NASA RIFs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone posted an ARS technica article a few days ago and said trump wants to cut NASAs budget by 20%.

I posted it. The article specifically mentions closure of Goddard. Goddard does mostly unmanned instrumentation- earth observing, climate, planetary, astrophysics, black holes. This administration doesn’t value science esp. Not anything related to climate or Earth observing work Goddard does is incredibly valuable snd unmanned space science returns way more value on the dollar than manned missions. Consider PACE that launched last year. Monitors world-wide plankton counts and type, health of the oceans, climate, and aerosol coverage for period of five years. Total cost per US citizen spent over 15 years was $3. Over fifteen years. Huge return on investment.

I have heard rifs might start this week. Expect to see them keep Houston, Huntsville, Florida, and Glenn (Ohio) because politics. Much of the funding will switch to SpaceX and Blue Origin.

As a side note, a trip to Mars is a waste of money at this point. It takes several months to get there, but far longer to get back due to difference in orbits. We don’t have anything close to making that happen. It’s just a massive money dump to Musk.



I expect the rifs will decimate the

Rifs this week? Ugh. Where did you hear that?

I’m almost afraid that the evil ones will just rif all of Roman to get ahead of the congressional pushback it’s sure to get.

If they are closing Goddard, that seems likely.

They aren’t closing Goddard this week (at least there’s been no indication of that - the close Goddard plan was part of 2026 presidents budget work)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone posted an ARS technica article a few days ago and said trump wants to cut NASAs budget by 20%.

Why though? I really don't get any of this. It's just destruction for the sake of destruction. This isn't saving any money. It's a tiny portion of government spending.

Overall government spending is up anyway and the tax cuts will make the deficit worse and the tariff shenanigans and trashing of America's reputation will lead to higher interest rates, which will, in turn, make the debt and deficit worse.

NASA doesn’t even seem to be building anything on its own anymore without relying on the private sector. Nearly every major rocket or mission now involves companies like SpaceX, Boeing, or Northrop. Cutting NASA’s budget sucks, yeah — but let’s not pretend they’re still the ones doing the heavy lifting. The private sector is where the real innovation and hardware are coming from these days.

The private sector involvement is really a requirement placed on them by the politicians who want money to flow to contracting companies. Your statement really only applies to the manned trips and little to do with unmanned scientific instruments. They use SpaceX and Boeing the same way you might take an Uber.

[Anonymous]

And even where companies or other institutions are building a lot of the hardware NASA needs to manage the overall project. Carr NASA budgets will also cut funding of science programs to places that build satellites like Lockheed and others. NASA engineers themselves build some sensors, but I don’t think they have built to their own spacecraft bus in quite some time. And that’s fine. It’s a commodity.

But the space companies don’t care that much because NASA is not their big customer..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And even where companies or other institutions are building a lot of the hardware NASA needs to manage the overall project. Carr NASA budgets will also cut funding of science programs to places that build satellites like Lockheed and others. NASA engineers themselves build some sensors, but I don’t think they have built to their own spacecraft bus in quite some time. And that’s fine. It’s a commodity.

But the space companies don’t care that much because NASA is not their big customer..

The bus for Roman was built at Goddard. A bus for deep space use isn’t a commodity - there’s no real commercial market for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And even where companies or other institutions are building a lot of the hardware NASA needs to manage the overall project. Carr NASA budgets will also cut funding of science programs to places that build satellites like Lockheed and others. NASA engineers themselves build some sensors, but I don’t think they have built to their own spacecraft bus in quite some time. And that’s fine. It’s a commodity.

But the space companies don’t care that much because NASA is not their big customer..

The bus for Roman was built at Goddard. A bus for deep space use isn’t a commodity - there’s no real commercial market for that.

Didn't realize that. I expect the uniqueness of the bus was more due to the size of the telescope and the cleanliness requirements than where it was headed. Lockheed and Ball have built successful deep space busses, especially lockheed. Obviously for science misions, but a lot of the bus compenents translate between LEO and beyond. But i guess they aren't really commercial either.

My main point wwas that cutting the NASA budget means cutting the budget for science missions, which includes any science missions built by lockheed or ball or APL or JPL - not just the ones GSFC itself builds hardware for.