Cuts at NASA: A Strategic Shift or a Brain Drain?

"You're losing the managerial and core technical expertise of the agency." - Casey Dreier, Planetary Society

- TDG NETWORK

The Trump administration is orchestrating a major overhaul of NASA's workforce, with plans to eliminate at least 2,145 senior-level employees—mostly in GS-13 to GS-15 ranks—through early retirements, buyouts, and deferred resignations. These employees hold key technical and managerial roles, critical to the core missions of space exploration, science, and human spaceflight.

According to internal documents obtained by Politico, of the 2,145 positions targeted, 1,818 belong to mission-critical areas such as science, engineering, and crewed mission planning. The remaining 327 are in support functions like IT, finance, and facilities. This shake-up affects all ten NASA regional centers, with the most significant cuts at the Goddard Space Flight Center (607 positions), Johnson Space Center (366), and Kennedy Space Center (311).

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