For decades, NASA’s Goddard Space Center has been one of the preeminent institutions specializing in growing humanity’s understanding of space. Sadly, those days might be far behind it, as the Trump administration grows increasingly belligerent in its attempts to force draconian cuts to NASA’s operating budget — a campaign that’s already included building closures, mass layoffs, and junking specialized scientific equipment.
Now, a new NPR investigation shows that for NASA employees still going about their daily work, the White House’s daily efforts are going much farther, devolving into what staffers describe as a “campaign of destruction” from the “highest levels.”
Casey McGrath, a NASA astrophysicist, said that after the Trump administration cut Goddard center staff by nearly half, new figureheads were shuffled in, who immediately set about destroying NASA’s working culture.
“We haven’t had a real moment of reprieve because it feels like we’re constantly being attacked pretty much on every front that we can think of,” McGrath told NPR. He described a work environment punctuated by information blackouts, random personnel changes, labs and equipment being moved without notice, and errant building closures, all of which makes “little sense” for the work typically done at Goddard.
“They’ve even put chains and locks on the doors to prevent anyone from even entering the building at this point,” McGrath said.
A research analyst named Monica Gorman told NPR she’s worried the administration is trying to paralyze the entire Goddard campus.
“If they do that, there are science and engineering capabilities that the United States, as a whole, is going to lose,” Gorman told the broadcaster. “And it would cost, I don’t even know how many millions and millions of dollars and a really long time if we ever decided we wanted to bring that back.”
One example NPR highlights is the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST), which would feature imaging cameras 100 times larger than those currently on the Hubble Space Telescope, which launched in 1990.
According to workers interviewed, many of the engineers working on the RST have been randomly reassigned or simply ousted in the middle of the job. Some, running specialty labs for the RST, had been forced to randomly upend their workshop and move to a different location, slowing work and compromising equipment.
All in all, it’s a sad time for NASA, which has historically been one of the most popular government agencies. With over three years remaining in Trump’s second term, it feels like salvaging the agency could take years — or decades — after he’s gone.
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