NASA Headquarters Budget Protest On Monday
Keith’s note: As noted last week there will be a protest outside of NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC from 7:00-11:00 am EDT on Monday, 30 June 2025. Information about the event can be found here. This event has obtained a formal permit from Metro DC Police. The event is endorsed by the Goddard Engineers, Scientists, and Technicians Association (GESTA). But NASA HQ management is not happy about this. This event is not endorsed by and does not represent the views of NASA or any employer doing business with NASA. But you would be wise to be aware of your surroundings and who may be watching you. The employee union is spreading in accurate information by mentioning the word “strike” – which this is not – and no one has ever said it was. Here is what the organizers, NASA employees union, NASA management, and the NASA HQ union says: (More below)
- According to the Protest Organizers: “About: This is NOT a picket line. We will not attempt to prevent or dissuade anyone from entering the building. The intent of this protest is to raise public awareness and provide information about present and near-future cuts at NASA, and to DEMAND that the Trump administration, including OMB and DOGE, cease all pressure on NASA to make cuts until Congress has had an opportunity to pass the next budget. We just want to give Congress time. Who can share, and who can attend: Anyone can share this event. Be VERY careful not to do so on government time or using government resources, and to make sure you can’t be construed as representing the government. Anyone can attend this event. NASA personnel attending this event should be off-duty, such as using leave, and should take care that they cannot be construed as representing the government. For more information: https://sites.google.com/view/nasa-needs-help“
- On 27 June 2025 The senior management of NASA inside the Administrator’s suite sent out an email to all NASA HQ employees: “NASA Headquarters Team, A demonstration is scheduled to take place outside NASA Headquarters from 7 to 11 a.m. EDT on Monday, June 30. The demonstration is permitted by the Metro DC Police. Traffic in the area may be affected during this time. NASA Headquarters will remain open, and employees are expected to report onsite. Please plan accordingly and allow extra time for travel. As always, please exercise caution and stay aware of your surroundings. As a reminder, only authorized personnel are permitted to speak on behalf of the agency. If you have any media reach out to you directly, please have them contact the NASA Headquarters newsroom at 202-358-1600, or by emailing: [email protected]. Our team remains in close coordination with local authorities and will monitor any developments related to the event. Please stay tuned to the NASA SAFE app for latest building updates. Thank you.”
- On 28 June 2025 and email to members from Ann Cuyler, President, NASA Headquarters Professional Association (NHPA), Local 9 International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) was sent ot its members: “Reminder from NASA Headquarters Professional Association (NHPA) Bargaining Unit Employees (BUEs): Below is a scheduled protest by contractors from Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC); not NASA Union Local 29, GESTA in front of NASA-HQ. I am notifying you are not allowed to strike. I understand the frustration but I don’t want any NASA employees to get caught up in something you may regret later with agitators and disruptors who may not have the same intention which is indicated in the information below. THANX in advance to your service to NASA!! This was followed with a link and text hosted at the organizers website.”
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14 responses to “NASA Headquarters Budget Protest On Monday”
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This administration believes humanity only aspires to make a profit and not satisfy a quest for discovery.
You know the gov is broke right? Every agency needs to cut spending, we can’t afford perpetual spending. You can argue for higher taxes to fund this stuff but the people voted for tax cuts.
Good one, mate. Our budget is minuscule compared to what this country wastes every single weekend on things we shouldn’t even be involved in. Don’t believe the propaganda.
That’s a strawman argument… there’s lots of bloat and waste within NASA. How about keeping a project within 10% of your budget or schedule? The argument that other agencies have bigger budgets so cutting NASA’s doesn’t matter is ridiculous. It’s past time NASA rightsized itself.
It’s not a strawman [fallacy], it’s you being unable to comprehend the point: your initial premise was incorrect.
If you still think this is adding any kind of efficiency, you’re either completely ignorant to what’s going on or a troll about as unfunny as Emo himself
The problem with your “argument” is you’re saying something that on the surface sounds ok (although honestly it makes me wonder if you’ve worked for or at NASA). But the actual actions by the administration don’t actually support even your tenuous argument. Manned spaceflight gets more money but science gets cut? For example I know many people on Davinci who worked on the wildly successful (programatically and technically) ORex and Lucy missions. The reward for success at NASA is now apparently being cancelled and laid off. If you wanted NASA to have successful missions with low cost snd budget growth the recipe for that is smaller, non-flagship, science missions. Instead, all of those are being cancelled and money poured into human spaceflight. I would challenge your assertion that there’s much bloat. My experience with NASA are a bunch of overworked civil servants busting their ass in decrepit buildings. Certainly not a situation improved by laying off half of GSFC. There’s no universe where you should be satisfied with this budget, even ny your own stated desires for it, except where you’re exceptionally uninformed or just a plain boot licker.
Maybe you should do your research and look at the numbers in the PBR.
DOD and Homeland Security get big increases – and they were they are much larger than NASA to begin with. It doesn’t matter how much you cut NASA (or other gov’t agencies that do science), it won’t make up for it.
And I certainly didn’t vote for tax cuts just for the wealthy.
Those other budgets are irrelevant, we’re talking about NASA’s bloated budget. You may not have voted for this but a majority of voters did.
You win the MAGA Troll of the day award.
The budget request will add trillions to the deficit. This is not about balancing the budget. This is about destroying the federal government. If this continues, I expect NASA to go from #1 in planetary and earth science to perhaps #3 to #4 within 6 months (behind ESA, China, ISRO, etc). I cannot imagine other fields that are faster paced than us. We are suffering a generational loss in scientific and engineering capabilities in the USA.
Public sector has already out paced NASA. SpaceX is way ahead of NASA at this point. NASA has been nothing more than a grant writing agency for years.
That is demonstrably false. SpaceX launches the rockets carrying NASA spacecraft, many of which are built by NASA civil servants in NASA labs at Goddard, JPL, Ames, or Langley.
Comparing SpaceX with NASA is like comparing Spirit with the US Air Force. We are certainly happy with SpaceX running a shuttle service for us and delivering our advanced sensors into orbit and crews to the ISS. After all, going to LEO is a solved problem and NASA is happy to let the private sector handle it. Think about this: if we bring von Braun back to life and show him a Merlin engine, he will be able to identify most components. He would also hear some echoes from 1932, but that is another topic.
Clearly, we appreciate that SpaceX brought innovations to break the monopoly of ULA making delivery into LEO less expensive. They also developed some nice things like the routine landing of the boosters. However, remember that NASA had a vehicle that could deliver astronauts to the ISS, do experiments on board, deliver satellites, pick up the space telescope, fix it, return it to orbit, and come back to Earth and land on wheels on a tarmac. All these with technologies from the 70s. Can SpaceX do all this? Has SpaceX gone to the Moon? Have they touched the Sun, landed on Mars, visited Venus? Has SpaceX left the solar system, or looked far into the birth of our universe? Can SpaceX model our Earth System, predict the left turn of Super Storm Sandy, or measure with exquisite accuracy sea-surface height and the Earth’s geoid? I could go on and on…but I hope I have made my point. SpaceX is an efficient space cargo company. We love them, but they stand on the shoulders of giants, and the giants are at NASA.
You wrote that NASA is a grant writing agency. You seem to be confusing NASA with NSF. I know, both start with N, similar number of letters -can be confusing. But nope, not the same. NASA disburses most funds via contracts to aerospace companies for goods and services and the agency has been partnering with the private sector since its creation. Contracts pay for Scientists and Engineers who work with NASA CS counterparts. They are an integral part of NASA’s capabilities. Grants are used to pay for research projects whose topics are determined through careful consultation with the scientific community with help from the National Academies. NASA scientists must compete for research funds like everyone else. They must bring their salaries (including vacation) and other funding needed to do research through highly competitive grants.
Certainly, NASA can be more efficient and less bureaucratic. However, NASA is not more bureaucratic than many aerospace companies. If I was to look at inefficiencies, I would start at DoD where real money gets wasted. Many NASA missions end up within budget. Others don’t, but this is expected. It is very hard to estimate a budget for a prototype. NASA always builds new things. Technologies need to be invented; laws of physics get bent. At the end, our systems, estimated to last 3-4 years, end up working well for decades – a good deal for the Taxpayer. Can things be more efficient? Yes, but in my experience, most of the waste and inefficiencies at NASA are imposed by the congress, OMB, OPM, and now the DOGE.
Finally, a majority of the people did not vote for this administration. It was a plurality. People vote for multiple reasons, but if we believe in recent polls, the plurality of the voters did not vote for tax cuts to the rich, increase in the deficit, and the dismantling of the US research and development capabilities.
If you assume how third party voters felt about tax cuts ( for the wealthy)in the last election, what was a plurality ( not a majority) probably becomes a razor thin minority. I do agree with you NASA needs to change. However, you don’t do that by rewarding the entities that ran the largest programs with massive cost over runs and schedule delays. Do you think spending $ 85 million on moving a shuttle from the Smithsonian to JSC is about efficiency or politics?
Do you think SpaceX invented and developed all the technologies used in Falcon, Starship, and Starlink? Or did the very adeptly use a mountain of government developed or sponsored R&D?
As for grants, after years of getting rid of techs, manufacturing, test cells, and now engineers and scientists I fear we are headed for a future where AI written proposals are reviewed by AI systems in the project offices.