Keith’s note: To my NASA JPL readers: I am doing my best to report what I learn about what is going on at your workplace. I get calls and texts at all hours of the day 7 days a week that I then have to check out. I am supposed to be retired and yet I spend hours a day on this. Even with contributions this costs me money to operate. If all of you get fired I will not be affected. If you do not like my reporting then get JPL PAO and your management to tell you what is going on instead of expecting me to do it. I hope no one gets fired. Have a nice day. Update: just got this from Veronica McGregor – with my reply. I am starting to think that I may stop covering JPL altogether. No one is talking to one another.

Keith’s note: JPLers got this email this morning from JPL Human Resources about the “Phase Two reorganization and upcoming layoff in October”. People are being warned that as many as 4,000 of the 5,500 JPL employees could be gone by 15 October 2025 and that there will be a mandatory return to the office for teleworkers who are still employed by 31 October 2025. Full note below.

Keith’s Note: according to a press release: “Last night, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a memo instructing federal agencies to prepare for Reductions in Force (RIF) if Congress does not pass a stopgap to fund the government by September 30. “The Trump administration continues to use public servants as pawns in their game to distract and destroy our federal agencies,” said Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). “This threat of further RIFs is shortsighted and stupid. The government can’t be run like a deal-making game show—people behind critical agency efforts provide services that benefit all Americans. Why does Trump want to punish Americans? We will fight these foolish RIFs with every tool Democrats and others resisting Trump’s chaos have available to us.”

Keith’s note: Just as a new threat of RIFs and cancellations across NASA emerges – and the rebound that will have across the rest of the space community – JPL picked this opportunity to talk its employees out of working together to protect their careers by unionizing. Last month I posted “Is JPL Anti-Union?“: “Last week there was a NASA JPL town hall. The ongoing effort to unionize JPL was a topic of discussion. Shortly after that an anti-union email was sent by management to all employees. Here is the JPL Workers United website: https://jplworkersunited.org” Today’s Update: There is now a website dedicated to forming a union published by JPL at https://jplbeinformed.com/ which says things such as “The idea that the formation of a union on Lab is solely JPLers coming together to brainstorm and request changes leaves out a key part of the union process. … Once certified, a union becomes a third-party legal representative with exclusive bargaining rights over your employment, and individual employees no longer have the full freedom to advocate directly for their own interests – even if an individual feels that they can better convey their own situation or contributions than the small number of JPL employee representatives who may be speaking on the employees’ behalf.” The timing of this union busting effort could not be worse than now.

Keith’s note: NASA MSFC Center Director Joseph Pelfrey is stepping down according to an email sent out this afternoon: “Team, As we enter the last quarter of 2025 and the year long celebration of Marshall’s 65th anniversary, I’ve enjoyed reflecting on all the amazing achievements our workforce and this community have accomplished for our Nation’s goals in space exploration. I’ve been encouraged by the examples of innovation, perseverance and resilience that has defined the legacy of Marshall Space Flight Center. What became even more clear to me is how our people, all of you and those that came before us, are the most important ingredient to that legacy… not a single program, not a single accomplishment and not a single person.” More below

Keith’s note: According to Politico (and other sources as well): “White House tells agencies to prepare for mass layoffs if government shuts down”: “In the memo, OMB told agencies to identify programs, projects and activities where discretionary funding will lapse on Oct. 1 and no alternative funding source is available. For those areas, OMB directed agencies to begin drafting RIF plans that would go beyond standard furloughs, permanently eliminating jobs in programs not consistent with President Donald Trump’s priorities in the event of a shutdown.“ These are the contingency layoff, shutdown, and cancellation plans NASA HQ is ready to implement. They haven’t told you about this, have they? They use clever code words to deny that anything bad is in store. Now this memo is out. Will NASA comment on what might begin to happen at midnight 30 Sep/1 Oct? Or will things just happen with an email? Ask your management to ask their management. The internal memo can be found below.

Keith’s note: Yesterday OMB director Russell Vought and OSTP Director Michael Kratsios issued a memo titled “Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities and Cross-Cutting Actions“ to show what the Adminstration’s top five to-do tech things are. The shortest was “Number 5. Assure America’s Continued Space Dominance”. The words “science” and “education” appear nowhere in the space paragraph but “civilian and defense mission needs” appear in the first sentence. We also see the terms “Golden Age of American Innovation” and “Gold Standard Science” which, by virtue of being capitalized, represent the formal names of things that no one has actually defined. But wait: there is a quote at the top of the memo that says “We are going to conquer the vast frontiers of science, and we are going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond. And, through it all, we are going to rediscover the unstoppable power of the American spirit, and we are going to renew unlimited promise ofthe American dream. ” – President Donald J. Trump, 2025 Address to Joint Session of Congress”. So, you have your marching orders – and a shrinking budget and gutted workforce with which to carry them out.

Keith’s note: Once upon a time NASA PAO would have talked about increasing diversity – in the Astronaut Corps – and elsewhere across the agency. Now — not so much.

Keith’s note: Back in January 2025 several days after the Trump 2.0 team took over NASA, I posted this item about the first astronaut class chosen by NASA that included women and minorities. 24 hours after I posted this the link was taken down. This is what it looked like 2 days before the NASA DEIA cops took it down. 9 months later and it is still down. Why? Oddly, this page from January 1978, which says the same things, is still online. Let’s see if the DEIA cops nuke it too. Keith’s 26 January 2025 note: Looks like this DEIA-oriented page at NASA.gov needs to be erased ASAP: “45 Years Ago: NASA Selects 35 New Astronauts“. On Jan. 16, 1978, NASA announced the selection of 35 new astronauts, the first time in more than eight years that the agency had admitted new astronauts. The selection of the first class of space shuttle astronauts held historic significance not only because of its then-record size but also because, for the first time, the group included women and minorities. Previous astronaut selections in the 1960s consisted of test pilots or scientists, in those days the domain principally of white men.“ Update: I posted this on Sunday morning, 26 January. I checked today – 27 January – and it is gone.

Keith’s Update: First NASA Goddard sends an internal email to staff saying “unlike previous large-scale Center reconfigurations, which occurred over a number of years, all planned moves will take place over the next several months and will be completed by March of 2026.” Then they put this thing out for the public minutes late that makes no mention of the accelerated timeframe as if they had planned this whole thing years ago. So I added a footnote 😉

Keith’s note: this memo was sent to GSFC-DL-ALL from GSFC-Communications today at 2:12 PM. Subject: Transforming for the Future at Greenbelt and Wallops. It is important to note that the memo says “unlike previous large-scale Center reconfigurations, which occurred over a number of years, all planned moves will take place over the next several months and will be completed by March of 2026.” (Full text below)

Keith’s note: While current NASA space science is fighting for its existence, some people are not deterred and dream big. Have a look at: “Seeking The Worlds Of Avatar: Prospects for Detecting Moons Orbiting a Giant Planet in Alpha Centauri A’s Habitable Zone“ (I modified the title): “We focus our simulations on α Centauri A, orbited by a hypothetical giant planet consistent with candidate detections in Very Large Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope observations. We find that such a facility would be capable of detecting ∼Earth-mass moons in a five year campaign, assuming a Saturn-mass planet. More generally, we simulate expected detection limits for a variety of levels of astrometric precision.” According to the official “Avatar” series website: In orbit around α Centauri A is “Pandora one of fourteen moons that orbit the gas giant Polyphemus.” We’ll all be going back to Pandora in December in “Avatar: Fire and Ash” (trailer). While Space Science may be suffering – we can never allow the b*stards to take our dreams away.