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4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program
- arghandugh 1y agoThanks, 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.
- Ygg2 1y ago> ruled by a violent senile pedophile and his deranged crackhead enablers Which one? If you want to blame anyone, try the financial sector and financialization of everything. They fed the conflagration and created perfect condition for Trump-like figure to rise.
- OhioMan2943 1y agoIt's a very worthwhile story to follow imo :)
- crinkly 1y agoI work for one of the largest financial companies. It's not us or the sector. There's a whole shadow sector behind the scenes doing this stuff run by billionaire funded think tanks who manipulated tech markets and leverage political and social manipulation through their connections. It's the world we live in but we didn't create it. Shit education leads to pliable humans leads to social manipulation leads to desired outcomes from marketing efforts.
- tonyhart7 1y agois that same people that I was thinking???? I know they all one to blame even they control government
- crinkly 1y agoWell there's quite a few of them who are ideologically aligned.
- OhioMan2943 1y agoIs this in the same vein as those who are influencing the republican party or something a little more discreet. A hint never hurt
- Ygg2 1y agoI don't blame any particular sector in particularly but everyone is guilty in aggregate. And this has been going on for decades. At the end of the day it's what capitalism is best at maximizing efficiency, and externalizing the risks to someone else.
- jewelry 1y agoHow come is it the tech industry to blame? Trump’s election result is because of the decades of de-industrialization and undereducated people left out of the growth during this time. I don’t see why tech industry would be the first to blame.
- oc1 1y agoIf i leave a knife on the table and you decide to stab me with it, who is to blame? The knife, me or you?
- butterlettuce 1y agodef runMentalGymnastics(): “”” You, because you left the knife on the table “”” pass
- sokoloff 1y agoWhat part of this do you think is the fault of the “tech industry”? The tech industry certainly has its flaws and things to criticize, but this doesn’t seem part of it, unless I’m missing a connection somehow.
- ddos27 1y agoPeter Thiel, David Sacks, Ellison and of course Elon Musk who funded the trump
- aisenik 1y agoIt feels like malpractice to leave Andreessen off the list, if only because he's such a good example of how losery and pathetic the tech moguls really are. Imagine becoming wealthy and powerful in an age of abundance off of NCSA Mosaic and throwing it all away because you feel threatened by black people and think that government funded research is now bad. That's the level of "advanced thought" in these guys' group chats.
- mittensc 1y ago[flagged]
- LtWorf 1y agoLol, quite convenient to blame trump on the evil dictators of someplace else.
- mittensc 1y agoelections worldwide, not just the US. They are trying to dismantle/weaken democracies everywhere. That they are not the only ones with the same intentions is not good.
- LtWorf 1y agoEvery large country is doing that everywhere constantly. It's not an exclusive of the ones you don't like.
- kortilla 1y agoThe tech industry overwhelmingly voted against Trump. Pick a different boogeyman
- mittensc 1y agowho did most of the tech billionaires sponsor?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- derektank 1y agoMost tech billionaires didn't endorse anyone because the election was close and they wanted to avoid scrutiny by either party. A few high profile tech billionaires endorsed Donald Trump
- sour-taste 1y agoThe workers did, the people with money welcomed him with open arms hoping for less regulation and big contracts. Look in the row behind trump during his inauguration if you need proof.
- kortilla 1y agothey only welcomed him after he won in a big ring kissing competition (apart from Musk and a famous VC or two of course)
- watwut 1y agoSomehow, they did not welcomed previous democratic president. And somehow, I doubt they would welcome Harris the same way. Like common, they were eager and happy to kiss the ring and support him.
- ivewonyoung 1y ago> Somehow, they did not welcomed previous democratic president They did, but such information is not brought up due to political bias here. For example, how many people here know that Uber donated $1 million(the max amount possible) to Biden's inauguration? Google, Amazon and Microsoft donated too.
- smokel 1y agoAny practical tips on how to improve upon the current situation?
- kbrkbr 1y agoInner emigration? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_emigration https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_emigration
- actualwitch 1y agoStart perusing https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active as your hn frontpage and make note of a very obvious flagging bias there. Vouch and upvote the information that is getting hidden while not breaking the guidelines. Hulk Hogan's death being front page news while MechaHitler getting flagged tells you everything you need to know about this site.
- thowaway7564902 1y agoThat's not what's important right now. What's important is figuring out whose fault this is - Randy Marsh
- oc1 1y agoThanks also Y Combinator and friends for making this possible
- pi-err 1y agoYou could swap "tech" for "big media" and just play the same blame game for Reagan's and Bush Jr's elections. > the crown jewels of America’s last century Including Nasa in this pure idealization of the past. Nasa had many flaws that enabled a catastrophic Shuttle program and then the slow loss of US go-to-LEO capability. There's probably more to expect of US investment in space without incompetent or contradictory military and political oversight than the current nasa zombie programs. And it's unclear that Nasa can ever be without that oversight.
- exe34 1y agoYes, too much oversight is the problem here, not lobbying and self-interest/corruption.
- pydry 1y agoThe shuttle program wasnt what NASA wanted to do, it was the military that pushed for that. It's ironic that you'd blame them for the thing they didnt want to do. If theyd kept their budget and autonomy after the moon landing it looked like they wouldve been building reusable rockets like the ones elon is building now, except in like, 1980.
- pi-err 1y agoIt's ironic that you didn't read a comment before answering. > it's unclear that Nasa can ever be without that (military and political) oversight By design, Nasa is probably doomed to get interference. > If theyd kept their budget and autonomy after the moon landing it looked like they wouldve been building reusable rockets Pure fantasy. Nasa's interest for reusable vehicles led them to the Shuttle. Even without all the design changes, it would have been a dud. Due to its nature, Nasa can't freely explore and commit to a design like SpaceX does/did. It draws a concept and freezes it after contractor review, only to find after an already massive investment if it works. Then there's public accountability instead of executive risk taking. I'd bet the proper way to have protected Nasa would have been to keep it focused on key scientific missions with limited financial exposure. Mars rovers are a perfect case, or most James Webb. Using Nasa to go back to the Moon or reach Mars was doomed to fail (sort of like it failed post Apollo).
- h4ck_th3_pl4n3t 1y ago...and you still didn't get your Praxis nation! Ha!
- hopelite 1y ago“… at least now you get to be ruled by a violent senile pedophile and his deranged crackhead enablers.” Which one? *blank stare* America has a deeply rooted problem with a parasitic and evil, lying, conniving, devious ruling class and their treasonous, accomplice enablers… to clarify what may be dismissed by some because you call them “crackheads”.
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoIt used to be they tried to hide it and were embarrassed when they got caught. Sometimes they even got thrown out of office.
- hopelite 1y agoI am quite convinced that this is at least one of the "benefits" of things like the sexual liberation movement and even the push to breach national norms against pornography; you don't even have to be embarrassed or step down, let alone be prosecuted for perversion, degeneracy, sexual abuse, etc. if you are a ruling class perverse person that is bored with normal things and therefore seek ever increasingly perverse, degenerate, transgressive, and abusive things. You are also easily controlled and manipulated once you have crossed the line and are compromised by indulging in perversions. What do you do when/if you have everything else, you have done everything else, and normal things everyone else does bore you and you essentially have unlimited money/resources; you do things that most people cannot even imagine anyone would think of doing, let alone do them. It is why certain elements of our society have worked so hard to corrupt society in all kinds of ways, including through desensitization through all kinds of media and even things like essentially taking capital punishment off the table, even for the ver people who it is most effective for, deliberate, intentional "white collar" criminals like the very kinds that do perverse things. You can't pardon perverts and con artists and traitors if they are dead.
- _proofs 1y agosorta sounds like altered carbon's "meth" class of wealth.
- pixxel 1y ago[dead]
- Robotbeat 1y agoFWIW, 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.
- spicyusername 1y agoWow, that's terrible news... I just don't understand why this is something people would want.
- spwa4 1y agoBecause a LOT of people have been left out of economic progress in Europe especially, and in the US. They want, even need change, and Trump came with a "believable" story for change. As in, more change than a president Harris would have delivered. Unless we get economic progress more equally spread this will get worse and worse.
- derriz 1y agoI don't think this is true or at least is not reflected by any statistics. Inequality, as measured by GINI has been falling both for the EU as a whole and within most European countries for decades now. The last decade in particular has seen declines in nearly all EU countries. Taking the EU on average the last time it increased was in 2014 - which is to be expected as the 2013 expansion allowed a number of relatively poor countries into the union. For individual countries, you can check the statistics here: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI A few examples, I looked at Ireland in particular, and inequality has never been lower - the earliest statistics I could find is from the mid-1980s. Inequality peaked around 2000 for the UK and has declined hugely since then. France is more equal than it was in 2000 although the fall is less dramatic than that for the UK. Admittedly Germany has seen a slight rise since 2000 but Germany has also absorbed millions of very poor refugees in that time. The US is an outlier globally - with rising inequality over the last few decades. Slightly off-topic, this untrue claim of rising inequality in Europe is often presented without challenge and then used to justify some radical political solution. To my mind, it's using the same political "mind hack" that the the MAGA/alt-right in the USA have used (in this case concerning race, immigrants, global multilateralism, or social tolerance - "wokism" - in general). For both, the veracity of the claims is apparently unimportant and uninteresting as long as the claim aligns with one's political orientation. The goal of these oft repeated untruths is to provoke indignation or anger - in order to drum up support for some radical political "solution".
- kacesensitive 1y agoI 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. https://www.planetary.org/articles/nasa-2026-budget-proposal-in-charts 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.
- rozal 1y ago[dead]
- ineedaj0b 1y agoi too knew a lot of NASA employed peopled and it’s always regrettable to lose a job but.. what the heck was our space program doing? i know they blamed changing leadership and changing budget but the space shuttle’s replacement program was run horribly. the only working part of cape canaveral was whatever spy satellites they needed to launch. thankfully spaceX does a pretty good job and while I wish it was still nasa leading the globe in space travel, the main decline of our era is unwieldy bureaucracy and not even nasa could figure out how to run a profit despite a monopoly.
- righthand 1y agoRun a profit? What does that mean? What profitable business is currently available for an aeronautics and space agency that was never about making "profit".
- tonyhart7 1y agoNASA should launch internet sattellite like starlink so they can profit off something but its too late I think the thinking that government body is not for profit is misleading since you want a bit of independence in terms on financial budget see what happen when government change stance, NASA hiring and firing depends on political mood at the point having an profitable business wouldn't make NASA cut the job if government decide to cut the budget
- nQQKTz7dm27oZ 1y ago[flagged]
- kubb 1y agoSo basically, Elon Musk is eating NASA, and people are cheering.
- Robotbeat 1y agoNope, 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.
- magicloop 1y agoThe 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.
- perihelions 1y ago> "before their current term expires" > "This mirrors the political, prestige, and technology triumph of the Kennedy administration" Trump may have said "before my term ends"; what JFK said was "before this decade is out". IMHO, this is like a diametric opposite of Richard M. Nixon landing on the moon, two presidencies after Kennedy (and of opposite party); acting for Americans' obvious shared interests (not personal vanity); being the final link in an unbroken chain of sustained, stable governance. We've lost the capacity for greatness of that era. We don't have that, that chain of stable governance in service of national interests; what we have is an attention-deficient narcissist, capriciously destroying every great American thing that exists which doesn't have name attached. (Ironically, the thing Kennedy so fervently competed against no longer exists today. That fearsome adversary, the triumph of Sputnik and Gagarin, was also demolished in this century by a Trump-like figure, spouting vapid promises of greatness as he vandaled and looted it to the ground).
- lostmsu 1y ago> a Trump-like figure, spouting vapid promises of greatness Can't pinpoint who you are referring to. Gemini thinks Yeltsin? But neither it nor I remember any "greatness" promises from the guy.
- optimalsolver 1y agoI always wonder how many caught up in these federal mass firings voted for Trump. I can't imagine they could've foreseen this outcome. USAID was probably a stronghold of Dem voters, but what about the Dept. of Agriculture, or the Forest Service?
- monkeyelite 1y agoIsn’t a criticism of democracy that individuals vote for their immediate benefit (MY job, MY housing) with no consideration of longer term consequences?
- optimalsolver 1y agoI suppose they're involuntarily practicing a high form of civic virtue, although that doesn't pay off the mortgage.
- monkeyelite 1y agoI didn’t say anything about virtue. You’re probably right that they didn’t fully anticipate changes. But what bothers me is that hypocrisy accusation avoids making a claim about what would actually be a good or bad policy. Do you want federal cut backs or not?
- optimalsolver 1y ago>Do you want federal cut backs or not? The right-leaning people caught up in this would probably say "Yes, but not in my obviously highly efficient division."
- monkeyelite 1y agoWhat do you say?
- bradley13 1y agoI'm sure the bureaucracy can stand some serious cutting. However, with voluntary programs like this, you tend to lose the best people.
- jart 1y agoNASA 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.
- verzali 1y agoThis 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.
- tonyhart7 1y agoI hope spacex,blue origin etc can pick up these people hope the best for them
- declan_roberts 1y agoI don't think long termers at NASA are the kinds of people that survive at spacex, blue origin, etc. unfortunately
- OrvalWintermute 1y agoMy engineering colleagues could jump to SpaceX / Blue Origin / Newspace in a second, and they work insane amounts. Much Newspace pays NASA to borrow talent to help stand up their space programs. However, they want to do NASA work which is very R&D focused and has great opportunities for innovation, plenty of low TRL work, and a bro ad variety of missions. Industry isn’t doing that much low TRL work
- rockskon 1y agoNASA has been downsizing a lot. 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.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- orochimaaru 1y agoWhy won’t the skillset be transferable to places like space x, Amazon kuiper, blue origin, or any of the big defense tech or start ups (eg anduril)?
- kylecordes 1y agoLikely so, but you have probably listed a bunch of organizations already utterly swamped with eager and qualified job candidates relative to their hiring numbers.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago>a bunch of organizations already utterly swamped with eager and qualified job candidates relative to their hiring numbers So....the same challenges that everyone working in the private sector has? What am I missing here?
- admissionsguy 1y agoGood, space program run by the government was very wasteful for many decades.. scientific missions were nice but also a bit of extravagant luxury
- const_cast 1y agoYes, 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.
- andrewstuart 1y agoIn the end there will only be money for paying national debt interest.
- myvoiceismypass 1y agoThe deficit will be increasing with the BBB. So, no.
- eagerpace 1y agoI’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!
- reactordev 1y agoAnytime 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.
- eagerpace 1y agoBeyond 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.
- rtkwe 1y agoThere's that but also NASA gets continually screwed with, the moon return mission changed scope every 8 or so years when a new president came in and wanted to put their own stamp on the project to claim it for themselves.
- zevets 1y agoIt's slightly less cynical than that - it takes about eight years to design a space mission and rocket, but doing the detailed design is expensive as hell, so in order to meet a budget, they then change the mission, so they can go back to the vastly more affordable task of talking about doing work, vs doing work
- dextrous 1y agoPolitics 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? https://qz.com/emails/space-business/2172377/an-oxford-case-study-explains-why-spacex-is-more-efficient-than-nasa https://qz.com/emails/space-business/2172377/an-oxford-case-...
- azinman2 1y agoNASA does far more science research than spacex.
- belter 1y ago> Data like this would suggest privatization of space missions is a good idea How is that working out with the US Health Care System?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Strom 1y agoBetter healthcare for fewer people. Might work well for space exploration.
- samrus 1y agoI 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
- nine_zeros 1y ago[flagged]
- Arubis 1y agoThat particular playbook long predates Trump: campaign on the ineffectiveness and incompetence of government and, once elected, prove it—with ineffectiveness and incompetence. Repeat ad infinium.
- nine_zeros 1y agoYes, it predates trump. But prior to trump, Republican voters would hold their representatives accountable. Today, trump's cult is so brainwashed that they are completely ok with pedophilia, internment camps, destruction of services, destruction of science - literally willing to burn American society to ground so that Trump continues in office. Their priority is Trump and not America. Which is why no one can take republican voters seriously.
- kstrauser 1y ago> Republican voters would hold their representatives accountable. I don’t think that’s accurate, unless it was for a crime they just couldn’t forgive. Debacle in the Middle East? Stay the course and re-elect Bush. Find out a senator had a gay experiment once? Out, so to speak. You’ve been able to do what you want within the GOP for decades, so long as it’s Old Testament compliant.
- 1y ago
- mosesbp 1y agoDoes 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.
- bix6 1y agohttps://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/09/nasa-staff-departures-00444674 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/09/nasa-staff-departur... “You’re losing the managerial and core technical expertise of the agency,” said Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society.
- mosesbp 1y agoThanks for this earlier article. From there it seems that the most staff losses are at Goddard, which is largely focused on science, not launch capabilities. So this unfortunately seems to fit into the larger “anti-science” push of the administration (e.g. the almost entirely senseless cuts at the NSF, NIH) more than it has to do with launch activities. Another dark day for US physics research…
- renewiltord 1y agoIt may well be a problem but I’m not going to take my predictions from the guys who said “I give it two weeks before Twitter collapses”.
- almosthere 1y agoSLS 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.
- yalogin 1y agoThis 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
- EasyMark 1y agoThis 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.
- BobbyJo 1y agoThe 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.
- CPLX 1y agoThis is a ridiculous statement. The Fed is a profoundly undemocratic institution that harnesses the power of the state to serve the interests of capital, and its current form is a recent development that coincides with the financialization of our economy and the decimation of manufacturing and the middle class. If you want the full argument it’s here: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/federal-reserve-independence-is-bad https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/federal-reserve-independe...
- BobbyJo 1y agoI don't think its any less democratic than any other government organization run by appointees. Manufacturing's decimation had far more to do with globalization than banking regulation IMO.
- LtWorf 1y agoHow dare you be critical of capitalism on ycombinator?
- CPLX 1y agoWhat the Fed does isn’t “capitalism” it’s literally a government agency that sets prices.
- 1y ago
- linuxhansl 1y agoGreat. 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.
- mathattack 1y agoIf you have a PhD in physics, and your option is to deal with this abuse and get Paod X, or join an AI firm and get paid 5X, which would you choose?
- shutupnerd0000 1y agoWhy does an AI firm need a physics PhD?
- foobarian 1y agoTo run numpy and Jupyter
- Animats 1y agoYet NASA still hasn't killed the Senate Launch System. The Lunar Gateway was just funded. The wrong stuff is being cut.
- ACCount36 1y agoSLS and Gateway should be the first to die, not the last. But politicians just can't stop funding their pork barrels.
- myko 1y agoIt isn't even a real program. This entire administration is a farce.
- hk1337 1y agoI'm curious what percentage of the employees are engineers vs managers or some other non-engineering/non-critical type roles?
- rokkitpuppy 1y ago[dead]
- crnkofe 1y agoSo sad to hear this. It sounds like gutting various agencies and public sector is being done for no real purpose other than to "save". What's being saved for is something apparently nobody knows. Probably not even the current top brass.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoWe're not saving anything. The budget is as large as ever, with $150B increase on "border control". That's what we're gutting all this for. A crying shame.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoThat's a significant brain drain that will take a long time to recover from. Even if you think NASA was bloated, this is not a good trajectory for the country.
- rokkitpuppy 1y ago[dead]
- gammarator 1y agoComments 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. [1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/07/trump-administration-moves-to-tighten-the-noose-around-nasa-science-missions/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/07/trump-administration-m...
- jacobolus 1y agoThe 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.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> 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]. [1] https://www.fdd.org/analysis/policy_briefs/2025/03/19/aiming-for-parity-with-u-s-china-announces-increase-in-science-and-technology-spending/ https://www.fdd.org/analysis/policy_briefs/2025/03/19/aiming...
- msgodel 1y ago>that money is better spent giving folks like me a tax cut The federal government now accepts donations if you don't want the money.
- yieldcrv 1y agoThe private space cargo industry is taking off so it’s decent time to do this But entitlements and defense are the biggest costs to the nation and the consequences of cutting everything else are not worth it until these other things are addressed - or the nations finds a way to collect more revenues
- cozzyd 1y agoShould have stuck with 1080p. 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?
- wnevets 1y agobut I was told Musk has been one of the major forces in the administration fighting to preserve and fix NASA
- protocolture 1y agoDevils advocate, Musk is no longer part of the administration, and news reports have cited Nasa nonsense as part of why.
- wnevets 1y ago> Devils advocate, Musk is no longer part of the administration, and news reports have cited Nasa nonsense as part of why. Only a devils advocate would believe that with this administration still giving his companies massive government contracts [1] and regulation win falls [2] [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/grok-elon-musk-xai-pentagon-contract/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/grok-elon-musk-xai-pentagon-con... [2] https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-musk-spacex-rocket-launch-environmental-regulation-rollback https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-musk-spacex-rocket-...
- protocolture 1y agoThey should totally use that other company with reliable launch capability.. or maybe that government department with reliable launch capability... or maybe they should go with the russians... hmmmmm.
- ACCount36 1y agoReportedly, Jared Isaacman, the rumored Musk's NASA pick of choice, wanted to cut down SLS/Orion and axe Gateway - and was opposed to science cuts. Jared Isaacman is out, and what we're seeing actually happen now is the opposite of that. All the pork barrels are getting funded, and the brunt of budget cuts seems to be stated to be born by science missions like Roman Space Telescope.
- protocolture 1y ago
- mensetmanusman 1y agoCollateral damage of Americans thinking academics has gone off the deep end + the replication crisis.
- mberning 1y agoI am highly sympathetic to all impacted. It’s devastating. The rhetoric around cost cutting is something I can’t figure out how to deal with. The media makes it sound like the sky is falling with every cut. But having worked in enormous organizations myself, I also know that teams can and do lose headcount all the time, and somehow manage to carry on. I guess the issue I wrestle with the most is how we can spend tax dollars on programs, but also have the ability to reduce those programs when needed, without it seeming like the end of the world. We can’t have government agencies and programs that go on forever, expanding, growing in headcount and budget, for eternity. But the rhetoric around these events would have you believe that is the only path forward.
- jaimex2 1y agoIf Bill Nye the self appointed 'science guy' is against it then its probably a good thing.
- MinimalAction 1y agoI'm amazed at the short-sighted nature of this late-stage capitalistic world. A company like Meta which makes its fortune via insane amount of anti-user policies gets to earn a revenue of $164B with a profit of over $62B. A scientific organization that benefits everyone in so many innumerable ways, something that serves as a champion of humanity cannot be allowed to maintain a budget of $25B a year. Shut everything, let us bow to our AI overlords!
- ericvolp12 1y agoThe 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).
- goku12 1y agoPardon 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?
- lgregg 1y agoI’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.
- me-vs-cat 1y agoIn 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.
- goku12 1y agoI'm not familiar with the US laws. But I have seen a few cases where the terminated employee sued their former employer for not giving them the severance pay they were owed. That's why I made that (possibly wrong) assumption. So, how does that work?
- _carbyau_ 1y agoThe brain drain of losing 20% of people is going to hurt. The issue is now trust in your funding. Say in a few years NASA suddenly had money to rehire, who would trust that enough to orient your life around it?
- jschveibinz 1y agoThere are some numbers to consider in this discussion--all of these are from data on the web: 1. Only Israel ($3,400) spends more per capita on R&D than the U.S. ($2,800) on R&D 2. The U.S. spent around $900 billion on R&D, with China estimated at $800 billion and the EU at $381 billion. 3. The per capita spending for other major economies: - EU $850 per person - China around $700 per person (estimated) - South Korea $2,800 per person - Japan $1600 per person (all roughly PPP adjusted) Please check my estimates. The point is that the U.S. spends a lot on R&D, so a haircut may not be bad for the health of U.S. R&D programs (new priorities) let alone the temporary reduction in expenses. The R&D output is still going to be enormous relative to the rest of the world and probably on par with China.
- Cuesta03 1y ago[dead]
- legacynl 1y agoAnd another World-leading American institution bites the dust! Pretty impressive how much damage a foreign plant could do in less than a year
- Cheyana 1y ago[flagged]
- oldjim798 1y ago"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department!" says Wernher von Braun"
- kulahan 1y agoWhat does this even mean? I literally cannot figure it out. Like, they’ll just put warm bodies anywhere, as if that’s a feature of naziism? That Nazis love rockets? Something else?
- Jtsummers 1y agoThe US and USSR both snagged a lot of German scientists at the end of WWII. Many of those scientists ended up working for NASA and were critical to rocket development in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun - A major example of this
- tsunagatta 1y agoI think they’re referencing Operation Paperclip: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
- karaterobot 1y agoIt's a reference to Wernher von Braun. I think it's a really pointless thing to say, since it adds nothing to the conversation and just sort of makes an unrelated, uninformative reference. But here we are nonetheless.
- kulahan 1y agoYes, that's why I'm asking him for clarification.
- Molitor5901 1y agoBut haven't people wanted NASA to be more streamlined, and efficient? Not sure if that is reducing staffing, or changing its mission. SpaceX making such leaps and bounds over NASA had to be a shot across the bow.
- lawlessone 1y ago>leaps and bounds repeated explosions?
- psunavy03 1y agoYou do realize that while Starship mishaps are making headlines, the Falcon platform is in the background printing money with basically zero major issues, right?
- lawlessone 1y agofair point
- marcusverus 1y agoSpaceX was responsible for ~87% of mass delivered into orbit last year. They are clearly on a whole 'nother level. The thing that's exploding is Starship, which is still under development. Their production vehicles are among the most reliable in history. Falcon has a 99% mission success rate a 95% landing success rate and Falcon Heavy has a 100% mission success rate.
- kacesensitive 1y agoSure everyone wants NASA to be efficient but cutting it's funding to the lowest since 1961 isn't doing that. You don't "fix" NASA by shooting it in the head. https://www.planetary.org/articles/nasa-2026-budget-proposal-in-charts https://www.planetary.org/articles/nasa-2026-budget-proposal...
- chomp 1y ago> SpaceX making such leaps and bounds over NASA What? These two do two separate things, do you mean ULA?
- jmclnx 1y agoWhy would people stay employed there with Trump and the GOP treating them the way they do. They are in demand and moving will get them higher pay and a more stable life.
- lawlessone 1y agoThey'll do this now and then act shocked when some of these ex nasa people end up working in Europe or China lol
- schmidtleonard 1y agoEven without that factor, making deep cuts to research funding right before Cold War II: Electric Boogaloo seems like a bad move.
- dylan604 1y agoIf you were acting on behalf of the other players in the sequel, these would be great moves.
- antonvs 1y agoTurns out people like Trump and Gabbard might be smarter than they appear. It's just a pity that they use that against the US.
- Gud 1y agoThey aren’t.
- pavlov 1y agoThey’re not smart, but both of them have been cultivated by Russia for decades. For a long time Trump has been repeating Russian talking points like he invented them. The best asset is the one who never sees how he’s being played. Only recently Trump has realized that Putin doesn’t actually do what he says, and you can tell he is genuinely surprised by this revelation.
- kube-system 1y agoTrump is simply a narcissist and socialite who has broad ideas about how he thinks the world should work, but like anyone at a high leadership position, surrounds himself with other people he trusts to execute on the details. In this case, all of the downsizing that has been happening is right out of the Heritage Foundation playbook, literally. And those plans are largely a manifestation of Kevin Roberts' political beliefs. He, in his book, has said things such as: > "many of America's institutions...need to be burned" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn%27s_Early_Light:_Taking_Back_Washington_to_Save_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn%27s_Early_Light:_Taking_B... This executive has been criticized as using a hatchet and not a scalpel in their downsizing options precisely because their fundamental driving belief is that all of it is waste and abuse. They don't want any of it.
- pklausler 1y agoFor 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.
- kortilla 1y agoIm 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.
- dylan604 1y ago> People work at NASA because they believe in the mission. And what exactly is left of the mission now? Not much to keep working for in that regard
- indoordin0saur 1y agoMost of these are just retirees. People who wanted to work at SpaceX over NASA are likely already doing so
- BurningFrog 1y agoTrue, but it can also be those that dislike the job the most, and they tend to be the people that you'll miss less.
- vpShane 1y ago> SpaceX and friends don’t do scientific research. They do though. That's the premise of xAI and even on their website is that they have all this 'research' and are feeding it to that 'grok' to establish even more scientific 'discoveries' I use quotes because I value the human side of things and like to enjoy the excitement and joy of collaboration and people coming up with new stuff.
- vpShane 1y agoThe top comment on the main thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44699052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44699052 > SpaceX and friends don’t do scientific research. They do though. That's the premise of xAI and even on their website is that they have all this 'research' and are feeding it to that 'grok' to establish even more scientific 'discoveries' I use quotes because I value the human side of things and like to enjoy the excitement and joy of collaboration and people coming up with new stuff.
- ck2 1y agoMeanwhile Pentagon just transferred a BILLION dollars from Nuclear Missile maintenance program to refurbish QatarForceOne Do we survive this? Are you sure? Because this is just the first six months, imagine by summer 2028 what things are going to be like with every single thing defunded, homeless and car-living exploding, etc.
- Tadpole9181 1y agoTrump made an EO demanding the DoJ seek to remove consent requirements and aim to forcibly institutionalize the homeless and mentally ill in asylums (and explicitly denied an exemption for incarceration based on a lack of beds available). So, uh, the camps will be funded and there will no longer be homeless... Man, sure glad the libs got owned.
- t1234s 1y agoWon't these people just wind up at Lockheed, Raytheon etc.. doing the same work for their customer NASA?
- blindriver 1y agoOr, conversely, it’s opening up opportunities for new grads and for promotion opportunities for existing employees.
- backtoyoujim 1y agoI would have titled it that the USA is facing brain drain from thousands exiting NASA.
- BurningFrog 1y agoI expect they'll overwhelmingly stay in the USA.
- robotburrito 1y agoDoes this matter? Aren’t we like a year from AGI? /s
- tempodox 1y agoTrump already wins the golden sledgehammer price, and that's just six months into his term. Even if the sum total will only be eight times that, it will still be the most massive wreck fest the country has ever seen. Any enemy of the U.S. would be proud to wreak that much havoc without firing a single shot.
- csours 1y agoThere are many ways to explain or understand the US election(s) of 2024. One way to understand the election is a rejection of complexity - political complexity, social complexity, scientific complexity, economic complexity, moral complexity - these are all out of style. People seem very happy to ditch all of these in favor of kayfabe [0]. Of course, an empty narratives doesn't last; but once people get used to an empty narrative, they sometimes just move on to the next one. Just give them a face and a heel - things are much easier to understand that way. Anyway, I feel like things might stay this way for a while. It's definitely a real human experience to say "I know MY job is complicated, but that thing over there ought to be simple" 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe
- quantified 1y agoIn order to privatize wealth, it helps to destroy common wealth.