The destruction of NASA will be a blow to our collective imagination

“It is very sad, and it is a kind of length,” says Rader. “And I think they will look back within two years, perhaps less, and go,” Oh my God, what did we do? “

Nobody I am I talked to this piece, you think NASA literally disappears. For one reason, Congress retract the changes, although the administration looks determined to refine them in one way or another. Instead, what they imagine is the scent of the agency. “The feeling I got was, it was a very real possibility that NASA would be reduced to something only by name,” says Rader. “Perhaps a copy of FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), but for space.”

What is going on UnderCut is not just the technical ability of NASA to carry out tasks, although this will be bad enough. It is the capacity to wonder, to know, to know. “It is almost similar to our vision and ambition to say that we are literally, I mean, again, not metaphorically, literally, and close our eyes to the universe and move to the inside,” says Casey Dryer, head of space policy at the Non -profit planetary Association. “It is like watching the perfect death.”

This death is already. About 4,000 NASA employees are scheduled to leave this year, either through what the Trump administration calls “deferred resignation” – a type of delayed demobilization and volunteer – or what NASA bears the “natural attrition” mark, which includes people like Rader who leave itself. This represents about a quarter of the total agency’s employees and includes more than 2000 senior leaders, according to a report In politico.

(In a statement, Sherrill Warner, head of NASA news, said that safety “is still a top priority for our agents as we balance the need to become a more simplified, more efficient and working organization to ensure our survival are completely able to follow a golden era of exploration and innovation, including the moon and Mars.”)

Meanwhile, the administration proposed the NASA 2026 budget that would reduce the agency’s total spending by 24 percent and scientific spending specifically by half of nearly half. “This is the largest one -year reduction as a proposed percentage proposed to NASA,” says Dryer. “It would bring NASA’s total, modified inflation resources, up to an unprecedented level since pre -humans in space in 1961.”

Trump’s suggestion NASA’s frozen budget is at least 2030, even as the administration approaches the “Golden Age to Innovation and Exploration”. To form it, NASA was without a full-time official-the first official of the agency-since January. Sean Duffy, Minister of Transport and former Lomb Jack and Hero The real world The team member, performs a double duty in this role on a temporary basis since July.

A lot has been written about what the proposed budget discounts and job losses for NASA will do. First of all, they mean the end of 41 planned or current tasks, according to the Planetary Association. This includes a bold and long -term plan to collect samples of virgin soil on Mars and return it to the ground, a probe that explores the solar system outside Pluto, and a supportive assigned to capture and study the giant asteroid that barely missed the Earth in 2029. It will also lead to forcing NASA to get out of climate change.