NASA Just Fired Its Chief Scientist, Won't Hire Another One

NASA has eliminated key science offices — its chief scientist and her office — according to an internal email obtained by Axios. The news comes less than a week after Ars Technica reported that the Trump administration is expected to slash the space agency's science budget by as much as 50 percent, an "extinction-level event for space science and exploration in the United States," as Planetary Society chief of space policy Casey Dreier told the publication. Now that chief scientist Katherine Calvin has been let go, the future of space science in the country is as uncertain as ever. In the email, acting NASA administrator Janet Petro said that the cuts were in response to president Donald Trump's executive orders aimed at slashing budgets across departments. Apart from the office of the chief scientist, the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility branch of NASA's Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity was cut as well, affecting around 20 people, per Axios. NASA' ... Read full article.