NASA has started implementing job cuts and office closures as part of the DOGE’s effort to reduce the federal workforce. Along with slashing its DEI workforce, the agency is also cutting the Office of the Chief Scientist, run by the agency’s senior climate adviser. The cuts are not expected to impact operations related to space exploration such as the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The Independent reports that NASA has begun laying off employees and shuttering several offices as part of the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative to shrink the size of the federal government. The space agency announced the cuts on Monday, which will impact hundreds of workers.
According to an email from Acting Administrator Janet Petro that circulated on social media, NASA is closing down its Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy, the Office of the Chief Scientist, and the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility branch. The agency is also cutting staff in those departments. NASA Chief Scientist Katherine Calvin, perhaps the most prominent employee impacted by this cut, also served as the agency’s senior climate adviser.
“We will close NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy, the Office of the Chief Scientist, and the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility branch in the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity, along with reducing their workforce,” Petro wrote in the email.
She acknowledged that those impacted have been “valued members” of NASA whose work contributed to the agency’s recent achievements. “I know this news is difficult and may affect us all differently,” Petro said. “Change of this magnitude is never easy, but our strength comes from our shared commitment to our mission and each other.”
The layoffs come at a busy time for NASA, with several high-profile projects underway including the Artemis mission to return astronauts to the moon and the launch of two science missions scheduled for Monday evening. However, the cuts have so far not impacted NASA offices and staff specifically working on spaceflight and exploration.
Predictably, establishment leftists in the space community and academia were quick to criticize the cuts.
“These are talented people who believe in the job they are doing, and firing them is absolutely NOT the way to help our country,” said Dr. Meredith MacGregor, an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University, on the BlueSky social media platform.
Dr. Grant Tremblay, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, warned on X that the reductions could permanently damage NASA. “NASA is small, but it is arguably the most legendary and globally beloved agency in American history. Its gutting has begun, and the cuts to come are so massive that we won’t recognize it in a year,” he said. “Many of these cuts are likely to be essentially irreversible, point of no return…”
Other NASA scientists criticized the strategy behind the layoffs. “Because a bunch of white guys without a science or technology strategy is a great way for #NASA to succeed,” tweeted planetary scientist Bob Pappalardo, who worked on the Europa Clipper mission. Dr. Jessie Christiansen, chief scientist of the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, said the US is “Just giving away space preeminence hand over fist.”
The layoffs were initially set to be much more sweeping, with fears that NASA could lose 10 percent of its entire 18,000-person workforce — a reduction to staffing levels not seen since 1961. However, the White House reportedly made a last-minute decision in February to pause the mass firings.
Certain NASA centers, like Johnson Space Center in Houston, Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, were told they would be exempt from the job cuts for now, according to emails and sources cited by the Houston Chronicle and Space News. This demonstrates that NASA is headed back to its actual mission of excellence in space, instead of becoming a haven for climate alarmists and radical DEI policies.
Read more at the Independent here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
