\u201cThis was my dream job. What do I do next?\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014Ronald Gamble, Cosmic Origins Program Scientist\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re talking about NASA, maybe the greatest organization that humans have ever devised. Destroying that? Ridiculous. Just ridiculous.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014David Draper, former Deputy Chief Scientist<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I didn\u2019t have the option to leave for Canada, I\u2019d be so nervous about the uncertainty.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014Danielle Simkus, former OSIRIS-REx Science Team Member<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just slash and burn.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014Michael Garcia, former Program Scientist<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Roughly 4,000 NASA employees \u2014 over 20% of the agency \u2014 have left in the past six months. Some were fired or retired early. Many took voluntary buyouts. In all cases, the root cause was the same: orders from on high to prepare for\u00a0devastating budget cuts<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now, many of NASA\u2019s most experienced workers are gone. This means that they are, for the first time, able to speak out about the brain drain and its impact on the agency.\u00a0<\/p>\n What follows are exclusive interviews between The Planetary Society and several ex-NASA scientists, as well as one researcher whose job is currently on the chopping block. Though each of their stories is different, they paint a common picture: one of pointless waste, discarded expertise, and haphazard decisions. They warn of trends that threaten NASA\u2019s global leadership and its plans to return humans to the Moon<\/a>. They describe a wound that will take generations to heal.<\/p>\n Here is what these scientists told us, in their own words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThis was my dream job. What do I do next?\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014Ronald Gamble,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-202597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}