Departments across the federal government seem to be in constant and overwhelming flux this year. A recent development is the potential leadership change at NASA this month. Jared Isaacman, who instituted and funded a private program that uses SpaceX rockets, has been nominated to replace Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, who is currently interim NASA administrator. For the first time in 10 months, NASA may have permanent leadership soon, and looking at the department’s future highlights a complex intersection between science and politics: navigating budgetary concerns, decreased workforce and concerns over cuts to long-standing programs.
Notable cuts to NASA’s resources began in March when, amid President Donald Trump’s initiatives to downsize the federal workforce, the department announced staffing cuts in the Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy, the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity and the Office of the Chief Scientist. With 23 initial firings from this decision, NASA staff frustrations began to grow, with an anonymous employee telling Business Insider that the choice shows that the federal government does not see NASA’s scientists as an integral part of the nation’s future. Since then, 4,000 employees have been fired from NASA as of this fall.
Staff are not the only resource taking hits from budget cuts and downsizing plans. A major point of contention has been the Goddard Space Center, a project that produced groundbreaking NASA projects such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope. Recently, however, it has suffered from closures and chaotic policy debates — staff have complained about a lack of information regarding structural rearrangements, building closures and seemingly random reorganization projects. Trump has also said he hopes to cut 50% of Goddard’s staffing budget.
Not only is this a clear threat to the job security and work conditions of federal employees, but sudden moves have compromised specialized research and delicate equipment integral to projects at Goddard. Goddard employee Monica Gorman told NPR that these damages waste exponential amounts of NASA funding and stall or scrap projects necessary for the United States to remain a leader in the space industry.
These concerns are at odds with the ambitions that Isaacman articulated the first time he was nominated for the position: Isaacman wrote in an article in RealClear Science in August that maintaining a competitive edge on other space leaders such as China and Russia will require NASA to push its problem solving boundaries with unparalleled ambition. Centering competition and ambition in his goals is at odds with the diminishing resources he would be leading with. Isaacman has defended his hopes for funding, mainly through promises to spend his own personal fortune to fund projects like the threatened Chandra X-ray Observatory, a powerful X-ray telescope, which he has deemed of key importance to scientific discovery. He has also claimed this week that some budget cut plans from a leaked document called Project Athena, which he wrote at the end of last year, were no longer relevant to his current plans.
The Project Athena Proposal, despite its obfuscated relevance to Isaacman’s current plans for the agency, was not aligned with the downsizing goals of the administration at large. In this proposal, Mars research and nuclear electric propulsion were both subject to increased focus and resources.
These developments leave the public with a lot of important questions. How can an agency set on downsizing maintain goals of world leadership, not to mention keep its current cornerstone projects running? Furthermore, what are the goals of new leadership if public information is mostly limited to a dated, leaked and allegedly still-changing document?
It remains to be seen whether this potential new leadership will usher in a new era of stability in an agency that has had a rocky 10 months, or if budget cuts, downsizing and the general deprioritization of science under the current administration will only continue.
