NASA Says Thousands of Employees Set to Resign from Space Agency
bloomberg.com8 points by helsinkiandrew 21 hours ago
8 points by helsinkiandrew 21 hours ago
privatisation of the US space programme.
hard to know what to think about this - on the one hand, there is going to be a huge loss of institutional knowledge, which NASA likely will not be able to replace. On the other, many of these employees will end up in private sector space tech companies, talent seeding a nascent sector.
should be no problem from a national security perspective, given that military-civilian fusion can be easily achieved in the space sector
Some will undoubtedly find a new job in a commercial space company. A lot of research will be lost and more importantly will never happen now. Commercial companies are mostly divided in transportation and warfare, not exploration, or have a longterm horizon. It’s going to be hard to do climate research when the administration discourages you. I bet a lot of employees might opt to just retire in this post-science America.
There's no national security angle; NASA is a purely civilian scientific agency with no military facets. Other agencies—USAF, USSF, NRO—handle the US' militarization of space (and they have *considerably* larger budgets than NASA. Trump's creation, "Space Force!", gets $39.9 billion[0] in the new budget—twice the entirety of NASA's, and a 40% YoY increase).
[0] https://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/FM-Resources/Budget/Air-Force-Pr... ("Department of the Air Force President's Budget Request FY26")