Research & Developments is a blog for brief updates that provide context for the flurry of news regarding law and policy changes that impact science and scientists today.
Nearly 300 current and former NASA employees have signed an open letter expressing concern that budget cuts to the agency will jeopardize safety, basic research, national security, and the nation’s economic health.
The 21 July letter, titled “The Voyager Declaration,” in honor of the Voyager space probes, was addressed to Interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, who joined the agency on 9 July.
“We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety, scientific advancement, and efficient use of public resources,” the letter states. “The consequences for the agency and the country alike are dire.”
The agency faces pressure to reduce its staff and a budget request proposing funding at levels described as an “extinction-level event for NASA science” by Casey Dreier, chief of space policy for the Planetary Society.
In the letter, signatories asked Duffy to protect NASA from proposed budget and staffing cuts and dissented to several planned or already-enacted changes including spacecraft decommissioning; abandonment of international space mission partnerships; and termination of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programming.
The letter’s authors also pointed out a “culture of organizational silence” promoted at the agency that, combined with suggested changes to NASA’s Technical Authority—a system of safety oversight—represents a “dangerous turn away from the lessons learned following the Columbia disaster.” The letter was dedicated to astronauts who lost their lives in spaceflight incidents and was signed by at least 4 astronauts.
“We’re scared of retaliation,” Monica Gorman, an operations research analyst at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and a signatory of the letter, told the New York Times. She said staff “go to the bathroom to talk to each other, and look under the stalls to make sure that no one else is there before we talk.”
Staff at the National Institutes of Health and the EPA signed similar letters to their administrators in June. Some of the signatories of the EPA letter have since been placed on leave. Stand Up for Science, a nonprofit science advocacy organization, helped coordinate all three letters.
—Grace van Deelen (@gvd.bsky.social), Staff Writer
These updates are made possible through information from the scientific community. Do you have a story about how changes in law or policy are affecting scientists or research? Send us a tip at [email protected].
