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NASA Science

NASA Eliminates Chief Scientist and Other Jobs At Its Headquarters (nytimes.com) 204

Posted by BeauHD from the DOGE-strikes-again dept.
NASA is eliminating approximately 20 positions, including its chief scientist and roles related to technology, policy, and diversity. The move, as part of a Trump administration effort to reduce staffing, "could be a harbinger of deeper cuts to NASA's science missions and a greater emphasis on human spaceflight, especially to Mars," reports the New York Times. From the report: The cuts affect about 20 employees at NASA, including Katherine Calvin, the chief scientist and a climate science expert. The last day of work for Dr. Calvin and the other staff members will be April 10. [...] The eliminated positions include the chief technologist and chief economist for the agency, which were part of the technology, policy and strategy office. Chief technologist positions at NASA centers like the Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida are not affected, the notice said. The agency is also cutting several positions related to diversity, equity and inclusion in its Office of Equal Opportunity. The notice said that NASA estimated severance costs would be about $1.2 million.

"To optimize our work force, and in compliance with an executive order, NASA is beginning its phased approach to a reduction in force, known as a RIF," Cheryl Wheeler, a NASA spokeswoman, said in an email. "A small number of individuals received notification Monday they are a part of NASA's RIF." Eligible employees could opt for early retirement, Ms. Wheeler said. The Democratic House staff members said they worried deeper cuts at NASA would follow.

NASA Eliminates Chief Scientist and Other Jobs At Its Headquarters More | Reply

NASA Eliminates Chief Scientist and Other Jobs At Its Headquarters

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  • make NASA doge again. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @03:10AM (#65224849)

    Prime Minister Musk has absolutely no conflict of interest here?

  • top kek right you dumb fuck (Score:5, Insightful)

    by invisiblefireball ( 10371234 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @03:21AM (#65224855)

    goodbye everything good in the world

  • Chief scientist (Score:4, Funny)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @03:24AM (#65224861)

    Why would NASA need to have a chief scientist?
    After all its not rocket science.

  • 20 whole people? (Score:5, Informative)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @03:26AM (#65224863)

    Meanwhile... The apportionment for DOGE grew from $6.75 million to $14.4 million between January 30 and February 8, and ProPublica notes that it's now up to $40 million as of February 20. Hopefully it won't keep doubling every 2 weeks ...

    Elon Musk's DOGE office budget more than doubles from $6.5 to $14.4 million [businessinsider.com]
    DOGE’s Millions: As Musk and Trump Gut Government, Their Ax-Cutting Agency Gets Cash Infusion [propublica.org]

    Rick Sanchez: I can just feel the savings. [youtube.com]

    • Re:20 whole people? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @07:00AM (#65225039)

      It gets even worse, corruption is now institutionalized.

      Pay for access to the president, pay for access to elona, the GAAPB (government as a private business) model is now officially in place.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Needs to be asked on a serious level (Score:5, Insightful)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @03:39AM (#65224879)

    Nobody is really asking this:
    -> Is it normal for a golden age to have job loss and decline in most people's stock market/retirement portifolio?
    -> Is it wise to hand over rule to billionaires, whose goal in life is to make as much money as possible. People who couldn't stop accumulating wealth at $10 million, $100 million, or even $1 billion now expected to give up their lust for money?
    - Musk claims to be saving trillions of dollars from being spent at by the government .. where is all the money he's seizing? He keeps saying there are 20 million dead people in the social security database still getting checks .. that should be at least $40 billion a month he's been able to seize .. so where is that money? AT $500 billion saved this year, come next year every American should be getting a check for $1500 .. and that's just from eliminating the checks for those non-existent 20 million people. Add to that USAID closure, DOE shutdown, federal workers discarded and I better see a fact check of at least $10K. Anything less and that muhfuh is pocketing that shit and you know it.

    • Re:Needs to be asked on a serious level (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @03:55AM (#65224889)

      Musk claims to be saving trillions of dollars from being spent at by the government .. where is all the money he's seizing? He keeps saying there are 20 million dead people in the social security database still getting checks .. that should be at least $40 billion a month he's been able to seize .. so where is that money? AT $500 billion saved this year, come next year every American should be getting a check for $1500 .. and that's just from eliminating the checks for those non-existent 20 million people. Add to that USAID closure, DOE shutdown, federal workers discarded and I better see a fact check of at least $10K. Anything less and that muhfuh is pocketing that shit and you know it.

      Simple answer is (a) he's lying, (b) he's uninformed, (c) both. The dead people getting SSI money has been *thoroughly* debunked, even by the head of the SSA, but it's a good sound bite so he and Trump keep repeating it -- even though Elon is supposedly a coder and should understand. On a related note, as far as all the firings go, even firing *all* federal workers would only cut about 4.75% from the annual budget and an incalculably small amount from the total deficit. (see below) The DOGE stuff is all political theater to justify/support more tax cuts for rich people and corporations; there won't be any "refunds".

      According to Google, there are about 3 million federal workers with an average salary of about $106,000 ($51.18/h). Even if you fired *all* of them, at that salary, it would only cut about $318 billion, which sounds like a lot, but it's only 4.57% of the annual U.S. Federal budget of $6.7 trillion and a *way* smaller percentage of the total federal debt of $36.33 trillion.

    • Re:Needs to be asked on a serious level (Score:5, Insightful)

      by linuxguy ( 98493 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @04:47AM (#65224935) Homepage

      People are asking, but nobody in power is interested in answering any of these questions. This gang learned that you can blatantly lie and fool people and not have to answer to anybody. They claimed that immigrants were eating cats and dogs in Ohio. That was a massive lie before the election. Did anybody apologize for it?

      For these people, there are no consequences for lying. Only benefits. So, they keep doing it. Did you hear that Ukraine started the war with Russia? We all had it wrong all along. And Putin is the good guy. And the west is the baddies. Also Canada is evil and must suffer the consequences.

      We are in for 4 long years!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        Cults blindly follow their leaders toward comets and cliffs.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by sabbede ( 2678435 )
        Remember the MASSIVE lie perpetrated over four years that Biden wasn't senile? Or that his son's laptop wasn't his son's laptop - as attested to by 50-some professional liars? Where's that apology?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          The "massive" lie that Biden was showing his age and Hunter Biden's laptop just make all of Trumps lies go away, huh?

          My favorite is Trump spending the last 4 years undermining our Democracy with completely fabricated claims of election fraud and people like you cheered him on. He still insists to this day that the 2020 election was rigged but doesnt have a single piece of proper evidence to back up his claim. But yeah, that's okay because Hunter Biden's laptop.

        • How many years now into that fucking laptop story and it still hasn't gone anywhere. Through the first cheeto administration and now into the second and still nothing. All they managed was not paying taxes and lying on a federal firearms form. All of which republicans seem to brag about doing.

        • I was wondering when someone was going to bring up Hunter Biden's Laptop in a bothsides excuse-making of the gross incompetence we're seeing in front of us.

          Just keep chugging that flavor-aid, my man. You don't look absolutely ridiculous at all. Be sure to bothsides the naked corruption by once-again bringing up Burisma too, while you're playing the debunked classics.

          Please seek professional help.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by haruchai ( 17472 )

          Hunter Biden wasn't in government, unlike Trump's kids & son-in-law - who is very likely the reason Jamal Khashoggi was literally butchered inside an embassy

        • son's laptop wasn't his son's laptop

          That isn't the problem with the laptop. The problem is that it didn't matter one bit. I mean it might for Hunter Biden himself if he did anything illegal while trading on his father's name. But his father wasn't involved.

          And Biden never used his son in his role as President. This is unlike Trump's first term. That's the difference.

          Whether Hunter Biden is good or bad doesn't matter at all politically if it isn't tied to or influencing the White House. It's a distraction.

          You can argue whether it is or i

          • And Biden never used his son in his role as President. This is unlike Trump's first term. That's the difference.
            Bzzt! Wrong, try 10% for the big guy and work you way up. Don't forget James Biden as well. Who surprise surprise also received a blanket pardon back dated.
            Whether Hunter Biden is good or bad doesn't matter at all politically if it isn't tied to or influencing the White House. It's a distraction.
            Who do you think was helping Dr. Jill prop up Ol'Joe? Give you a hint it was Hunter Biden, who was

      • We are in for 4 long years!

        No kidding. We're still a week shy of just two months of this term.

    • come next year every American should be getting a check for $1500

      That's neither how the tax system works is a normal country, nor is it how finance works in a country that has a $34trillion national debt.

      But the reality is dumber than you realise. DOGE was originally posting receipts of their "savings". Turned out that most of them were wrong, not actual savings, and in one case transposed million to billion and thus off by a factor of 1000x. I do wonder if Elon thought he was buying Twitter for $44million and tried to back pedal when someone told him what the real numbe

      • Well, in Leons defense, he did send me a check for 100 bucks. Thanks for the weed, Elmo!

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by omnichad ( 1198475 )

        The former Trump administration sent out THREE rounds of "economic stimulus" payments when Americans were already traveling and spending less and there were shortages of overseas shipments already. We're still seeing the inflationary effects of that. This wasn't even based on government "savings." This was on top of the PPP, which didn't even result in the jobs being retained that were supposed to be saved.

        • We're still seeing the inflationary effects of that.

          Are you? Most of the rest of the world didn't get a stimulus check. Canada didn't get a stimulus check. Australia didn't get a stimulus check. And yet they were experiencing high levels of inflation as well. Heck where I live not only did we not get a stimulus check our inflation is far worse than what was experienced in America and Biden literally couldn't do anything that had an influence on us.

          Whenever you attribute inflation to "a thing" just remember you are completely and utterly wrong. Inflation is a

    • Youre taking this all too seriously. You know how many people quit the federal government in a typical year? Around 100k. How many people have left the federal government since Trump took office 3 months ago? Around 25k. Do the math. This is basically normal workforce turnover that is being claimed as savings (fictionally). The clue is in the name Anything labeled DOGE is a joke. You should NOT take anything that Trump or Musk says seriously. Watch what they actually do, which has been extremely little on t

      • This is the stupidest argument I've seen in a thread filled with stupid arguments.

        1. it's been 45 days, not a year. But do go on telling us how this is normal.
        2. he wanted to fire many more than that, but several federal judges have told him to fuck off because it's illegal. For example, the 80,000+ "probationary" employees. But please do go on telling us how this is normal.
        3. When people resign, they give notice and have a chance to move someone else into that role if it's still needed, rather than the

    • Nobody is really asking this: -> Is it normal for a golden age to have job loss and decline in most people's stock market/retirement portifolio?

      Trump mixed up "Golden Age" and "Gilded Age." You know what the gilded ages actually are? A few uber-rich, and the rest of us are gilded like horses. Look up what that means if you don't know.

      -> Is it wise to hand over rule to billionaires, whose goal in life is to make as much money as possible. People who couldn't stop accumulating wealth at $10 million, $100 million, or even $1 billion now expected to give up their lust for money?

      Short answer: No.

      Long answer: Fuck no. It's not only not wise, it's exactly the polar opposite of wise.

      - Musk claims to be saving trillions of dollars from being spent at by the government .. where is all the money he's seizing? He keeps saying there are 20 million dead people in the social security database still getting checks .. that should be at least $40 billion a month he's been able to seize .. so where is that money? AT $500 billion saved this year, come next year every American should be getting a check for $1500 .. and that's just from eliminating the checks for those non-existent 20 million people. Add to that USAID closure, DOE shutdown, federal workers discarded and I better see a fact check of at least $10K. Anything less and that muhfuh is pocketing that shit and you know it.

      Musk is being paid to do this job, and I can promise you any money saved is going straight to tax cuts for the wealthiest of folks, if it's not going right into a DOGE special fund that he can spend out of. We're sett

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by pjt33 ( 739471 )

        Gilded means covered in a thin layer of gold. You're confusing it with gelded.

        • Gilded means covered in a thin layer of gold. You're confusing it with gelded.

          Well shit. There's my farm upbringing springing out. Pronunciation between the country folk makes those two words sound exactly the same.

    • where is all the money he's seizing?

      They only announce the initial discrepancy and with a bold assumption that it is corruption and waste. They don't publicly retract it when they figure out that it's just a paperwork/systems issue and the money was still going where it was supposed to. The only "savings" is in delaying critical payments to states, agencies, and citizens on a whim or hunch.

    • And their answers are:

      1. I'm doing just fine so it's a golden age for me.

      2. There is a natural hierarchy and some people are just better than you so yeah billionaires should exist. If we try to do away with them we disrupt the natural order and we will get earthquakes and hurricanes.

      3. Elon Musk invented electric cars and rockets. Who are you to argue with him?

      But honestly this is all just deck chairs on the Titanic. About 7 million people tried to vote for Kamala Harris last year and couldn

  • Dear Lord (Score:4, Funny)

    by gtall ( 79522 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @04:37AM (#65224923)

    Hi there, Lord, I have never asked for much but this time we really need a solid. Could you please find it auspicious to send Elmo to Mars? He really wants to go, and we really need him to go. We promise to give him a great send off....maybe even use one of his own rockets.

    • Re:Dear Lord (Score:5, Informative)

      by martin-boundary ( 547041 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @04:47AM (#65224937)

      Hi there, Lord, I have never asked for much but this time we really need a solid. Could you please find it auspicious to send Elmo to Mars?

      Hi there gtall,
      I Only Help Those Who Help Themselves.

      Signed,
      The Lord.

    • I dont want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that God has a sick sense of humor.

      • I dont want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that God has a sick sense of humor.

        I said it as a teen and I stand by it: If God exists, he's a sadist.

        I'll add an addendum at this point: If God exists, he'd be sipping martinis with Musk & Co. and laughing at the plebes who dared to believe in any of them. They're all of the same base cloth.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 0xG ( 712423 )

      Hi there, Lord, I have never asked for much but this time we really need a solid. Could you please find it auspicious to send Elmo to Mars? He really wants to go, and we really need him to go. We promise to give him a great send off....maybe even use one of his own rockets.

      So who's going to babysit emperor Trump?

  • NASA Eliminates Chief Scientist and Other Jobs At Its Headquarters

    Space Karen strikes again!!!

  • Trump wants to eliminate NASA altogether (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Trump has already said he wants to eliminate NASA altogether and award the equivalent budget to SpaceX. Trump has been critical of NASA since he blamed "government incompetence" for the 1986 Challenger incident. He worships the toilet that Elon shits in so naturally shutting down NASA in favor of SpaceX is well aligned with his sleazy and corrupt modus operandi.

  • ...as the world dealt with Covid19 and all of the shitstorm of problems that produced, multiple private space missions happened. Billionaires floated above the clouds, looking down upon the masses. "Champagne wishes and caviar dreams" up there, COVID19 down here.

    The world's economy is funneled into the bank accounts of the elite. The result is that even governmental entities such as NASA are wilting. And NASA isn't the only one either, but let's not talk about that because that'll take the spotlight awa

  • At this point I am not sure whether there will be a functional government in 3 months? Either way the NASA cuts will make Roscosmos look in better shape. Thank you Musk and Krasnov.

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