CNN
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A group of 287 scientists and current and former NASA employees issued a “culture of organizational silence” declaring that it could pose a risk to the safety of astronauts.
The document entitled “The Voyager Declaration” is dedicated to astronauts who lost their lives in a tragic spaceflight incident in the past, but is addressed to the performance of NASA administrator Sean Duffy. employee.
“Major program shifts at NASA need to be implemented strategically so that risks are managed carefully,” says a letter to Duffy, a former reality television personality who also serves as a transportation secretary. “Instead, the last six months have seen rapid and wasteful changes that have undermined our mission and have had a devastating impact on the NASA workforce.”
This letter raises concerns about the proposed changes to NASA’s technical authority, the agency’s safety checks and balancing system.
Founded in the wake of the Columbia Shuttle disaster in 2003, which killed seven astronauts, the technical authorities aim to ensure the safety of the mission by allowing NASA employees at all levels of the agency to voice safety concerns to leaders outside the direct chain of command.
“If there is a significant disagreement in a technical decision, the (system) will give someone an alternative to express their concern, a source of Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who called for them to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation,” he told CNN.
The declaration reads that system change “should only be done to improve safety in anticipation of future budget cuts.”
Sources said they have considered the looming changes. “Especially for colleagues who work directly on the human spaceflight side of things.”
This letter comes as government agencies are working on the imminent losses of thousands of employees and broader restructuring.
A NASA leadership spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The signed letter is the latest in a series of declarations responsibly for the reductions and changes proposed by other federal agencies.
Some National Institutes of Health led the way in June and issued a declaration against what is called politicization of research.
Another letter signed by the EPA federal workers earlier this month has resulted in around 140 people being on administrative leave. According to an internal email newsletter obtained by CNN, the company will remain on holiday until at least August 1 until “institutional inquiries are pending.”
One of the signatories of the NASA letter who spoke to CNN felt that expressing opposition to the Trump administration could pose a risk to their livelihoods, but they believe that the interests are too high to remain silent.
Ella Kaplan, a contractor employed by Global Science and Technology Inc. and website administrator for NASA Scientific Visualization Studio, said she decided to publish it in the Voyager Declaration because “it feels much safer for me because of the huge shift in the overall culture of NASA.”
“That’s been felt universally by most NASA’s minority employees,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan said her job has not yet been directly threatened, but “I’m a member of the LGBT community… and I’m sure I’ll be fired for this at some point, so I might as well organize as many community as possible at that point.”
The letter and its signatories “plead with Duffy to assess recent policies that threaten or threaten to wasting public resources, violate human safety, weaken national security and undermine the Core NASA mission.
Criticism of the declaration of NASA’s changes to technical authorities stems from a statement made at the agency’s City Hall in June. During the meeting, NASA executives said they plan to try to make technical rights more “efficient.”
“We are, “How do you do the program and project more efficiently? And how much should we spend monitoring?”
Garrett Reisman, a former NASA astronaut and later an engineer who served as SpaceX advisor, told CNN he believes that technical authorities would be welcomed to implement some changes. He said NASA may have been risk-averse in the wake of the Colombian tragedy, and that current structures could be hampering innovation.
However, Reisman said that safe behind the scenes changes to the space agency need to be made with great care. And now he said he doesn’t believe it will happen.
“I have little confidence that it will be done the right way,” said Rayman, who signed the declaration. “So far, this administration has used very heavy hands in attempts to remove bureaucracy. What they’ve done is just removing things rather than making things more efficient.”
The signatories who spoke with CNN each expressed their opposition to President Donald Trump’s direction for diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, or Deia-initiative.
At NASA, leadership adhered to Trump’s executive orders by closing DEIA-focused branches, scrubing pronouns from email signatures, removing references to the president’s pledges made during the previous period, and landing women and people of color on the moon for the first time. The space agency also shut down a group of employees that had loaned out assistance to minority workers.
A source who spoke with CNN anonymously said Deia’s policy is not only essential to ensuring a welcome work environment, but also to implement healthy science.
“The concept that inclusivity is the path to better science has really settled in the academic and scientific community in the past decade or so.
Among other policies that have been declining letters, the Trump administration’s call to close several projects that NASA has Congressional support. The signatories say they are in vain and “represent the lasting loss of capabilities to the universe and the United States on Earth.”
NASA employees told CNN that the Trump administration is beginning to close facilities chopped up with budget proposals, despite the fact that Congress appears poised to continue funding some of them.
“We’ve heard it’s been handed down repeatedly from management at all levels. No one’s here to save you. Congress is not here to save you,” the source said. “But it appears that Congress is heading for a budget that will continue to fund projects at roughly the same level.”
Sources point out that despite the fact that the facilities are undergoing continuous testing, there is direct knowledge of the leadership that has begun to abolish clean rooms.
The Voyager Declaration also criticizes what it calls a “indiscriminatory reduction” planned for its agents.
The White House proposal to cut NASA’s science budget in half is filled with widespread criticism from stakeholders who say such cuts are threatening to undermine U.S. leadership in this area.
The recent communications to agency staff also note that at least 3,000 staff have received postponed resignation offers, according to an internal memo confirmed to CNN by two sources who saw the communication.
The wider workforce reduction could also be on the horizon. NASA’s leadership under Petro is also working on plans to restructure the agency, although details of its initiative have not been made public yet.
Other Trump-era changes that were criticised in the Voyager declaration include directives to cancel contracts and grants affecting private workers across the country, and plans to pull space agencies from several projects with international partners. The White House budget proposal calls for the reimbursement of dozens of projects, including the Lune Gateway Space Station, which the US was working with space agencies in Canada, Europe, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.
The letter and its signatories argue that these policies are wasted and waste years of investment.
“American taxpayers have invested a lot of money directly in my education and training,” a Goddard source said. “I’m there for public services — and I want to pay back that investment to them.”
