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janrinok writes in with the following story:
The second round of deferred resignations for NASA staff closed on Friday, and the agency says roughly 3,000 employees applied to leave, according to Bloomberg. The Trump administration first offered the deferred resignation program as a buyout to government workers in January as it gutted the federal workforce under the guidance of DOGE — then led by Elon Musk — asking employees to resign while still receiving benefits and pay for a period of time. In the earlier round, 870 NASA employees reportedly opted to leave. The space agency opened a second round in June, with a July 25 deadline.
The latest batch of applications brings the total to nearly 4,000 employees, or roughly 20 percent of NASA's workforce, according to a statement provided to Bloomberg. It comes after Politico reported earlier this month that over 2,000 senior NASA staff members have agreed to leave.
NASA is grappling with proposed budget cuts that could crush the agency's science programs and result in the loss of thousands of jobs. A group of current and former NASA employees called on Interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy to reject the "harmful cuts" in a letter published on July 21, writing that recent policies "threaten to waste public resources, compromise human safety, weaken national security, and undermine the core NASA mission."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Wednesday July 30 2025, @07:17AM (5 children)
Probably quite a bit, given that by destroying NASA he removes a large source of competition to SpaceX.
Also, isn't Musk the Second Banana? I think Trump was the Dear Leader.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 31 2025, @06:52AM (4 children)
My view is that NASA shouldn't be that competition to SpaceX. They're incredibly terrible at it. We have a 60 year record that proves that. Here's my view [soylentnews.org]:
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday July 31 2025, @06:08PM (3 children)
How was NASA inhibiting the rest of the world?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈 - Give us ribbiti or make us croak! 🐸
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 01 2025, @12:31AM (2 children)
Well, consider the original supposition that we need NASA to provide competition for the US launch market. Surely, we would similarly need competition for a global space industry as well, right? So when the largest user of space creates strong anti-competitive dynamics in the US, they reduce competition in the world as a whole.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday August 01 2025, @12:36AM (1 child)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈 - Give us ribbiti or make us croak! 🐸
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 01 2025, @01:31AM
Big enough for what? Also there's an obvious way economically to fix something that genuinely isn't big enough - grow it bigger. Economic sectors are notorious for being able to grow and shrink quickly when conditions are right (or very wrong). My view is that the price drop from Falcon 9 has already grown the global private space market considerably.