NASA Employees Protest Cuts In Formal Dissent Letter

Retired astronaut Cady Coleman explains why she felt compelled to sign “The Voyager Declaration.”

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:09Flora Lichtman?

  Hey, it's Flora Lichtman, and you're listening to Science Friday. Today in the show, the Trump administration is eyeing big changes at NASA, and some current and former employees are speaking out.

• 1:23Speaker 04

  I'm hoping that this letter helps people understand that discovery and invention and exploration is not a faucet that you can turn on and off.

• 1:38Flora Lichtman?

  Policy changes and staff and budget cuts instituted by the Trump administration have upended the operations of many federal agencies, and NASA is no exception. The Trump administration has proposed cutting NASA's budget by almost 25% and shutting down 19 currently operating science missions. This week, several hundred current and former employees of the space agency released an official letter of dissent, arguing against, quote, "rapid and wasteful changes which have undermined our mission." 20 Nobel laureates co-signed that letter, titled "The NASA Voyager Declaration." One of the signatories is also retired NASA astronaut Katie Coleman.

• 2:22Flora Lichtman?

  She joins us today to talk about it. Welcome back to Science Friday, Katie.

• 2:26Speaker 04

  Well, thank you. It's always nice to be with you, Flora.

• 2:29Flora Lichtman?

  You all write in this letter that the consequences for the agency and the country alike are dire. What is at stake here?

• 2:37Speaker 04

  I'd like to say that it is science as we know it. From a NASA point of view, we do completely unique science in that we do the science that can only be done from space and in space, and that it can't be done here on the surface of the earth. And so, you know, I think of the things that we do and what it takes to do them, both the things that involve actually sending humans to space, but also the unique research that we do in space that then supports research down here on earth. And it's all one big picture, but we have a really important piece of the puzzle.

• 3:15Flora Lichtman?

  Why did you feel personally compelled to sign?

• 3:18Speaker 04

  Because it's certainly a privilege to have worked at NASA and certainly a privilege to have been an astronaut that got to go to space. And I take that privilege seriously, and it has a responsibility that goes with it, because people will listen when they hear what you've done and think that your take on it matters. My take is one of many takes, but I think it's a really important opportunity to have people then listen and think about what they're hearing. And so I felt compelled to be part of that process.

• 3:53Flora Lichtman?

  The letter says that these changes undermine the core NASA mission. What is that mission?

• 3:59Speaker 04

  I'm going to read to you what we wrote in the declaration, which is "to explore the unknown in air and space, innovate for the benefit of humanity, and inspire the world through discovery." And the money that is spent on NASA is less than 1% of the federal budget and inspiring the next generation to make sure that they have the tools and the perspectives to build a future.

• 4:30Speaker 04

  I think that's invaluable. And the things that NASA contributes to our present and our future are invaluable. And the fact that they could be in such danger is unbelievable to me, really.

• 4:46Flora Lichtman?

  Is it? Is it unbelievable to you? Like, can you believe where we are?

• 4:51Speaker 04

  It's hard to believe that we are where we are, but actually, the evidence is so tangible. I'm, you know, seeing the people who are leaving the federal government that are critical to what the things that we've been doing. There's sort of a cycle that we've seen that involves, you know, the sort of 20-year cycle of you'll have a lot of people working on really big projects and then they get older and they leave and suddenly there's this time when there's so many more new people and not enough of the people who have been through those last 20 years. And NASA has had an accident every 20 years, at least if you think about Challenger and Columbia.

• 5:37Flora Lichtman?

  I wanted to ask about that because you all write that the culture of organizational silence promoted at NASA over the last six months represents a dangerous turn away from the lessons learned following the Columbia disaster. Will you talk about that a little bit?

• 5:53Speaker 04

  Well, from my own personal experience, we've talked about how, you know, every 20 years, we've had a failed human mishap. And a lot of the people that saw that happen are then not at the agency because they've just, you know, they were very experienced. And the people who come up from behind, they actually just don't have the experience to know how to make these really tough decisions. And what is the definition of careful enough and safe enough? And I know that during the, my experience during the Columbia accident investigation, my role was not necessarily the accident, but how to then prepare us to go back to flight and how to make sure that we had repair capability for the space shuttle.

• 6:38Speaker 04

  And these are really difficult problems. Some specifically, we were making the goo that would be used to repair the bottom of the space shuttle if it got gouged by debris on ascent. And in doing that, It was a very hard problem. It's literally like making, you know, taking a special kind of caulk and constructing a very special caulk gun that could be used on a spacewalk. But then there's also the aspect of putting that into the repair on these tiles that are very fragile and being sure that it would stick. And then in sticking, it would protect the spaceship on the way home. Everything I just mentioned is a really difficult problem.

• 7:20Speaker 04

  And we weren't sure enough of the system working that the team was recommended. We bring three of these systems. But it was really hard to tell this team that, you know, from an astronaut point of view, we don't think this is ready yet. And we're not saying go back to the drawing board, but we're saying more testing is necessary before, as my boss put it, he said, I would rather have two of those than three. I would rather have one than two, and I would really rather have none of them until you do further testing.

• 7:51Flora Lichtman?

  Hmm.

• 7:51Speaker 04

  And that was a difficult conversation for me to have with the team, knowing that I'm going to take that information to my boss, the chief astronaut, and he is going to say that in a very public way. When everyone there wants so much to make a solution that is going to bring us back to flight in a way that we think is safe enough. So think about that process when people are afraid to speak about those doubts that are so real in such a complex situation.

• 8:18Flora Lichtman?

  Right, you need to feel comfortable enough to speak up.

• 8:21Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And that's something that really worries me. I like to say that in order to be successful on a team, you have to be brave and you have to be open. And so to be brave enough to say, this is who I am and what I bring. And I think it's important right now, here in this application, even if I kind of speak a different language than you do, which might be a physical language from a country or because you talk in a different way, like me, right? And I think you have to be open to when people are saying that to you. And really look at them and capture that and be with them and help them. And it takes paying attention and never giving up on understanding who are the people on my team? And what do each of them bring? That they maybe don't even know about, and you have to always do that.

• 9:06Speaker 04

  Never stop.

• 9:08Flora Lichtman?

  Right, and that's a culture that you can lose at an organization.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  Absolutely, it's a culture of constant learning and no blame. It's not easy to hold on to that culture, and I'm not saying that everybody there has changed. But the environment they're working in is making it difficult.

• 9:23Flora Lichtman?

  Who is this letter meant to speak to?

• 9:26Speaker 04

  We all probably have different opinions about that. It is addressed to the interim NASA Administrator Administrator Duffy. But it's really, I think, addressed further than that. It's addressed to every citizen, every American. That thinks that they have an idea about how things are maybe not being done the way they should be. And to speak up and use their voice and state their concerns.

• 9:52Flora Lichtman?

  Are you surprised that there's less public pushback around cuts to NASA?

• 9:59Speaker 04

  I'm not surprised, and I think it's for actually a really scary reason. And I think the reason is, is that no one can imagine that the space program could go away. Because it's just something that we always have, and it stands for so much. And and it actually has this really important function. That doesn't actually have to do with going to space, which is that people are fascinated by space. And it will actually catalyze them to want to know more about something technical. And realize then, oh, maybe this other thing that's technical in my life. Whether it's making a medical decision with my family or deciding in our town whether we should have solar energy or not. It really catalyzes more people becoming equipped to be

• 10:43Speaker 04

  science, technology, engineering, math, and art people.

• 10:47Flora Lichtman?

  What do you think about this perspective, like, oh, there might be a few bad years, but things could turn around in the, you know, after the next election?

• 10:54Speaker 04

  Having been part of big scientific projects, I'll give you an example, which is the Chandra X-ray Observatory. I was on the space shuttle crew that deployed Chandra out into the universe, so to speak. Chandra is in an orbit that's about a third of the way to the moon. So very far away, we can't go and fix Chandra. So everything had to go exactly right with her deploy. And what was interesting to me was where we stood in sort of the life of Chandra. When we launched her, she was designed 25 years before we launched that telescope. And so it's this timeline that is so broad for discovery.

• 11:34Speaker 04

  And it's like, to discover something, it's like looking at a giant jigsaw puzzle. You have to keep the whole puzzle in mind, actually calculating what kind of telescopes do we need? What are the plans for building them? Getting them built and then having them out there, collecting the data, and applying that to everything that we know. And so those are processes that don't just restart. Some of the cuts apply to the Jet Propulsion Lab. These are spacecraft that are already built, from what I understand. And the Nancy Roman Telescope is within two years of launching. If we, we can't just start those things up again.

• 12:13Flora Lichtman?

  Do you think this letter has the potential to change anything? Do you feel like you're shouting into the void?

• 12:18Speaker 04

  I do feel like it has the potential to change. First of all, I think it's very clear from the fact that some of the signatures are, are people that identify themselves and some of the signatures are people who didn't. Because they did not feel safe enough in their employment or in their missions to identify themselves. So I think it's really clear that people didn't just do this lightly. And I wasn't a part of the writing, but I agreed with what it said in the necessity to speak out and deliver this letter of dissent. And I'm hoping it's gotten some, I think it's gotten some press where there's details in this about what kinds of things we lose with the kinds of budget cuts that have been presented.

• 13:02Speaker 04

  So I'm hoping that this letter helps people understand that discovery and invention and exploration is not a faucet that you can turn on and off. It is a large collection of people doing their very best to be innovative and creative and collaborative with each other, with other agencies. And they are doing research that can only be done from space and in space. And that research is valuable to all of us.

• 13:32Flora Lichtman?

  I think that's the perfect place to leave it. Thank you, Katie.

• 13:34Speaker 04

  Okay, thanks very much.

• 13:36Flora Lichtman?

  Dr. Katie Coleman is a retired NASA astronaut and author of the book Sharing Space: An Astronaut's Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change.

• 13:49Flora Lichtman?

  Thanks for listening. Don't forget to rate and review us if you like the show. And you can always leave us a comment on this segment on Spotify. We'd love to hear from you. Today's episode was produced by Charles Burquist. I'm Flora Lichtman. Thanks for listening.