I'm sure the bureaucracy can stand some serious cutting. However, with voluntary programs like this, you tend to lose the best people.
There are still maybe one or two cool jobs left at NASA like controlling the Voyager software. But I imagine everyone else at NASA who respects themselves would have left for SpaceX a long time ago, rather than waiting for Trump to incentivize their retirement. Half of all revenue collected by the US federal government in 2024 (totaling $2565 billion) was given to retirees. Mostly middle class and government retirees. So this policy shift is very aligned with the US status quo, which is paying people to do nothing, rather than having them go through the motions of tilting at bureaucratic windmills trying to do something.
Even in this thread you see how pervasive the attitude is. I've seen several comments here so far talking about how the economic system isn't giving them enough money, but I've yet to see anyone here express a willingness to eat ramen, sleep in the trenches, get their hands dirty, and endure whatever pain and peril it takes if it grants the opportunity to help out getting things done with space exploration. Those are the kinds of people who create material abundance.
Sending things to space is a small part of what NASA does. "Aeronautics" is not "space rocketry", and all federal agencies do more than what their name indicates.
Building spacecraft and space transportation systems like the shuttle came later and is a very different type of task.
Unfortunately, the more flamboyant manned space flight and science missions have gradually come to dominate NASA, and much of the fundamental tech research that made it possible in the first place has been deprioritized and defunded.
not everyone wants to work for a company that is well known for grinding 20-somethings into the dust with an extremely poor work-life balance.
That doesn't mean there are vacancies for NASA scientists studying other galaxies or asteroid petrology or the effects of orbit on bone health at SpaceX, or that moving to do comms links at SpaceX would necessarily represent career progression for the telescope designer.
Perhaps our coolest diplomacy program. I love that RU and USA have managed to cooperate in space through many decades of conflict.
Did the budget balloon and delays rack up? Yup, and if you read about why you will see that it was basically unavoidable. A private business would have canceled it at the first roadblock (depriving us of an INCREDIBLE scientific tool).
And for the actual launch and deployment, the cost of the instrument meant that a very high success rate was very very important. Go ahead and look up the success rate of space X launches and tell me you would put a multi billion dollar tool on their rocket. You need someone who can spend more money, even a lot more money, and guarantee success.
For example, when I worked at Boeing, sinking a die for a forging cost $250,000. Stamping out a forging cost a few dollars. When I was putting together a stack of identical electronic circuit boards, the first one took 2 hours. The last one took 15 minutes.
there are a huge amount of one time costs associated with the design and engineering of a spacecraft or a satellite that could enable fairly cheap constellations compared to singular satellites, and the testing regimen becomes much more cheap when it’s done as part of a campaign.
I’m a proponent for the disaggregation of satellites from sensors using specified interfaces. Industry is definitely moving in this direction with their satellite buses you can buy fairly cheaply.
Will we want to stick a $3 billion sensor onto a $15 million satellite? I can’t answer that question
Maybe this DOGE approach of sledgehammering the bureaucracies is all there is left to do?
Look, I have family that works for the Feds. I have also collected money from federal programs. I know the pain that is coming and is here. It really really sucks, and it will suck for me too, though not as badly.
But the 'scalpel' approach where you go in, understand the system, take out the bad parts, leave the good, don't get rid of the best people and programs; yeah, it doesn't work very well either. I've seen it tried in a few organizations, some have had a little success, most have not. What usually happens is that the most politically connected programs and people stay and the least are cut, and only after years of twaddling and overspending anyway. THe people that are there to cut things get swamped in meetings and smoke blown up their ass from every direction; they are made incompetent by design, and so the cuts are incompetent too.
I'm not about to say that I have any idea of the history of NASA spending cuts or those of the US gov in general. I know SLS is a dumb program but only because I know people that say that.
But, again, Hot Take, maybe the only thing left to try is the sledgehammer?
Cutting all probationary employees or recent promotions was just an awful strategy. For every department in the government.
It's several assumptions deep to get to that kind of statement which is even more.... Interesting.
First, you have to assume that all federal agencies are the same, so if one needs to be smaller or more efficient, clearly they all need to be. Or if you have experience with one agency, others must be the same. And that your personal experience is representative. This is hilarious for a category so broad that it includes homeland security and NASA.
Secondly, you have to get very reductive about the direction of these agencies. Big agencies? "Well we HAVE to do SOMETHING!" When of course "just leave it alone, go after the actually expensive and wasteful things in our economy like health insurance or the military" is ignored.
Thirdly you need to assume that anyone involved with actually managing this process gives a single shit about the issue at hand. And they don't. Nobody who gave a shit about efficiency, the size/budget of federal agencies, or the power of the federal government would vote to +265% the budget of ICE. that's year over year, by the way. Nor would they approve the largest deficit increase ever moved through congress.
These people are jangling keys in front of your face and taking the money out of your wallet. And by discussing these cuts in good faith at all, we are reaching for the keys.
The only thing left to do was the sledgehammer?
The issue is, if you do small targeted cuts, you'll spare the very people you want to cut. Because they're the best at playing office politics and finding ways to justify why they shouldn't be cut.
If you can't find a way to bypass that, your options are few. One of those options is the sledgehammer approach. Axe entire agencies, fire everyone and never hire of the fired people back. Rebuild an organization from the ground up, with new people and less rot.
It's what was done in ex-USSR countries after the fall of USSR. It wasn't pretty. It worked.