happen before 30 September - my severance?". If you will get a 4 week severance, then will you get RIF'd before 2 September? If you think the answer is yes, taking the DRP makes sense, if no then the DRP costs you money. The only benefit to taking DRP if you're not going to get RIF'd is if you believe you can get another job before 30 September.
After 30 September, if they haven't found a new job they won't qualify for UEI since they voluntarily separated (true in most states, there may be some that would give them UEI but I've not heard of one that gives people unemployment for quitting).
Legally, they also have to ask NASA for approval for any second jobs until 30 September. If they don't and take an industry job (say with SpaceX), I wouldn't put it past this administration to fuck with them. The penalties are mostly administrative, but some ethics law violations can involve some steep penalties and prison time.
Nope, this is Russell Vought and the OMB. The anti-tech-bro group (the brainworm faction, courtesy of RFK Jr) that fought with Elon and successfully got him kicked out of the throne room. Elon registered his opposition to the huge science cuts at NASA in the President’s budget request.
The real game the current administration is playing is to land on Mars before their current term expires. This mirrors the political, prestige, and technology triumph of the Kennedy administration. This is why the BBB Bill refocussed on the Mars mission despite having cuts.
What is being cut is otherwise a symptom of the budget deficit (7%) and the fact that politically they cut areas where there are not republican votes, as politicians obviously try to maintain their voter base as a consideration in their decisions.
Note historically a criticism of the original lunar mission was that USA diverted funds from hospitals and other public programs to fund the mission. So some were bitter despite the triumph.
It goes back to the fundamental conundrum. You have a back of corn. Do you plant the corn, or eat the corn? If AI delivers for America (planting the corn) and USA lands on Mars, these 4k NASA employees will not dwell in the public imagination despite our respect for their commitment, skill and service.
As a nation we need to figure out how you, probably a person who considers yourself a functioning adult member of society, came to believe and even repeat this.
There are 3.5 years left in the administration. The time between Apollo 1 and Apollo 11 was 2.5 years. At its closest point, Mars is more than 100 times further away than the Moon. Just a trip there takes like nine months when delivering small payloads that don't need to return. And you need to time it so that you plan the mission when mars and earth are very near each other, which is only every couple of years.
The idea that the Trump administration could put a man on mars before the end of their term, even if this was a very top priority is ludicrous.
Isn’t a criticism of democracy that individuals vote for their immediate benefit (MY job, MY housing) with no consideration of longer term consequences?
Maybe this DOGE approach of sledgehammering the bureaucracies is all there is left to do?
Look, I have family that works for the Feds. I have also collected money from federal programs. I know the pain that is coming and is here. It really really sucks, and it will suck for me too, though not as badly.
But the 'scalpel' approach where you go in, understand the system, take out the bad parts, leave the good, don't get rid of the best people and programs; yeah, it doesn't work very well either. I've seen it tried in a few organizations, some have had a little success, most have not. What usually happens is that the most politically connected programs and people stay and the least are cut, and only after years of twaddling and overspending anyway. THe people that are there to cut things get swamped in meetings and smoke blown up their ass from every direction; they are made incompetent by design, and so the cuts are incompetent too.
I'm not about to say that I have any idea of the history of NASA spending cuts or those of the US gov in general. I know SLS is a dumb program but only because I know people that say that.
But, again, Hot Take, maybe the only thing left to try is the sledgehammer?
Friend of mine is a contractor for NASA who has been trained as a parts engineer for sourcing and testing electronic components that go into satellites and spacecrafts will be out of a job in a few months as her entire branch is eliminating all contractor positions.
Now she has a specialized skillset that isn't very readily transferable to other local companies and industries.
Sucks. Can't imagine she's the only one from NASA facing this crisis.
The satellite industry in the US is larger than ever, FWIW.
Between Starlink, OneWeb, Kuiper, plus a gazillion startups like Astranis, K2 Space, etc, not to mention defense satellites, there has never been a time when more satellites have been launched by the U.S.
I think your friend will be fine. The real issue is the capability loss for NASA.
I know that people wanted to stay in their own country. However, she could likely get a good position in the space industry in Europe.
The bottom line is, she would be very likely to get a good salary, even better than she did in the US, in China, Russia, or India, which are desperately seeking space specialists with experience in more advanced technologies.
It is a shame that the US couldn't even keep their payroll, forcing them to leave the country and flow to its enemies.
Well this antecdote kind of gets in the way of the other antecdotes, that NASA is being privatized. Maybe this is just a way of forcing specialized labor into certain outfits (Space X, Costa Mesa, SF.. )
Yes, nothing more extravagant than... science? What a... luxury? Really? This is the take we're going with? Okay.
And, on the topic of "extravagant luxury" - nobody is saving any money. Do you think you're gonna get a check in the mail with the "savings" we get from cutting NASA? Come on.
The reality is that we're cutting everything and our debt is skyrocketing. We're not saving anything, we're actually losing money at a more rapid pace. You're being robbed by republican fiscal policy.
It's a lose-lose. Maybe maaaaaaaaybe, if we were REALLY saving a TON of money these cuts could be justifiable. But, we're not. We're saving -2 Trillion dollars. Baby that's your tax money.
I’m trying to think how I feel about this. I’ve been obsessed with space for a long time, remember traveling to see my first rocket launch of the shuttle in 2006. Follow the commercial development closely since then. Their science missions are inspiring, but not as inspiring as they ought to be.
NASA needs an overhaul. This isn’t how I would do it, but that’s not how things work in the real world. SLS is the elephant in the room and is a complete disaster. It’s a jobs program limping along decades old technology when the commercial options are better. You can debate some of the specifics, sure, but if all this current state of uncertainty brings is a clean slate and new ways of thinking in 4 years, that’s better IMHO than looking back 4 years from now watching NASA brute force a token moon landing on the back of ancient technology. Which they may still do!
Politics aside, according to a pretty comprehensive study (118 missions) it does seem that SpaceX is much more efficient than NASA [1]. Data like this would suggest privatization of space missions is a good idea. Maybe this conclusion is biased somehow, or perhaps the purpose of a dedicated govt org is different in some way that justifies its budget and scope despite the difference in efficiency?
I understand wanting to make the organization more efficient, but i don't think this is what's happening here. I think this is the classic republican strat of gutting federal agencies, pointing to the inefficiencies caused by the loss of institutional knowledge, and using that as an excuse to privatize to their friends.
The fact that Elon's DOGE suggested these cuts lines up
Does anyone have access to a copy of the NASA statement on this that was shared with the media? It makes a big difference where in NASA these people were employed - this is the difference between slimming down an engineering division or cancelling one launch project and the total destruction of a smaller program for physics, which may have a much longer-term impact on US science.
SLS is dead, invest in outside tech. Or for crying out loud start pulling out the crashed ships and donate them to more industries and get some real tech going.
This happens across all agencies as every organization that deals with science is gutted. This is just extremely short sighted capitalistic re-allotment and in many instances removal of research, oversight and execution of critical tasks. The short term loss of jobs is the least harmful (as harmful as it is). The long term impact of losing key institutions like nasa, fda and others is going to be devastating. These same people that cheered the gutter by will then turn around and blame the government when the country fails to lead on issues or stop diseases. The platform for continuous political exploitation is set up successfully
This is part of the new administration's war on science and education. They are actively gutting science, medicine, and education in order to shift wealth to the upper 0.1%. It's not about budgets or "woke", those are just excuses to dumb down America and reduce our position as a world leader in science and tech. A move in order to have short term gains for a few billionaires and an overarching goal to create a more religious and less educated society that is more easily controlled.
The Federal Reserve is an example of a well run and focused organization, because they have a very short, very simple mandate: maximize employment and ensure price stability. Everything they do is in service to those two goals and every employee can hold themselves and their bosses accountable for those goals. Elected representatives and the American public can hold them accountable.
If we want a more efficient and inspiring NASA, we need to give it a mandate that we can all rally around the same way. "Pioneering the future of..." is just too generic for anyone to grade them against. As long as that's the case, congress is free to run it into the ground as a pork barrel repository.
IMO, several smaller, more focused, more measurable, organizations would serve the American public far better.
Great. The best, i.e. those who can easily find another job, are often those who often take these offers.
There were so many options to improve efficiency with technology and then simply not refilling some of the jobs (apparently there's a 5-6% yearly attrition in government jobs anyway.)
But nooo... And obviously this was never what this was about.
A friend of mine worked for the White House under the Obama administration, with the first goal to digitize the VAs information. One of the Trump's first actions in 2016 was to end that. Shameful.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 78.6 ms ] threadI just don't understand why this is something people would want.
It's really sad how our NASA funding is the lowest it's been since 1961.
https://www.planetary.org/articles/nasa-2026-budget-proposal...
I'm so sick of the not only incompetent leadership in the U.S., but the literal anti-science stance our government has taken. We're 6 months into this nightmare, I really can't see how it can get worse.
I hope they did the math. The DRP is not a severance, and if they were laid off, they'd have been caught in a RIF and should have received an actual severance.
If there's a RIF, they get a severance of 1 week per year for the first 10 years of work, 2 weeks per year above that, and a bonus percent if over 40. It maxes at 52 weeks pay. If you have 18 years (at least 26 weeks of severance, more if over 40) with the fed, waiting for the RIF was always better than taking DRP unless you were going to retire or quit anyways. Under that, the choice should have been "Will a RIF happen before 30 September - my severance?". If you will get a 4 week severance, then will you get RIF'd before 2 September? If you think the answer is yes, taking the DRP makes sense, if no then the DRP costs you money. The only benefit to taking DRP if you're not going to get RIF'd is if you believe you can get another job before 30 September.
After 30 September, if they haven't found a new job they won't qualify for UEI since they voluntarily separated (true in most states, there may be some that would give them UEI but I've not heard of one that gives people unemployment for quitting).
Legally, they also have to ask NASA for approval for any second jobs until 30 September. If they don't and take an industry job (say with SpaceX), I wouldn't put it past this administration to fuck with them. The penalties are mostly administrative, but some ethics law violations can involve some steep penalties and prison time.
What is being cut is otherwise a symptom of the budget deficit (7%) and the fact that politically they cut areas where there are not republican votes, as politicians obviously try to maintain their voter base as a consideration in their decisions.
Note historically a criticism of the original lunar mission was that USA diverted funds from hospitals and other public programs to fund the mission. So some were bitter despite the triumph.
It goes back to the fundamental conundrum. You have a back of corn. Do you plant the corn, or eat the corn? If AI delivers for America (planting the corn) and USA lands on Mars, these 4k NASA employees will not dwell in the public imagination despite our respect for their commitment, skill and service.
This will literally not happen and anyone who thinks it will needs to seek professional help.
As a nation we need to figure out how you, probably a person who considers yourself a functioning adult member of society, came to believe and even repeat this.
The idea that the Trump administration could put a man on mars before the end of their term, even if this was a very top priority is ludicrous.
USAID was probably a stronghold of Dem voters, but what about the Dept. of Agriculture, or the Forest Service?
Maybe this DOGE approach of sledgehammering the bureaucracies is all there is left to do?
Look, I have family that works for the Feds. I have also collected money from federal programs. I know the pain that is coming and is here. It really really sucks, and it will suck for me too, though not as badly.
But the 'scalpel' approach where you go in, understand the system, take out the bad parts, leave the good, don't get rid of the best people and programs; yeah, it doesn't work very well either. I've seen it tried in a few organizations, some have had a little success, most have not. What usually happens is that the most politically connected programs and people stay and the least are cut, and only after years of twaddling and overspending anyway. THe people that are there to cut things get swamped in meetings and smoke blown up their ass from every direction; they are made incompetent by design, and so the cuts are incompetent too.
I'm not about to say that I have any idea of the history of NASA spending cuts or those of the US gov in general. I know SLS is a dumb program but only because I know people that say that.
But, again, Hot Take, maybe the only thing left to try is the sledgehammer?
hope the best for them
Friend of mine is a contractor for NASA who has been trained as a parts engineer for sourcing and testing electronic components that go into satellites and spacecrafts will be out of a job in a few months as her entire branch is eliminating all contractor positions.
Now she has a specialized skillset that isn't very readily transferable to other local companies and industries.
Sucks. Can't imagine she's the only one from NASA facing this crisis.
Those companies are transportation companies when it comes to space.
Between Starlink, OneWeb, Kuiper, plus a gazillion startups like Astranis, K2 Space, etc, not to mention defense satellites, there has never been a time when more satellites have been launched by the U.S.
I think your friend will be fine. The real issue is the capability loss for NASA.
The bottom line is, she would be very likely to get a good salary, even better than she did in the US, in China, Russia, or India, which are desperately seeking space specialists with experience in more advanced technologies.
It is a shame that the US couldn't even keep their payroll, forcing them to leave the country and flow to its enemies.
And Russell Vought is holding the weapon.
And, on the topic of "extravagant luxury" - nobody is saving any money. Do you think you're gonna get a check in the mail with the "savings" we get from cutting NASA? Come on.
The reality is that we're cutting everything and our debt is skyrocketing. We're not saving anything, we're actually losing money at a more rapid pace. You're being robbed by republican fiscal policy.
It's a lose-lose. Maybe maaaaaaaaybe, if we were REALLY saving a TON of money these cuts could be justifiable. But, we're not. We're saving -2 Trillion dollars. Baby that's your tax money.
NASA needs an overhaul. This isn’t how I would do it, but that’s not how things work in the real world. SLS is the elephant in the room and is a complete disaster. It’s a jobs program limping along decades old technology when the commercial options are better. You can debate some of the specifics, sure, but if all this current state of uncertainty brings is a clean slate and new ways of thinking in 4 years, that’s better IMHO than looking back 4 years from now watching NASA brute force a token moon landing on the back of ancient technology. Which they may still do!
https://qz.com/emails/space-business/2172377/an-oxford-case-...
The fact that Elon's DOGE suggested these cuts lines up
If we want a more efficient and inspiring NASA, we need to give it a mandate that we can all rally around the same way. "Pioneering the future of..." is just too generic for anyone to grade them against. As long as that's the case, congress is free to run it into the ground as a pork barrel repository.
IMO, several smaller, more focused, more measurable, organizations would serve the American public far better.
There were so many options to improve efficiency with technology and then simply not refilling some of the jobs (apparently there's a 5-6% yearly attrition in government jobs anyway.) But nooo... And obviously this was never what this was about.
A friend of mine worked for the White House under the Obama administration, with the first goal to digitize the VAs information. One of the Trump's first actions in 2016 was to end that. Shameful.