The four people at the helm of the American space agency held a town hall meeting with employees on Wednesday, asking questions about contraction, dismissed and proposed cuts on budget that threaten to undermine the mission and prestige of NASA.
Janet Petro, acting manager of NASA, answered questions from an auditorium in the NASA headquarters in Washington. She was accompanied by Brian Hughes, the staff chief of the Agency, a political appointment who was previously a consultant established in Florida who was active in the city policy and in the presidential campaign of Donald Trump 2024. Two other Senior Career Managers, Stondium, also on the Podium.
They tried to give a positive twist to the situation at NASA. Petro, Wyche and Swails are civil servants, not Trump -Loyalists. None of them looked like they wanted to be there. The town hall was not published in advance outside of NASA, but live video of the event was available – not -advertized – on an obscure NASA streaming website. The video has since been removed.
8 percent down
The NASA employees feel the pain after the White House had proposed a budget reduction of almost 25 percent in the tax year 2026, which starts on October 1. The budget request would beat NASA's topline budget by almost 25 percent from $ 24.8 billion to $ 18.8 billion. Adapted for inflation, this would be the smallest NASA budget since 1961, when the first American was launched into space.
“The NASA brand is really still strong, and we have many exciting missions for us,” said Petro. “So I know it is a difficult time that we are going to navigate, but again, you have my dedication that I am here and I will share all the information I have when I get it.”
It is true that NASA employees, together with industrial officers and scientists who regularly work with the agency, navigate by what is most generously described as a period of great uncertainty. The perception under the NASA workforce is much darker. “NASA is f —- ED,” a current leader in the Ars agency told a few weeks ago, shortly after President Trump withdrew his nomination of billionaire businessman and commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman as the next manager of the agency.
