Keith’s update: This morning AFGE members at Wallops got the same notification that GESTA received regarding GSFC/WFF facilities.  Keith’s note: There is already a plan to more or less abandon half of Goddard’s buildings. Proposals are due by 1 September on the plan to shut down (maybe commercialize) all of the GSFC buildings West of Goddard Road – which includes Bldg 1 (where the cafeteria/exchange is).  Now NASA is closing the place where people eat lunch and putting a halt to the public’s ability to visit GSFC and WFF. This is really starting to get petty, Sean. People are already demoralized. The following NASA Goddard/Wallops message was re-forwarded tonight by GESTA: “Colleagues, GESTA has just received the following notification from management. We believe all GESTA members, and in fact all Goddard employees, union or not, should be aware of this immediately. Original notice from GSFC management is as follows: This is formal notice regarding several upcoming facility closures at Goddard and Wallops effective October 1, 2025. Management has assessed these closures and is providing this notice to support timely and transparent communication. GESTA wants to ensure you are informed of happenings around Center so that you can help assess the impacts of such closure implementations as soon as possible.”:

• Cafeteria (GB/WFF)
• Vending Services (GB)
• Motor Pool Services (GB/WFF)
• Recreation Center (GB)
• Rocket Club (WFF)
• Visitor Center (GB/WFF)
• Dormitory Facilities Bldg F-4

Keith’s note: I don’t want to freak people out, but there is a question that has been troubling me. A lot of media focus has been on departing NASA civil servants (which sucks) but there may be massive contractor employee layoffs as well (which equally sucks). If things stay on the path that they seem to be on something needs to break soon.

• NASA is acting as if the President’s Budget Recommendation (PBR) for FY 2026 is formal direction with regard to missions, contractor personnel issues. Congress has not finalized a FY 2026 budget yet. But the White House and NASA seemingly do not care. Congress has already complained about this.
• The WARN Act (29 USC Ch. 23 Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) requires employers to provide 60 days advance written notice of mass layoffs. FY 2025 ends on 30 September and FY 2026 Begins on 1 October. So if these PBR directives are going to be implemented legally, would not WARN notices start to be sent out to employees on 1 August i.e. Friday?
• Let me know if you see or hear anything. Hang in there.
• UPDATE: I have learned that NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility contractors (Peraton) have received WARN letters. 
• UDPATE: Significant contractor cuts (15-20% overall, some groups being eliminated) coming at the NASA Shared Services Center/ WARN letters are going out.
• UPDATE: NASA Goddard WARN notices are arriving with contractor employees – now: “We anticipate that the separations will become effective on October 1, 2025 (or within 14 days thereafter) and are expected to be permanent. This notice is being provided to you following the WARN Act, 29 U.S.C. 2101-2109, as implemented by federal regulations at 20 C.F.R. Part 639. The information set out below is based on the best information currently available to the Company, but may change due to subsequent events.” “This notice, is to inform you that you may be laid off due to these reductions. Based on current information, the Company believes that all job titles and positions at the employment site listed above may be impacted”

Keith’s note: Joe Rothenberg, former NASA Associate Administrator for Space Flight and former Director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, had this to say last night on LinkedIn: “What is happening at NASA has long term and potentially unrecoverable consequences to U.S. scientific and technology leadership in not only space but in technology that impacts our quality of life on Earth. Clearly the actions of the current Administration and NASA leadership have mortgaged America’s space and scientific research capabilities, well beyond the point of being able to be recovered by any potential restoration of funding by Congress. The nation’s space program in its early days inspired career pursuits in science and engineering, resulting in not only America’s leadership in space, but in developing technology that has significantly improved medical, communications, and numerous quality of life applications. America now faces the strong possibility of the reverse happening, the indiscriminate cuts in our nation’s scientific research program budgets, and government and civilian workforce, will discourage the next generation from pursuing careers in engineering and sciences. The implications of which are not only loss of leadership in these areas, but also a signicant weakening of our economic and military leadership and a continued downward position of the U.S. on the world stage.”

Keith’s note: To those in and around NASA who like to minimize layoffs at NASA and its contractor workforce: I did not come out of retirement to help my extended NASA family just to listen to you rationalize this massive hit on NASA as a “routine” or “voluntary” exercise. I especially don’t like hearing people on the 9th floor of NASA HQ – both long-time NASA employees and recent political appointees – who have been pushing managers to push their people out the door. NASA will rebound one way or another – not because of you – but in spite of you.

Keith’s note: this was just issued by NASA HQ: “NASA’s Deferred Resignation Program, Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, and Voluntary Separation Incentive Program are closing at 11:59 p.m. EDT Friday. Safety remains a top priority for our agency as we balance the need to become a more streamlined and more efficient organization and work to ensure we remain fully capable of pursuing a Golden Era of exploration and innovation, including to the Moon and Mars. Numbers are as follows:

• Deferred Resignation Program #1: about 4.8% of the workforce (about 870 individuals)
• Deferred Resignation Program #2 (including VERA and VSIP, in addition to DRP): about 16.4% of the workforce, approximately 3,000 employees
• NASA’s expected remaining civil servant workforce following both DRP programs, as well as normal attrition (about 500) over the same time period: about 14,000
• As more official information becomes available, we anticipate answering more of your questions.

Keith’s note: There is a new, rather detailed and annotated “Statement of Solidarity and Support” out called “The NASA Voyager Declaration“ regarding the current state of affairs at NASA. It is modeled after similar efforts by employees at EPA, NIH, and elsewhere within the Federal government. It opens with: “Dear Interim Administrator Duffy, In light of your recent appointment as Interim NASA Administrator, we bring to your attention recent policies that have or threaten to waste public resources, compromise human safety, weaken national security, and undermine the core NASA mission. We, the signatories of this letter, dissent from these policies, and raise these concerns because we believe strongly in the importance of NASA’s mission, which we are dedicated to uphold.” More.

Keith’s note: this popped out of the White House on Thursday. You may recall the earlier Schedule F thing “that will make it easier to remove federal employees it believes are undercutting President Trump’s agenda.” Now there is Schedule G which involved bringing in a new type of political/policy employee for the duration of an Administration only. Here is the stated rationale for this new classification: “Creating Schedule G fills this gap and facilitates appointments of non-career federal employees who will serve temporarily and implement the policy agenda prescribed by the American people through our elections. This will improve operations, particularly in agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs, by streamlining appointments for key policy roles.”

Keith’s note: according to a group of concerned citizens: There will be a “Save NASA” protest coming up on Sunday, July 20th.  Our group previously organized the protest in front of NASA Headquarters in DC on June 30th.  We are a peaceful protest group, and we stand in solidarity with other scientific advocacy groups. (More below)

Keith’s note: this upbeat memo went out to everyone at NASA today. It starts with “During this period of transition” which is NASAese for “now that you have had to quit your job”. …

Keith’s note: Apparently Janet Petro did not ‘Embrace The Challenge’ hard enough when it came to getting people at NASA to quit – thus leading to her replacement – even thought the NASA website says she is still in charge. At least that is what senior NASA leadership tells me. Interim (i.e part time) NASA Administrator (and also Secretary of Transportation) Sean Duffy is a 100% Administration loyalist so he can be expected to carry out (or delegate) whatever actions the White House tells NASA to do – without question. Since Duffy already has a day job, this means that NASA Chief of Staff Brian Hughes is the de facto Administrator. As such NASA is a managerial subsidiary of DOT for the time being. There are plans for Secretary-Administrator Duffy and NASA Deputy Associate Administrator Casey Swails to make some sort of fireside chat video on Friday that will be available to all NASA employees. As such you can expect the budget cutting and personnel deletion to continue at Warp 9.

Keith’s note: the following memo went out to NASA employees today from Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (OCHCO):

Keith’s note: On 1 July 2025 Mark Sykes, Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, published an op ed titled “Taking Action Against Historical Censorship by USRA” which I reprinted here on NASAWatch. UPDATE: Mark Sykes has posted a response to USRA’s critique of his original OpEd.

• USRA has responded: “Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, misrepresents USRA’s actions in response to the Administration’s directives on DEI-related matters. His article contains numerous inaccuracies and hyperbole that distort the facts surrounding USRA’s removal of DEI content”. Full document: USRA Response to the Editorial Titled “Taking Action Against Historical Censorship by USRA”.
• I got a call last week from USRA’s Senior VP Bernie Seery asking if I’d post the USRA response to Sykes editorial. I said yes and Seery agreed to send it to me by email. I never got it.
• Also, to be transparent, I told Seery that actions by USRA with regard to LPI and LPSC to edit and censor history by regarding links to items and the items themselves from its websites walks right up to the line of blatant complicity with regard to the erasure of items having to do with equality, diversity, and inclusion within the space science community writ large.
• Also with regard to Sykes’ call for an independent replacement for LPSC in 2026, I agree that it is warranted given USRA’s actions. And NASA has cut funding for it any way. Revisionist history slows science – it does not advance it.
• Erasing NASA Diversity Abstracts Is Not That Easy, earlier post
• LPI DEI Censorship Memo From USRA/LPI, earlier post
• USRA’s Non-Deletion Deletion of LPI Website Material, earlier post

Keith’s note: Yesterday the staff at NASA GSFC ETD (Engineering and Technology Directorate) got an email titled “Realignments that will Transition ETD to the Future”. There’s lots of NASA doublespeak, agency boilerplate language to make the White House happy, and other needless buzzwords. As is usually the case, this is a reorganization that seems to be more about giving the impression of a reorganization than actually changing anything. If you look at the before- and after- org charts (wherein they moved the little white colored words inside of the blue boxes) there are more blue boxes now – so that means more complex interactions (instead of fewer?). Wait minute: lots of people are being laid off at GSFC – so shouldn’t there be fewer organizations, managers, (blue boxes with words) etc.? Otherwise, it’s not like anything has really changed – other than mail codes. And of course, the old NASA phrase “it was about time for a new phone book” applies. Oh yes: there is a special bonus fun time activity called “ETD On the Road”. See below.

Keith’s note: according to a LaRC participant: “The overall sentiment was one of transparency, sharing information as it comes, and empathy. The Center Director has been proactive communicating when information is available. And has shared multiple resources for the LaRC employees. While I’m only one of a few thousand, I personally feel the Center Director cares deeply about the group and is doing her best to try and help LaRC as we try to survive this absolute shit show.” Details below.

Keith’s note: I was just on Bloomberg TV/radio/Web. [audio] I was asked if there was an issue with New Interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy having more than one job. I replied that this usually means that you delegate more to your staff. I noted that while Department of Transportation involves a lot of known, commonplace things but that NASA is really all about the whole rocket science thing and that Duffy will really need to lean heavily upon NASA staff. I also noted that the agency is still being run by NASA Chief of Staff Brian Hughes who is a former Trump campaign guy and a pal of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles – and that having a direct hotline into the White House when you need something is certainly not a bad thing to have. On the other hand Duffy is a staunch Trump loyalist so he’ll be implementing the Presidential Budget Request for NASA for FY 2026 including layoffs and cancellations as if it is a formal plan until directed otherwise by Congressional action on a budget that the President signs off on. Video below – my interview starts at 44:20

Keith’s note: this is from NASA PAO “I am honored to have served the President as the acting NASA Administrator for the past 6 months. His decision to appoint Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy as acting Administrator reflects the high priority he places on our agency at this pivotal time. I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with Secretary Duffy—including during Crew-9’s return in the Space Operations Center at NASA Headquarters—and I’m confident in his leadership as we carry forward the President’s ambitious agenda. I look forward to supporting a smooth transition and returning home to Kennedy Space Center as Center Director. At home in Florida, I’ll continue to work hand-in-hand with Secretary Duffy to propel the President’s ambitious goals.” – Janet Petro.

Keith’s note: the following memo updated 9 July 2025 is circulating around the KSC community and has official management answers to questions about DRP, RIFs etc. Full memo below.

Keith’s note: As of today the current number of NASA civil servants who are departing is around 2,900 across the agency – of that, people taking DRP 1 and 2 = approximately 2,000. This article from Politico has some info on the numbers from various NASA field centers. Of course how contractor employees are being affected is still a mystery and will ultimately be driven by sheer budget numbers.

Keith’s note: Things are starting to look darker at NASA. The Supreme Court just gave the final, ultimate green light to the Administration to gut agencies – NASA – however they wish to do so. Its time to adapt to this new paradigm. It is gloomy now. But that will eventually pass. NASA’s best days lie ahead. (More below).