Comments about SLS miss what’s happening. SLS is inefficient and wasteful, but human spaceflight is not what’s getting cut at NASA. Instead, very productive current and future science missions are getting killed, in defiance of Congress [1].
Until this year, NASA was the world leader in space science. We’re pushing out the experts who build and operate astrophysics missions like Hubble, Chandra, JWST, Kepler, TESS, Swift, and many more in planetary and heliophysics. This is a loss of capacity that will set the US back a generation.
The private sector is irrelevant here: SpaceX and friends don’t do scientific research.
I also want to add that science is a critical investment area for anyone interested in engineering.
There is this common belief of "I just want to make things work" and that science is really unimportant here and are concerned with things that don't matter. The truth is that science builds the foundation for that other stuff. It is the very ground you stand on. Engineering without science is like trying to run without ground.
In a lot of ways, science is just like engineering (I say this having been both, professionally). Any good engineer knows it is important to find problems. Then you fix those problems. Well... that's really what science does too. When doing science you're just working at the next level of abstraction. It is all about "making things work." Everyone is on the same team here and I'm not sure why we draw these divisions. I mean what would science even be about if it wasn't "making things work?"
So I hear people say that engineering is where we get the real value (especially monetarily), but I'd disagree. It matters, but I think it is framing things weirdly. I'd be willing to wager that the economic impact of Newton and Leibniz's invention of Calculus[0] is larger than the economic impact of any engineering product, ever. I'd make a slightly less confident wager that the economic value of calculus is more valuable than all inventions post 1700. That's just one thing too... even if it was the only Science/Math "investment" then it seems like a pretty good ROI
[0] Yes, math, but I'm throwing under science. Nitpick if you want but you're missing the thesis
I don't know that this is a good argument for science. We should fund science because we want to discover new things, not because we can draw a dotted line to an ROI. Similarly, we should fund the department of giving poor people money for food. Not because there's an ROI somewhere down the line. There's never gonna be a return on that investment, but we should do that because we're humans and we want to lift our fellow human out of misery.
> The truth is that science builds the foundation for that other stuff. It is the very ground you stand on. Engineering without science is like trying to run without ground.
That doesn't mean that government investment in science is necessarily a good idea.
> I'd be willing to wager that the economic impact of Newton and Leibniz's invention of Calculus[0] is larger than the economic impact of any engineering product, ever.
Where they financed by the government? Btw, I can also look at winning lottery tickets and say that their return-on-investment was awesome, but that doesn't mean buying lottery tickets is a good idea.
The point seems to be to cut US scientific capacity (and more generally intellectual research capacity) across the board, as a way of hitting back at "the elites" who have the temerity to call GOP politicians and donors out for their lies and bad behavior.
> a way of hitting back at "the elites" who have the temerity to call GOP politicians and donors out for their lies and bad behavior
True for academic institutions. No evidence this is the motivation at NASA. Simpler: science costs money and leadership believes that money is better spent giving folks like me a tax cut than paying for poor folks' healthcare or basic research.
Fortunately, it looks like Beijing is ready to pick up the torch [1].
I think NASA cuts are about giving money to billionaires, so they can build or expand their capitalist version. Obviously, this will be more efficient because it funnels money to the wealthy directly.
>but human spaceflight is not what’s getting cut at NASA. Instead, very productive current and future science missions are getting killed, in defiance of Congress [1].
Sounds like ye olde Sowell quote[1] about organizational priorities and budget cuts in action.
This isn't cogent, IMO, since Republicans control all 3 arms of government. Who would be the target of intentional public outrage? Also, this is far less incendiary than the cuts to public benefits.
Bureaucracies like to grow, and they're very resistant to cuts, so they become inefficient entities poorly suited to current needs. Private companies have competition as a force that forces some amount of accountability, but I have yet to hear a strategy for effectively discontinuing work the government shouldn't be doing.
These cuts are absolutely not the ones I would make, but the reality is not as it is being portrayed.
The claim that SpaceX does not do science is false. Not only do they launch most of NASA's science missions, which counts, they also do independent science, including the Polaris Dawn and FRAM 2. Along with Axiom, they put science missions on the ISS, and all the NASA science done on ISS is facilitated by SpaceX putting humans there. Finally, literally everything that SpaceX has done or built is a result of science that SpaceX has had to do, including colder than ever propellants, and life support systems, etc. The Polaris Dawn spacewalk was not a replication of the 1960s spacewalks, as it was based on new suit science, etc.
Somehow, people like to pretend that probes landing on other planets is the only form of science that is done.
And the reality is that new entrants from RKLB, SpaceX, Firefly, and a lot of smaller companies are doing exactly this kind of science as well--- but at vastly lower cost.
The inescapable reality-- and this will always be the case with political organizations like NASA-- is no matter how well meaning they cannot do science as effectively as private organizations. NASA slows science down in large part because they are hamstrung by congress.
Yes, it looks like some way too expensive projects are getting cancelled and that means some waste of money. It's not the choice I would make.
But in the next 10 years, nearly %100 of all science will be done outside of NASA.... because the NASA overhead is too much, makes things too expensive, and less reliable.
For example, it's better to blow up 1 falcon one, and 2 falcon 9s, to get 500 successful falcon 9 launches at 1/100th the cost per kilogram of mass to orbit than to have a completely successful SLS system that launches only 2-3 times a decade.
The former accelerates science, lowers the cost of all science and more science gets done per dollar than the latter.
That transition is happening whether government, the senate and congress is aboard.... or not.
> they launch most of NASA's science missions, which counts
Exactly. Like if I am an uber driver and I bring a surgeon to a hospital, it counts as me doing surgery since the most important part of surgery is the process of driving to the place where it happens
> but the reality is not as it is being portrayed.
This is exactly how anyone would describe your reply. Your claim is so bizzare and its logic so convoluted that the only reason I can imagine for it is political motivation. But I could be wrong and don't want to get into a flamewar. So let's ignore the reasons and reassess the logic instead. Most of the counter I can come up with are variations of what the other commenter replied, so I will leave that to them. Instead, let's look at why your argument never pans out.
Private companies always look for short to medium term profits, since it affects their balance sheets and ultimately their survival. That constraint isn't favorable for scientific research and science missions, because there is a long lead time for the research results to be converted into a commercially viable products. Some companies with a large product portfolio and steady profits still do some research, as long as it isn't too costly or time consuming. An example is the pharma industry.
But science involving the biosphere, atmosphere, astronomy/astrophysics, space, interplanetary missions etc are on the other end of that spectrum - extremely costly and no commercialization for the foreseeable future. The only way private industries are going to do it is if the government funds them with short term profits - in which case, it's the government's program, not the industry's. Even Musk's Mars dream is dependent on government funding in that manner, though his intent isn't science either. What makes you think the private industry will take it upon themselves to fund and conduct research that makes no economic sense?
The article doesn't really do this justice, it's not really "opting to leave" it's that entire divisions inside the Science side of NASA have had their projects defunded and so all the work the people in those labs were doing is now gone. They're being asked to leave voluntarily so they don't have to be "fired" but all their work and resources are gone and they couldn't stay if they wanted to.
A friend of mine had her division's headcount cut by >80% that was all research focused and building instruments for deep space observation. No one is hiring people to do that in the private sector. Dozens of astrophysics PhDs in that division alone are now without work and with no real prospects doing anything related to what they've dedicated their entire lives to (and accepted modest salaries as civil servants to do).
Pardon my ignorance. But isn't it better to be laid off or fired than to resign, since the former entitles you to a few months of severance pay? Or is it different somehow under these circumstances?
I’m not sure about this round but I know someone that resigned out of the DOGE wave in Homeland and she got 9 months severance. I would assume something relatively similar.
In the US, there is no general entitlement to severance beyond a specific employer's policies, a worker's or union's contract (if any) with that employer, or any one-time offer (usually called a voluntary layoff or voluntary resignation) from that employer.
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.
So - physically relocating is not an appealing prospect given she's a house and a spouse with a local job.
Is it typical for companies in the satellite design/manufacturing space for parts/electrical components engineers to be able to work remotely outside of travelling for inspections/supplier audits/component testing?
I think that's what this is, the 4k people in NASA probably never would have quit (great benefits or whatever), maybe the strategist at the top (whether they are right or not) think its better for this talent to be concentrated at private firms? And tbf, the private sector does move fast :/
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.
Considering her coworkers are calling the mass contractor layoffs "getting DOGEd", SpaceX is less than appealing.
Similar sentiment is felt about any other organization run by people who are seen as having had a hand in kneecapping NASA - working for their companies is not appealing. Perhaps her views will change after she's had more time to process the sting of the layoff notice.
And her prior work for the DoD left her with an extraordinarily bad impression of the culture. Admittedly she'd only worked at a single Navy Yard and different branches in different services can have different cultures, but nevertheless - the DoD is not appealing either. Depending on the results of her job search, that might change.
For Amazon Kuiper - no relevant roles are available in the region and, as far as what's listed on the website, there's no jobs that allow for working remotely outside of relevant travel.
Blue Origin...same issue as with Kuiper - remote work doesn't seem to be a thing and they've no local presence with relevant jobs available.
Likely so, but you have probably listed a bunch of organizations already utterly swamped with eager and qualified job candidates relative to their hiring numbers.
It could be that those companies aren't located somewhere they are willing to live or it could be that they don't want to work for companies owned by Elon or Bezos.
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.. )
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!
> 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.
It’s more accurate to say that Congress needs an overhaul. Over the years NASA administrators have pushed back on SLS to the fullest extent you’d expect, but it’s not their call how Congress allocates money.
Losing career managers, scientists and engineers isn’t going to fix any of the things you want to see fixed.
> It’s more accurate to say that Congress needs an overhaul.
It's also worth mentioning that this is a big reason NASA is so expensive. There's a lot of contracts and so NASA actually has contractors in every single state. They even brag about it[0], which should be a good hint to you that it is political. This makes is a bit of a wealth distribution system. That's either good or bad depending on your perspective and what you think the main goals are...
But there's a few programs that have these types of problems, not just NASA. IMO, there's probably more efficient ways to meet each goal, by decoupling the problem. But either way, we can't solve "the problem" unless we actually recognize what it is (and there's a lot more than what I've just mentioned)
> It’s more accurate to say that Congress needs an overhaul. Over the years NASA administrators have pushed back on SLS to the fullest extent you’d expect, but it’s not their call how Congress allocates money.
They don't call it the Senate Launch System for nothing
I think it's more accurate to say that our oligarchs need an overhaul. Some of the worst people who are actively working against the public are consistently ending up in positions of incredible, unchecked power.
> It’s a jobs program limping along decades old technology when the commercial options are better.
I’ve worked with a few former NASA employees now.
They all said the same thing: There were some amazing, passionate people at NASA but they were all surrounded by people who were only there to attend meetings and collect paychecks. Getting anything done was impossible because you had to navigate webs of org structure and process that had been designed to make work and jobs for people, not to deliver results.
My one ex-NASA coworker got a lot of mileage out of telling people he worked for NASA, putting it on his LinkedIn, and mentioning it when he introduced himself to new people. People respect the name. It was a stark contrast to how he described his actual time there.
> There were some amazing, passionate people at NASA but they were all surrounded by people who were only there to attend meetings and collect paychecks
I worked as a civil servant for a decade and a half in various capacities up until a couple of weeks ago. I'm the last person that would tell you that there isn't plenty of fat that could be trimmed. Slicing at random, multiple delayed resignation opportunities, and threatening cuts to benefits, however, is doing the opposite. Those that are skilled enough and in demand, or like me lucky enough, to quickly find other employ, are the ones that are going to leave- leaving behind nothing but the fat.
People who should be fired are the very people who would be the best at justifying why they shouldn't be fired. Not at all by a coincidence.
"Slicing at random" could actually outperform most other methods, as long as it's truly random. You can weasel your way out of a firing based on vibes or performance reviews - but you can't convince an RNG that its roll was wrong.
> Their science missions are inspiring, but not as inspiring as they ought to be
Are they 1% as inspiring as what the DoD does with their budget? I don't mean to be snarky, but level of inspiration is pretty subjective and difficult to put a price tag on. Honestly, I feel like the NASA budget needs to be considered in context relative to the DoD budget and then these cuts look much less convincing as being necessary.
"Are they 1% as inspiring as what the DoD does with their budget?"
It would be closer to 2%, but we could measure it by engagement. Ask people what their last positive interaction was with NASA vs the military. The military does all sorts of outreach with things like the Blue Angels, stadium flyovers, competitions at fairs, etc. Ask them what NASA has done over the past year vs what the military has done over the past year. Chances are many people couldn't name something NASA achieved in the past year. Would it be at the 2% number? I don't know.
I'm not saying one is better than the other. I think both should look for budget inefficiency, but until those are identified I wouldn't propose budget cuts. But it does seem that the NASA missions could be more inspiring recently.
> Are they 1% as inspiring as what the DoD does with their budget?
I dare say a great many people are very inspired by what the DoD does with their budget. Inspired to what... well, that's another subject. And the most inspired people are not the ones living in the US.
I hesitated posting this because my very moderate east coast American perspective seems to be appreciated less and less here. I posted this on a lazy Sunday morning and it got a lot of positive initial comments and discussion. Then a few hours later it turned negative.
Science is great but launch vehicle innovation is where the problem is so that’s why I focused on SLS. We could easily have 100 JWSTs today if something like starship were operational. NASA dragging its feet for decades, building silly things likes SLS, trying to find token uses to justify it, doesn’t inspire me anymore.
NASA didn't want SLS and was very vocal about that. Congress earmarks funding for pet projects which is the only reason we have SLS. I'm not sure how you can say NASA is "dragging their feet" while also claiming to care about space. NASA's list of accomplishments is long and there isn't a gap.
> Their science missions are inspiring, but not as inspiring as they ought to be.
NASA's science missions have been incredible.
The James Webb Space Telescope, a 6.5-meter-diameter infrared telescope at Lagrange Point 2 that can measure the atmospheric chemistry of planets orbiting other stars and measure the spectra of galaxies that were around 10 billion years ago.
The Curiosity rover landed on Mars by being lowered to the ground from a rocket-powered "sky-crane." It was powered by a radioactive battery, has been driving around and taking measurements for more than a decade, and has shown that Mars was likely habitable billions of years ago.
What kind of inspiration do you feel is lacking there?
SLS is elephant in the room - but Mars Sample Return is arguably even worse
Money for SLS is separate part of the budget, its mismanagement causes reputational damage - MSR budget is part of NASA probe budget, mismanagement there causes stall, worse performances and cancellations for AWFUL amount of other projects
MSR has indeed been a mess. I think it's pretty obvious that NASA has been trying to instill a "sunk costs" mentality in Congress, and it's not working out the way they wanted.
MSR is a fine enough concept though, I think Rocket Lab's proposal to get it done is sound and the government should take them up on the offer. If nothing else, the money to Rocket Lab for MSR development would help to make Rocket Lab a more viable SpaceX competitor, which should pay off for the US government in the long run.
MSR as NASA's JPL envisioned it was a disaster. But there was a chance that someone like Rocket Lab could actually make it work without breaking the bank.
Anytime you have subcontractors of the subcontractor of the prime contract holder, you’re going to get construction projects that go 20 years. It’s totally a jobs program. Job security and predictable pay outs.
The entire space coast of Florida was built on this, from Kennedy Space Center down to Jupiter, FL.
Beyond FL, they’re careful to make sure parts of the rocket at built in EVERY state! Now something that should be cutting edge innovation is tied to Congress which is intentionally not innovative and you wonder why it falls behind.
NASA like most government agencies could use a good, independent audit. That's not what this is. The DOGE lie was all about going in with pre-determined goals to reduce and to embarrass every org that they "audited". It was to "prove" MAGA world's criticism even if they were completely wrong (and the vast majority are). MAGA world "leaders" think that the US's role as a lead in science and top universities needs to be damaged in order to reduce our role in the world. It can then attempt to repair it with private tech billionaire solutions that are under their 100% control, instead of having to deal with government between them and profits.
> 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
Isn't the greater likelihood that delivery of service will drop as a result of the cuts and they'll point to this to justify nullifying the entire programme?
The SLS was a good idea, and it's actually a great rocket. However you are correct in saying it turned into a huge program for the old school rocket industrial complex. I think the private sector currently does this better, or it's certainly debatable. However, I think it's a mistake to say only the private sector can do this kind of thing optimally. There is some multiverse in the timelines where government contractors create an industrial rocket production line that quickly and cheaply stamps out heavy lift rockets. Granted, it's easier said than done, but it still doesn't have to be so expensive. Clearly the expensive part should be the R&D with the industrial production parts being jigged, automated, and fully optimized. The SLS obviously went another route by making the rocket production bespoke with non optimal, manual labor, etc... that kind of protection is acceptable for one-off science mission payloads, but not heavy lift....
Anyhoo, NASA letting so many people resign is good if your opinion is such that lowering government expenditure is a good thing. So long as the exit package is comparable to retirement package these government employees would have got otherwise. My guess is the resignation package has great near term performance but low long term (retirement) performance, making it a great option for younger workers able to pivot to new careers.
SLS doesn't serve any actual NASA needs. It's fake make-work. Case in point: Congress expressly ordered NASA to launch Europa Clipper on SLS, to make it appear that SLS was indispensable to core NASA science missions. But, due to design flaws, SLS turned out to be technically incapable of launching Clipper at all. So they backtracked and allowed free-market competition to compete for the Clipper launch. Which it did: a very, very cheap Falcon Heavy launched it instead.
Which it was capable of doing all along—Congress and NASA lied about this, misled the public, to make it appear that their jobs-creating, pork-barrel project was serving some genuine need NASA had. It wasn't! They had alternatives all along—they were pretending they didn't.
When you read about these things, you have to know all the actors you're getting information from, and what motives they have to mislead you.
There's not a single real mission in NASA's budget, or conceivable future budget, that needs an SLS—full stop. Sole exception being the moon project, which was created with the express purpose of finding a problem SLS would be the only answer for (and even that's now in doubt, what with Starship).
It doesn't work, not for Moon missions. It was never designed for Moon missions in the first place, the original plan was unspecified "deep space" missions without any clear plan of what it would actually be doing (because it's actual purpose is to keep money flowing to old Shuttle contractors.)
Consequently, it can't do a Moon mission like the Saturn V could, it requires the idiotic nonsense that is the NHRO, which will endanger astronauts because it can't get Orion (which is a whole other can of pork) into a low lunar orbit. It also can't handle the lander, so now Artemis has to count on SpaceX and/or Blue Origin for that, which is probably what you're alluding to not working. But if those don't work, then neither does Artemis and then how can you say SLS works?
Another problem with SLS is it's expensive AF and has a terrible launch cadence. Maybe you think that doesn't really matter, but it is for those reasons that NASA isn't going to test Orion again before putting astronauts on it. The last time they tested Orion, to verify the design and modelling, the heat shield started to come apart. But NASA can't do another test flight, because SLS sucks so hard, so instead they're going to fly Orion on an untested trajectory and trust their modeling to keep astronauts safe. Their same modeling which failed to predict Orion performance the first time. It's homicidally reckless. There is a real risk of this becoming yet another instance of NASA management's "go culture" getting people killed. Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia, each time they say they've learned their lesson and will make changes to ensure it doesn't happen again, but either those changes are only superficial or they decay over time. We're now on the precipice of NASA management flying astronauts around the Moon with a heat shield which may quite possibly disintegrate during reentry, because SLS is too expensive for NASA to test it but NASA management wants to move forward anyway.
Not necessarily. Not all the work for the government is classified, and over classification is technically, which means it still happens and is mostly ignored, against the law.
And having worked on some classified systems doesn't preclude employment in related fields. It does restrict what you can share, of course.
Eh. I'm not saying it's a great scheme, but these are almost all people taking retirement a couple years early. China is not interested in stealing 1980s NASA tech, and Europe aerospace is a non-player.
The way you say that more supports the idea these people should have been laid off a while ago.
I bet plenty have that useful "unwritten institutional knowledge" that could help newer programs. (F.ex. instructions for a nuclear waste storage said to use kitty litter, but didn't say it was because it was a cheap source of bentonite clay; someone substituted some modern paper variant and caused a small nuclear incident).
It comes down to money and private interests dominating Western politics. It has bad but also good sides. Human conflict used to be about extermination a few thousand years ago, that is what I think of when I read such headlines, such things can actually also be seen as progress. We now have priorities other than our tribe or nation, that has good sides too. I like the Napoleonic war story where Napoleon gave a medal to a British scientist, Humphry Davy.
While bad for the nation, I try to see it as a mixed bag that people from the top down are... flexible.
The price we pay is, possibly, worse outcomes in conflicts. What we gain is that after conflicts end we get back to normal life - with one another - very quickly and relatively easily.
NASA ended their space shuttle program in 2011 and hasn't been able to send things into space since. For the rest of that decade, the only way Americans could access ISS was by purchasing tickets on Russian spacecraft. NASA pivoted to partnering with private government contractors like ULA, which did 4 launches in 2024, probably spy satellites for the military, but their Atlas V rocket only has 14 launches remaining before retirement. That's it. Aside from the greatly maligned SpaceX of course, which did their first manned mission in 2020 and operated 134 launches in 2024.
There are still maybe one or two cool jobs left at NASA like controlling the Voyager software. But I imagine everyone else at NASA who respects themselves would have left for SpaceX a long time ago, rather than waiting for Trump to incentivize their retirement. Half of all revenue collected by the US federal government in 2024 (totaling $2565 billion) was given to retirees. Mostly middle class and government retirees. So this policy shift is very aligned with the US status quo, which is paying people to do nothing, rather than having them go through the motions of tilting at bureaucratic windmills trying to do something.
Even in this thread you see how pervasive the attitude is. I've seen several comments here so far talking about how the economic system isn't giving them enough money, but I've yet to see anyone here express a willingness to eat ramen, sleep in the trenches, get their hands dirty, and endure whatever pain and peril it takes if it grants the opportunity to help out getting things done with space exploration. Those are the kinds of people who create material abundance.
Hey everyone, consider looking at the Wikipedia page for an agency before posting piss-takes on social media regarding that agency.
Sending things to space is a small part of what NASA does. "Aeronautics" is not "space rocketry", and all federal agencies do more than what their name indicates.
This is a dumb take. NASA has (or had until Trump can back) plenty of interesting things. New Horizons, Europe Clipper, the James Webb, Hubble, Mars missions, ISS operations, human spaceflight, etc, etc are all being done by NASA workers. They do way more than just launch rockets and SpaceX can't even come close to the stuff NASA was doing.
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?
My perception as one who works in space based climate research is that both have being done, mass firings of people that makes no account of their skills or value, plus targeted firings that are less about finding waste and more about advancing ideology - anti-diversity, anti climate and earth science. From my view it’s awful, as I opine that the goal is to starve all non-military or non-human spaceflight efforts.
Cutting all probationary employees or recent promotions was just an awful strategy. For every department in the government.
But why would you do that at all? If you want to save some money why not replace expensive healthcare system with one from some European country? That would save more money.
We are overspending! Let's, uh, sledgehammer a small part of the pie (non-military non-entitlement spending) while increasing military and law enforcement budgets and cutting taxes!
The issue is, if you do small targeted cuts, you'll spare the very people you want to cut. Because they're the best at playing office politics and finding ways to justify why they shouldn't be cut.
If you can't find a way to bypass that, your options are few. One of those options is the sledgehammer approach. Axe entire agencies, fire everyone and never hire of the fired people back. Rebuild an organization from the ground up, with new people and less rot.
It's what was done in ex-USSR countries after the fall of USSR. It wasn't pretty. It worked.
For obvious reasons, the people who are most able to find a good gig elsewhere are the most likely to elect to go do so; and they tend to be the people that you'll miss more.
Im not sure this applies. Good people at NASA were already capable of easily finding higher pay in the private sector.
People work at NASA because they believe in the mission. So if they are leaving now they either stopped believing in the future of NASA because of this or they were money motivated and sucked.
On a more serious note, the administration's NASA budget is just completely nonsensical. I'm biased as a grantee, but the budget request called out our balloon experiment as should happen this year but refunded the balloon program (?!?). The congressional markups keep it so that's hopeful but there's still substantial uncertainty if we're actually going to Antarctica in ~3 months to fly our $20M experiment.
Even if all funding is ultimately secured will so many good people leave from the NASA balloon contractor that it will be difficult to have an Antarctic balloon campaign?
Readit News
Until this year, NASA was the world leader in space science. We’re pushing out the experts who build and operate astrophysics missions like Hubble, Chandra, JWST, Kepler, TESS, Swift, and many more in planetary and heliophysics. This is a loss of capacity that will set the US back a generation.
The private sector is irrelevant here: SpaceX and friends don’t do scientific research.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/07/trump-administration-m...
There is this common belief of "I just want to make things work" and that science is really unimportant here and are concerned with things that don't matter. The truth is that science builds the foundation for that other stuff. It is the very ground you stand on. Engineering without science is like trying to run without ground.
In a lot of ways, science is just like engineering (I say this having been both, professionally). Any good engineer knows it is important to find problems. Then you fix those problems. Well... that's really what science does too. When doing science you're just working at the next level of abstraction. It is all about "making things work." Everyone is on the same team here and I'm not sure why we draw these divisions. I mean what would science even be about if it wasn't "making things work?"
So I hear people say that engineering is where we get the real value (especially monetarily), but I'd disagree. It matters, but I think it is framing things weirdly. I'd be willing to wager that the economic impact of Newton and Leibniz's invention of Calculus[0] is larger than the economic impact of any engineering product, ever. I'd make a slightly less confident wager that the economic value of calculus is more valuable than all inventions post 1700. That's just one thing too... even if it was the only Science/Math "investment" then it seems like a pretty good ROI
[0] Yes, math, but I'm throwing under science. Nitpick if you want but you're missing the thesis
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That doesn't mean that government investment in science is necessarily a good idea.
> I'd be willing to wager that the economic impact of Newton and Leibniz's invention of Calculus[0] is larger than the economic impact of any engineering product, ever.
Where they financed by the government? Btw, I can also look at winning lottery tickets and say that their return-on-investment was awesome, but that doesn't mean buying lottery tickets is a good idea.
True for academic institutions. No evidence this is the motivation at NASA. Simpler: science costs money and leadership believes that money is better spent giving folks like me a tax cut than paying for poor folks' healthcare or basic research.
Fortunately, it looks like Beijing is ready to pick up the torch [1].
[1] https://www.fdd.org/analysis/policy_briefs/2025/03/19/aiming...
Many people grossly underestimate restarting a stopped process which took tremendous inertia to get rolling at the first place.
For all practical purposes its almost like you permanently lose the ability.
Sounds like ye olde Sowell quote[1] about organizational priorities and budget cuts in action.
[1]https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2013/03/thomas_sowell_budge...
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The claim that SpaceX does not do science is false. Not only do they launch most of NASA's science missions, which counts, they also do independent science, including the Polaris Dawn and FRAM 2. Along with Axiom, they put science missions on the ISS, and all the NASA science done on ISS is facilitated by SpaceX putting humans there. Finally, literally everything that SpaceX has done or built is a result of science that SpaceX has had to do, including colder than ever propellants, and life support systems, etc. The Polaris Dawn spacewalk was not a replication of the 1960s spacewalks, as it was based on new suit science, etc.
Somehow, people like to pretend that probes landing on other planets is the only form of science that is done.
And the reality is that new entrants from RKLB, SpaceX, Firefly, and a lot of smaller companies are doing exactly this kind of science as well--- but at vastly lower cost.
The inescapable reality-- and this will always be the case with political organizations like NASA-- is no matter how well meaning they cannot do science as effectively as private organizations. NASA slows science down in large part because they are hamstrung by congress.
Yes, it looks like some way too expensive projects are getting cancelled and that means some waste of money. It's not the choice I would make.
But in the next 10 years, nearly %100 of all science will be done outside of NASA.... because the NASA overhead is too much, makes things too expensive, and less reliable.
For example, it's better to blow up 1 falcon one, and 2 falcon 9s, to get 500 successful falcon 9 launches at 1/100th the cost per kilogram of mass to orbit than to have a completely successful SLS system that launches only 2-3 times a decade.
The former accelerates science, lowers the cost of all science and more science gets done per dollar than the latter.
That transition is happening whether government, the senate and congress is aboard.... or not.
Exactly. Like if I am an uber driver and I bring a surgeon to a hospital, it counts as me doing surgery since the most important part of surgery is the process of driving to the place where it happens
This is exactly how anyone would describe your reply. Your claim is so bizzare and its logic so convoluted that the only reason I can imagine for it is political motivation. But I could be wrong and don't want to get into a flamewar. So let's ignore the reasons and reassess the logic instead. Most of the counter I can come up with are variations of what the other commenter replied, so I will leave that to them. Instead, let's look at why your argument never pans out.
Private companies always look for short to medium term profits, since it affects their balance sheets and ultimately their survival. That constraint isn't favorable for scientific research and science missions, because there is a long lead time for the research results to be converted into a commercially viable products. Some companies with a large product portfolio and steady profits still do some research, as long as it isn't too costly or time consuming. An example is the pharma industry.
But science involving the biosphere, atmosphere, astronomy/astrophysics, space, interplanetary missions etc are on the other end of that spectrum - extremely costly and no commercialization for the foreseeable future. The only way private industries are going to do it is if the government funds them with short term profits - in which case, it's the government's program, not the industry's. Even Musk's Mars dream is dependent on government funding in that manner, though his intent isn't science either. What makes you think the private industry will take it upon themselves to fund and conduct research that makes no economic sense?
A friend of mine had her division's headcount cut by >80% that was all research focused and building instruments for deep space observation. No one is hiring people to do that in the private sector. Dozens of astrophysics PhDs in that division alone are now without work and with no real prospects doing anything related to what they've dedicated their entire lives to (and accepted modest salaries as civil servants to do).
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.
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.
Is it typical for companies in the satellite design/manufacturing space for parts/electrical components engineers to be able to work remotely outside of travelling for inspections/supplier audits/component testing?
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.
Similar sentiment is felt about any other organization run by people who are seen as having had a hand in kneecapping NASA - working for their companies is not appealing. Perhaps her views will change after she's had more time to process the sting of the layoff notice.
And her prior work for the DoD left her with an extraordinarily bad impression of the culture. Admittedly she'd only worked at a single Navy Yard and different branches in different services can have different cultures, but nevertheless - the DoD is not appealing either. Depending on the results of her job search, that might change.
For Amazon Kuiper - no relevant roles are available in the region and, as far as what's listed on the website, there's no jobs that allow for working remotely outside of relevant travel.
Blue Origin...same issue as with Kuiper - remote work doesn't seem to be a thing and they've no local presence with relevant jobs available.
Those companies are transportation companies when it comes to space.
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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!
It’s more accurate to say that Congress needs an overhaul. Over the years NASA administrators have pushed back on SLS to the fullest extent you’d expect, but it’s not their call how Congress allocates money.
Losing career managers, scientists and engineers isn’t going to fix any of the things you want to see fixed.
But there's a few programs that have these types of problems, not just NASA. IMO, there's probably more efficient ways to meet each goal, by decoupling the problem. But either way, we can't solve "the problem" unless we actually recognize what it is (and there's a lot more than what I've just mentioned)
[0] https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/nasainthe50states/
They don't call it the Senate Launch System for nothing
I’ve worked with a few former NASA employees now.
They all said the same thing: There were some amazing, passionate people at NASA but they were all surrounded by people who were only there to attend meetings and collect paychecks. Getting anything done was impossible because you had to navigate webs of org structure and process that had been designed to make work and jobs for people, not to deliver results.
My one ex-NASA coworker got a lot of mileage out of telling people he worked for NASA, putting it on his LinkedIn, and mentioning it when he introduced himself to new people. People respect the name. It was a stark contrast to how he described his actual time there.
Which do you think takes a severance package?
The national labs are also a lot like this.
"Slicing at random" could actually outperform most other methods, as long as it's truly random. You can weasel your way out of a firing based on vibes or performance reviews - but you can't convince an RNG that its roll was wrong.
Are they 1% as inspiring as what the DoD does with their budget? I don't mean to be snarky, but level of inspiration is pretty subjective and difficult to put a price tag on. Honestly, I feel like the NASA budget needs to be considered in context relative to the DoD budget and then these cuts look much less convincing as being necessary.
People aren't inspired by safe shipping lanes. But quite a few are alive because of what global shipping enables.
It would be closer to 2%, but we could measure it by engagement. Ask people what their last positive interaction was with NASA vs the military. The military does all sorts of outreach with things like the Blue Angels, stadium flyovers, competitions at fairs, etc. Ask them what NASA has done over the past year vs what the military has done over the past year. Chances are many people couldn't name something NASA achieved in the past year. Would it be at the 2% number? I don't know.
I'm not saying one is better than the other. I think both should look for budget inefficiency, but until those are identified I wouldn't propose budget cuts. But it does seem that the NASA missions could be more inspiring recently.
I dare say a great many people are very inspired by what the DoD does with their budget. Inspired to what... well, that's another subject. And the most inspired people are not the ones living in the US.
Science is great but launch vehicle innovation is where the problem is so that’s why I focused on SLS. We could easily have 100 JWSTs today if something like starship were operational. NASA dragging its feet for decades, building silly things likes SLS, trying to find token uses to justify it, doesn’t inspire me anymore.
The bottleneck is actual manufacturing of JWST - the folding mirror was especially fraught; I think the sunshield as well.
Happens all the time.
Europe vs us east vs us west.
NASA's science missions have been incredible.
The James Webb Space Telescope, a 6.5-meter-diameter infrared telescope at Lagrange Point 2 that can measure the atmospheric chemistry of planets orbiting other stars and measure the spectra of galaxies that were around 10 billion years ago.
The Curiosity rover landed on Mars by being lowered to the ground from a rocket-powered "sky-crane." It was powered by a radioactive battery, has been driving around and taking measurements for more than a decade, and has shown that Mars was likely habitable billions of years ago.
What kind of inspiration do you feel is lacking there?
Money for SLS is separate part of the budget, its mismanagement causes reputational damage - MSR budget is part of NASA probe budget, mismanagement there causes stall, worse performances and cancellations for AWFUL amount of other projects
MSR is a fine enough concept though, I think Rocket Lab's proposal to get it done is sound and the government should take them up on the offer. If nothing else, the money to Rocket Lab for MSR development would help to make Rocket Lab a more viable SpaceX competitor, which should pay off for the US government in the long run.
The entire space coast of Florida was built on this, from Kennedy Space Center down to Jupiter, FL.
Americans seem to expect lots of flag waving and spaceships. Less fundamental science.
Isn't the greater likelihood that delivery of service will drop as a result of the cuts and they'll point to this to justify nullifying the entire programme?
Anyhoo, NASA letting so many people resign is good if your opinion is such that lowering government expenditure is a good thing. So long as the exit package is comparable to retirement package these government employees would have got otherwise. My guess is the resignation package has great near term performance but low long term (retirement) performance, making it a great option for younger workers able to pivot to new careers.
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SLS isn't great but it does.. you know.. work.
Which it was capable of doing all along—Congress and NASA lied about this, misled the public, to make it appear that their jobs-creating, pork-barrel project was serving some genuine need NASA had. It wasn't! They had alternatives all along—they were pretending they didn't.
When you read about these things, you have to know all the actors you're getting information from, and what motives they have to mislead you.
There's not a single real mission in NASA's budget, or conceivable future budget, that needs an SLS—full stop. Sole exception being the moon project, which was created with the express purpose of finding a problem SLS would be the only answer for (and even that's now in doubt, what with Starship).
https://idlewords.com/2024/05/the_lunacy_of_artemis.htm
https://youtu.be/XFIvKSVRtZ0
https://youtu.be/sGT-8PHSVso
Consequently, it can't do a Moon mission like the Saturn V could, it requires the idiotic nonsense that is the NHRO, which will endanger astronauts because it can't get Orion (which is a whole other can of pork) into a low lunar orbit. It also can't handle the lander, so now Artemis has to count on SpaceX and/or Blue Origin for that, which is probably what you're alluding to not working. But if those don't work, then neither does Artemis and then how can you say SLS works?
Another problem with SLS is it's expensive AF and has a terrible launch cadence. Maybe you think that doesn't really matter, but it is for those reasons that NASA isn't going to test Orion again before putting astronauts on it. The last time they tested Orion, to verify the design and modelling, the heat shield started to come apart. But NASA can't do another test flight, because SLS sucks so hard, so instead they're going to fly Orion on an untested trajectory and trust their modeling to keep astronauts safe. Their same modeling which failed to predict Orion performance the first time. It's homicidally reckless. There is a real risk of this becoming yet another instance of NASA management's "go culture" getting people killed. Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia, each time they say they've learned their lesson and will make changes to ensure it doesn't happen again, but either those changes are only superficial or they decay over time. We're now on the precipice of NASA management flying astronauts around the Moon with a heat shield which may quite possibly disintegrate during reentry, because SLS is too expensive for NASA to test it but NASA management wants to move forward anyway.
And having worked on some classified systems doesn't preclude employment in related fields. It does restrict what you can share, of course.
I bet plenty have that useful "unwritten institutional knowledge" that could help newer programs. (F.ex. instructions for a nuclear waste storage said to use kitty litter, but didn't say it was because it was a cheap source of bentonite clay; someone substituted some modern paper variant and caused a small nuclear incident).
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/world/europe/china-recrui...
https://asiatimes.com/2024/12/what-uk-fighter-pilots-did-and...
And finally, the official response: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/former-armed-forces-perso...
It comes down to money and private interests dominating Western politics. It has bad but also good sides. Human conflict used to be about extermination a few thousand years ago, that is what I think of when I read such headlines, such things can actually also be seen as progress. We now have priorities other than our tribe or nation, that has good sides too. I like the Napoleonic war story where Napoleon gave a medal to a British scientist, Humphry Davy.
While bad for the nation, I try to see it as a mixed bag that people from the top down are... flexible.
The price we pay is, possibly, worse outcomes in conflicts. What we gain is that after conflicts end we get back to normal life - with one another - very quickly and relatively easily.
There are still maybe one or two cool jobs left at NASA like controlling the Voyager software. But I imagine everyone else at NASA who respects themselves would have left for SpaceX a long time ago, rather than waiting for Trump to incentivize their retirement. Half of all revenue collected by the US federal government in 2024 (totaling $2565 billion) was given to retirees. Mostly middle class and government retirees. So this policy shift is very aligned with the US status quo, which is paying people to do nothing, rather than having them go through the motions of tilting at bureaucratic windmills trying to do something.
Even in this thread you see how pervasive the attitude is. I've seen several comments here so far talking about how the economic system isn't giving them enough money, but I've yet to see anyone here express a willingness to eat ramen, sleep in the trenches, get their hands dirty, and endure whatever pain and peril it takes if it grants the opportunity to help out getting things done with space exploration. Those are the kinds of people who create material abundance.
Sending things to space is a small part of what NASA does. "Aeronautics" is not "space rocketry", and all federal agencies do more than what their name indicates.
not everyone wants to work for a company that is well known for grinding 20-somethings into the dust with an extremely poor work-life balance.
Perhaps our coolest diplomacy program. I love that RU and USA have managed to cooperate in space through many decades of conflict.
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?
Cutting all probationary employees or recent promotions was just an awful strategy. For every department in the government.
The only thing left to do was the sledgehammer?
The issue is, if you do small targeted cuts, you'll spare the very people you want to cut. Because they're the best at playing office politics and finding ways to justify why they shouldn't be cut.
If you can't find a way to bypass that, your options are few. One of those options is the sledgehammer approach. Axe entire agencies, fire everyone and never hire of the fired people back. Rebuild an organization from the ground up, with new people and less rot.
It's what was done in ex-USSR countries after the fall of USSR. It wasn't pretty. It worked.
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People work at NASA because they believe in the mission. So if they are leaving now they either stopped believing in the future of NASA because of this or they were money motivated and sucked.
And what exactly is left of the mission now? Not much to keep working for in that regard
On a more serious note, the administration's NASA budget is just completely nonsensical. I'm biased as a grantee, but the budget request called out our balloon experiment as should happen this year but refunded the balloon program (?!?). The congressional markups keep it so that's hopeful but there's still substantial uncertainty if we're actually going to Antarctica in ~3 months to fly our $20M experiment.
Even if all funding is ultimately secured will so many good people leave from the NASA balloon contractor that it will be difficult to have an Antarctic balloon campaign?