Latest news with #TechnicalAuthority
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hundreds of Nasa workers rebuke ‘arbitrary' Trump cuts in scathing letter
Almost 300 current and former US Nasa employees, including at least four astronauts, have issued a scathing dissent opposing the Trump administration's sweeping and indiscriminate cuts to the agency, which they say threaten safety, innovation and national security. The formal letter, titled The Voyager Declaration, is addressed to the acting Nasa administrator, Sean Duffy, a staunch Trump loyalist appointed on 7 July who is also his transportation secretary. The declaration, which is dedicated to 17 astronauts who have died in past spaceflight incidents, warns of catastrophic consequences if the proposed cuts to science grants, staffing and international missions are implemented. 'Major programmatic shifts at Nasa must be implemented strategically so that risks are managed carefully,' the letter said. 'Instead, the last six months have seen rapid and wasteful changes which have undermined our mission and caused catastrophic impacts on Nasa's workforce. Related: 'A disaster for all of us': US scientists describe impact of Trump cuts 'We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety, scientific advancement, and efficient use of public resources. These cuts are arbitrary and have been enacted in defiance of congressional appropriations law. The consequences for the agency and the country alike are dire.' The letter sounds the alarm over suggested changes to Nasa's Technical Authority, a system of safety checks and balances established in the wake of the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster that killed seven astronauts. 'The culture of organizational silence promoted at Nasa over the last six months already represents a dangerous turn away from the lessons learned after the Columbia disaster,' the declaration states. The declaration has 131 named signatures – including at least 55 current Nasa employees – and 156 anonymous signatories. Interim administrator Duffy, a former television host who was appointed after the ousting of a longtime Nasa employee, Janet Petro, is the final step in the chain of Technical Authority command. Trump's billionaire donor and former ally Elon Musk oversaw the loss of at least 2,600 of Nasa's 17,000-plus employees, according to Politico, before the billionaire businessman stepped back from the so-called 'department of government efficiency' (Doge). So far, at least $120m in Nasa grants have been terminated, and the White House has proposed slashing a quarter of the agency's total budget for next year. International missions have been cancelled, and almost half the agency's science budget could be cut in 2026. The signatories said they dissent from the indiscriminate cuts to Nasa research which supports national security by ensuring the US role as a global leader in science and technology. 'Basic research in space science, aeronautics, and the stewardship of the Earth are inherently governmental functions that cannot and will not be taken up by the private sector,' the letter says. The Voyager Declaration, named after the twin Nasa spacecraft that are exploring interstellar space, is only the latest formal dissent against Trump's unprecedented assault on science and federal agencies. In June, at least 300 employees at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published a declaration calling for the restoration of grants into life-saving treatments that the Trump administration had 'delayed or terminated for political reasons'. Earlier in July, 140 workers at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were placed on administrative leave after signing a letter highlighting key concerns including a culture of fear at the agency, the cancellation of environmental justice programs and grants, undermining public trust and 'ignoring scientific consensus to protect polluters'. The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know. If you have something to share on this subject you can contact us confidentially using the following methods. Secure Messaging in the Guardian app The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said. If you don't already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS/Android) and go to the menu. Select 'Secure Messaging'. SecureDrop, instant messengers, email, telephone and post See our guide at for alternative methods and the pros and cons of each. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
In scathing letter, NASA workers rebuke ‘rapid and wasteful changes' at agency
A group of 287 scientists and current and former NASA employees has issued a declaration lambasting budget cuts, grant cancellations and a 'culture of organizational silence' that they say could pose a risk to astronauts' safety. The document — titled 'The Voyager Declaration' and dedicated to astronauts who lost their lives in tragic spaceflight incidents of the past — is addressed to acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, a staunch Trump loyalist who abruptly replaced Janet Petro, a longtime NASA employee, in the agency's top role on July 9. The letter has 156 anonymous signatories and 131 public signatures — including at least 55 current employees. Hours after the letter published, Goddard Space Flight Center Director Makenzie Lystrup, who has led the NASA campus since 2023, abruptly resigned. Lystrup did not give a reason for her departure. 'Major programmatic shifts at NASA must be implemented strategically so that risks are managed carefully,' states the letter to Duffy, a former member of Congress, prosecutor and reality TV personality who also currently serves as Transportation secretary. 'Instead, the last six months have seen rapid and wasteful changes which have undermined our mission and caused catastrophic impacts on NASA's workforce.' The letter raises concerns about suggested changes to NASA's Technical Authority, a system of safety checks and balances at the agency. Established in the wake of the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster that killed seven astronauts, the Technical Authority aims to ensure mission safety by allowing NASA employees at all levels of the agency to voice safety concerns to leaders outside their direct chain of command. 'If you have a significant disagreement with a technical decision that's being made, (the system) gives someone an alternate avenue that's not their project manager or program manager' to express that concern, a source at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, told CNN. Changes to that system 'should be made only in the interests of improving safety, not in anticipation of future budget cuts,' the declaration reads. The source said that they considered looming changes 'a really scary prospect, especially for my colleagues who work directly on the human spaceflight side of things.' The letter comes as the agency is grappling with the impending loss of thousands of employees and broader restructuring. In a statement, current NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens responded to the Voyager Declaration. 'NASA will never compromise on safety. Any reduction — including our current voluntary reduction — will be designed to protect safety-critical roles,' she said. 'Despite the claims posted on a website that advances radical, discriminatory DEI principles, the reality is that President Trump has proposed billions of dollars for NASA science, demonstrating an ongoing commitment to communicating our scientific achievements,' Stevens added in the statement. 'To ensure NASA delivers for the American people, we are continually evaluating mission lifecycles, not on sustaining outdated or lower-priority missions.' In her resignation email to staff, Lystrup said she was leaving her post at Goddard with confidence in Cynthia Simmons, the current deputy center director who will take over on an interim basis, and 'the center leadership team, and all of you who will help shape the next chapter of this center.' Lystrup did not mention agency leadership. Her last day will be August 1. Spokespeople at NASA headquarters and Goddard Space Flight Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Lystrup's resignation. A risky resistance The signed letter is the most recent in a string of declarations rebuking proposed cuts and changes at other federal agencies. Some National Institutes of Health employees led the way in June, publishing a declaration opposing what they called the politicization of research. Another letter, signed by federal workers at the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month, resulted in about 140 people being placed on administrative leave. At least some of those workers will remain on leave until at least August 1, 'pending the Agency's inquiry,' according to internal email correspondence obtained by CNN. One signatory of the NASA letter who spoke to CNN said they felt that expressing dissent against the Trump administration may pose a risk to their livelihoods, but they believed the stakes were too high to remain silent. Ella Kaplan, a contractor employed by Global Science and Technology Inc. and the website administrator for the NASA Scientific Visualization Studio, said she decided to publicly attach her name to the Voyager Declaration because 'the overall culture at NASA has very much shifted — and it feels a lot less safe for me.' 'That's been felt kind of universally by most minority employees at NASA,' Kaplan said. While Kaplan said her job has not yet been directly threatened, in her view, 'I'm a member of the LGBT community … and I'm probably going to be fired for this at some point, so I might as well do as much community organizing as possible before that point.' A changing culture The letter and its signatories implore Duffy to evaluate recent policies they say 'have or threaten to waste public resources, compromise human safety, weaken national security, and undermine the core NASA mission.' The declaration's criticism of changes to NASA's Technical Authority stem from statements made at an agency town hall in June. During that meeting, NASA executives said they planned to attempt to make the Technical Authority more 'efficient.' 'We're looking at: 'How do we do programs and projects more efficiently? And how much should we be spending on oversight?'' said Vanessa Wyche, NASA's acting associate administrator. Garrett Reisman — a former NASA astronaut and engineer who later served as a SpaceX advisor — told CNN that he believes implementing some changes to the Technical Authority may be welcome. He noted that NASA may have become too risk averse in the wake of the Columbia tragedy, and the current structure may be hampering innovation. But, Reisman said, any changes to the space agency's safety backstops need to be made with extreme care. And currently, he said, he does not trust that will happen. 'I have very little confidence that it will be done the right way,' Reisman, who signed the declaration, said. 'So far, this administration has used a very heavy hand with their attempts to remove bureaucracy — and what they've ended up doing is not making things more efficient, but just eliminating things.' Trump's anti-DEIA efforts The signatories who spoke to CNN each expressed opposition to President Donald Trump's directives to shutter Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility — or DEIA — initiatives. At NASA, leadership complied with Trump's executive order by shuttering a DEIA-focused branch, scrubbing pronouns from email signatures, and removing references to a pledge made during the president's previous term to land a woman and person of color on the moon for the first time. The space agency also shuttered employee groups that lent support to minority workers. The source who spoke with CNN anonymously said that DEIA policies not only ensure a welcoming work environment — they're also essential to practicing sound science. 'The concept of inclusivity being a pathway to better science is something that has become really entrenched in the overall academic and scientific community in the last decade or so,' the source said, adding that the changes 'set an immediate tone for the destruction that was going to come.' 'Indiscriminate cuts' Among the other policies that the letter decries is the Trump administration's call for NASA to shutter some projects that have Congressional backing — a move the signatories say is wasteful and 'represents a permanent loss of capability to the United States both in space and on Earth.' The NASA employee told CNN that leadership has already begun shutting down some facilities that the Trump administration put on the chopping block in its budget proposal, despite the fact that Congress appears poised to continue funding some of them. 'We've also been hearing repeatedly passed down from every level of management: No one is coming to save you; Congress is not coming to save you,' the source said. 'But it seems like Congress is moving towards an appropriations that's going to continue to fund our projects at approximately the same level.' The source noted that they have first-hand knowledge of leadership beginning to decommission a clean room — a facility free of dust and debris where sensitive hardware and science instruments must be prepared for spaceflight — despite the fact that there are ongoing tests happening at the facility. The Voyager Declaration also criticizes what it refers to as 'indiscriminate cuts' planned for the agency. The White House's proposal to slash NASA's science budget by as much as half has been met with widespread condemnation from stakeholders who say such cuts threaten to cripple US leadership in the field. Recent agency communication to staff has also noted that at least 3,000 staff members are taking deferred resignation offers, according to an internal memo, the authenticity of which was confirmed to CNN by two sources who had seen the communication. Broader workforce cuts could also be on the horizon. NASA leadership under Petro also worked on an agency restructuring plan, though the details of that initiative have not yet been made public. Other Trump-era changes denounced in the Voyager Declaration include directives to cancel contracts and grants that affect private-sector workers across the country and plans to pull the space agency out of some projects with international partners. The White House budget proposal calls for defunding dozens of projects, including the Lunar Gateway space station that the US would have worked on with space agencies in Canada, Europe, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. The letter and its signatories argue these policies are wasteful, squandering investments that have been years or decades in the making. 'American taxpayers have invested a lot of money in my education and training directly,' the Goddard source said. 'I'm in it for the public service — and I want to return that investment to them.' Editor's Note: This story has been updated with additional details.
UPI
21-07-2025
- Politics
- UPI
Hundreds of current, former NASA workers oppose Trump administration cuts
July 21 (UPI) -- Several hundred current and former NASA employees, including at least four retired astronauts, backed a letter that opposes the Trump administration's significant cuts to the federal space agency. The letter, which included 131 signatures and 156 unnamed ones out of "fear of retaliation," is titled "The Voyager Declaration." It is named after the two NASA spacecraft exploring space when they launched in 1977 from Florida. The retired astronauts who signed the letter include Cady Coleman, Steve Swanson, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger and John Herrington. Scientists outside NASA, including 20 Nobel Prize winners, also have given their support for the agency that was found in 1958 before the first unmanned satellite launched. The letter was addressed to Sean Duffy, who was named interim NASA administrator on Juy 10 and continues to serve as Transportation Secretary. He replaced acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro, a long-time agency employee. "In light of your recent appointment as Interim NASA Administrator, we bring to your attention recent policies that have or threaten to waste public resources, compromise human safety, weaken national security, and undermine the core NASA mission," the letter reads. They urged Duffy to oppose a 24% budget reduction and 31% workforce cuts as proposed by the Trump administration. Out of the 17,000-plus NASA employees, 2,600 have lost their jobs, according to Politicio. And at least $117 million in NASA grants already have been canceled. Congress sets U.S. spending. Workers at other federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency, have penned similar letters opposing cutbacks. "The consequences for the agency and the country alike are dire," the letter says. The signers of the letter cited wasteful efforts affecting the workforce. "Major programmatic shifts at NASA must be implemented strategically so that risks are managed carefully," the letter reads. "Instead, the last six months have seen rapid and wasteful changes which have undermined our mission and caused catastrophic impacts on NASA's workforce. "We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety, scientific advancement, and efficient use of public resources. These cuts are arbitrary and have been enacted in defiance of congressional appropriations law." The letter lays out several things on which the letter writers say, "we dissent": Changes to NASA's Technical Authority Closing of missions appropriated by Congress "Indiscriminate" cuts to NASA science and aeronautics research "Non-strategic staffing reductions" Canceling of NASA participation in international missions Termination of contracts and grants "unrelated to performance" Elimination of programs for supporting NASA's workforce The Technical Authority was established in wake of the 2003 Columbia shuttler disaster that killed seven astronauts. It allows workers in all levels of the agency to voice concern outside a usual chain of command. The letter was dedicated to the Columbia astronauts, as well as Gus Grissom, Ed White And Roger Chaffee, who died aboard Apollo 1 at the launch pad in 1967, and seven killed in the 1987 Challenger explosion. "Their legacies underpin every conversation about our shared commitment to safety and dissenting opinions at NASA," the letter reads. Monica Gorman, an operations research analyst at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., told The New York Times: "We're afraid of retaliation." She added: "I'm already at risk of losing my job, and I'd rather speak out and try to save something at NASA, rather than just hide under my desk until I get laid off. But I am scared." Ella Kaplan, who also works at Goddard, as a contractor for website administratipon, signed the letter. Kaplan told she doesn't expect Duffy to read the entire letter but the declaration is "about getting our dissent out to the public and saying, 'Hey -- this is what's happened at NASA, and this is not OK.'" NASA spokesman Bethany Steven told that NASA is not interested in sustaining "lower-priority missions." "We must revisit what's working and what's not so that we can inspire the American people again and win the space race," she said. Makenzie Lystrup, Goddard's direct since 2023, resigned, effective Aug. 1, after the letter was released, according to an internal email obtained by CNN. NASA, with the retirement of the shuttle in 2011, mainly relies on SpaceX, a private company, to send astronauts to the International Space Station. NASA is leading the Artemis program to send humans to the moon again in a few years. The agency is working with SpaceX, Blue Origin and Intuitive Machines as well as foreign public agencies.
CNN
21-07-2025
- Politics
- CNN
‘Catastrophic impacts': NASA workers sign declaration to protest changes they say threaten safety and progress
A group of 287 scientists and current and former NASA employees has issued a declaration lambasting budget cuts, grant cancellations and a 'culture of organizational silence' that they say could pose a risk to astronauts' safety. The document — titled 'The Voyager Declaration' and dedicated to astronauts who lost their lives in tragic spaceflight incidents of the past — is addressed to acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, a staunch Trump loyalist who abruptly replaced Janet Petro, a longtime NASA employee, in the agency's top role on July 9. The letter has 156 anonymous signatories and 131 public signatures — including at least 55 current employees. 'Major programmatic shifts at NASA must be implemented strategically so that risks are managed carefully,' states the letter to Duffy, a former reality TV personality who also currently serves as Transportation secretary. 'Instead, the last six months have seen rapid and wasteful changes which have undermined our mission and caused catastrophic impacts on NASA's workforce.' The letter raises concerns about suggested changes to NASA's Technical Authority, a system of safety checks and balances at the agency. Established in the wake of the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster that killed seven astronauts, the Technical Authority aims to ensure mission safety by allowing NASA employees at all levels of the agency to voice safety concerns to leaders outside their direct chain of command. 'If you have a significant disagreement with a technical decision that's being made, (the system) gives someone an alternate avenue that's not their project manager or program manager' to express that concern, a source at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, told CNN. Changes to that system 'should be made only in the interests of improving safety, not in anticipation of future budget cuts,' the declaration reads. The source said that they considered looming changes 'a really scary prospect, especially for my colleagues who work directly on the human spaceflight side of things.' The letter comes as the agency is grappling with the impending loss of thousands of employees and broader restructuring. A spokesperson for NASA leadership did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The signed letter is the most recent in a string of declarations rebuking proposed cuts and changes at other federal agencies. Some National Institutes of Health employees led the way in June, publishing a declaration opposing what they called the politicization of research. Another letter, signed by federal workers at the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month, resulted in about 140 people being placed on administrative leave. At least some of those workers will remain on leave until at least August 1, 'pending the Agency's inquiry,' according to internal email correspondence obtained by CNN. One signatory of the NASA letter who spoke to CNN said they felt that expressing dissent against the Trump administration may pose a risk to their livelihoods, but they believed the stakes were too high to remain silent. Ella Kaplan, a contractor employed by Global Science and Technology Inc. and the website administrator for the NASA Scientific Visualization Studio, said she decided to publicly attach her name to the Voyager Declaration because 'the overall culture at NASA has very much shifted — and it feels a lot less safe for me.' 'That's been felt kind of universally by most minority employees at NASA,' Kaplan said. While Kaplan said her job has not yet been directly threatened, in her view, 'I'm a member of the LGBT community … and I'm probably going to be fired for this at some point, so I might as well do as much community organizing as possible before that point.' The letter and its signatories implore Duffy to evaluate recent policies they say 'have or threaten to waste public resources, compromise human safety, weaken national security, and undermine the core NASA mission.' The declaration's criticism of changes to NASA's Technical Authority stem from statements made at an agency town hall in June. During that meeting, NASA executives said they planned to attempt to make the Technical Authority more 'efficient.' 'We're looking at: 'How do we do programs and projects more efficiently? And how much should we be spending on oversight?'' said Vanessa Wyche, NASA's acting associate administrator. Garrett Reisman — a former NASA astronaut and engineer who later served as a SpaceX advisor — told CNN that he believes implementing some changes to the Technical Authority may be welcome. He noted that NASA may have become too risk averse in the wake of the Columbia tragedy, and the current structure may be hampering innovation. But, Reisman said, any changes to the space agency's safety backstops need to be made with extreme care. And currently, he said, he does not trust that will happen. 'I have very little confidence that it will be done the right way,' Reisman, who signed the declaration, said. 'So far, this administration has used a very heavy hand with their attempts to remove bureaucracy — and what they've ended up doing is not making things more efficient, but just eliminating things.' The signatories who spoke to CNN each expressed opposition to President Donald Trump's directives to shutter Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility — or DEIA — initiatives. At NASA, leadership complied with Trump's executive order by shuttering a DEIA-focused branch, scrubbing pronouns from email signatures, and removing references to a pledge made during the president's previous term to land a woman and person of color on the moon for the first time. The space agency also shuttered employee groups that lent support to minority workers. The source who spoke with CNN anonymously said that DEIA policies not only ensure a welcoming work environment — they're also essential to practicing sound science. 'The concept of inclusivity being a pathway to better science is something that has become really entrenched in the overall academic and scientific community in the last decade or so,' the source said, adding that the changes 'set an immediate tone for the destruction that was going to come.' Among the other policies that the letter decries is the Trump administration's call for NASA to shutter some projects that have Congressional backing — a move the signatories say is wasteful and 'represents a permanent loss of capability to the United States both in space and on Earth.' The NASA employee told CNN that leadership has already begun shutting down some facilities that the Trump administration put on the chopping block in its budget proposal, despite the fact that Congress appears poised to continue funding some of them. 'We've also been hearing repeatedly passed down from every level of management: No one is coming to save you; Congress is not coming to save you,' the source said. 'But it seems like Congress is moving towards an appropriations that's going to continue to fund our projects at approximately the same level.' The source noted that they have first-hand knowledge of leadership beginning to decommission a clean room — a facility free of dust and debris where sensitive hardware and science instruments must be prepared for spaceflight — despite the fact that there are ongoing tests happening at the facility. The Voyager Declaration also criticizes what it refers to as 'indiscriminate cuts' planned for the agency. The White House's proposal to slash NASA's science budget by as much as half has been met with widespread condemnation from stakeholders who say such cuts threaten to cripple US leadership in the field. Recent agency communication to staff has also noted that at least 3,000 staff members are taking deferred resignation offers, according to an internal memo, the authenticity of which was confirmed to CNN by two sources who had seen the communication. Broader workforce cuts could also be on the horizon. NASA leadership under Petro also worked on an agency restructuring plan, though the details of that initiative have not yet been made public. Other Trump-era changes denounced in the Voyager Declaration include directives to cancel contracts and grants that affect private-sector workers across the country and plans to pull the space agency out of some projects with international partners. The White House budget proposal calls for defunding dozens of projects, including the Lunar Gateway space station that the US would have worked on with space agencies in Canada, Europe, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. The letter and its signatories argue these policies are wasteful, squandering investments that have been years or decades in the making. 'American taxpayers have invested a lot of money in my education and training directly,' the Goddard source said. 'I'm in it for the public service — and I want to return that investment to them.'
