NASA faces brain drain as thousands exit under voluntary resignation scheme
- Reference: 1753718472
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/07/28/nasa_voluntary_exits/
- Source link:
The figures were issued by NASA HQ on Friday. About 3,000 employees opted to take part in a second round of the agency's Deferred Resignation Program. Some 870 participated in the first round, earlier this year.
The exodus has led observers to bemoan the loss of talent. Former Hubble astronaut Dr John Grunsfeld described the departures to The Register as "a real brain drain."
[1]
He told us that employees who accepted early exit offers tended "to be the most senior people with the most knowledge."
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The number of NASA employees leaving is subject to change. Staff could decide to drop out of the buyout programs, or NASA might opt to reject their resignations. However, the headcount reduction has caused alarm.
A letter of dissent titled "The Voyager Declaration," with hundreds of signatures from current and former NASA employees, [4]said : "Thousands of NASA civil servant employees have already been terminated, resigned, or retired early, taking with them highly specialized, irreplaceable knowledge crucial to carrying out NASA's mission."
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[6]Figures on NASA's website put the workforce at just under 18,000. The number given in the [7]FY2026 budget request is 17,391. A drop of almost 4,000 is therefore substantial. It also calls into question how NASA would manage to continue all its missions should the cuts in the White House's original budget proposal be unpicked by lawmakers.
A NASA spokesperson told us:
"NASA's Deferred Resignation Program, Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, and Voluntary Separation Incentive Program closed July 25. Safety remains a top priority for our agency as we balance the need to become a more streamlined and more efficient organization and work to ensure we remain fully capable of pursuing a Golden Era of exploration and innovation, including to the Moon and Mars.
Numbers are as follows:
Deferred Resignation Program #1: about 4.8% of the workforce (about 870 individuals)
Deferred Resignation Program #2 (including VERA and VSIP, in addition to DRP): about 16.4% of the workforce, approximately 3,000 employees<
NASA's expected remaining civil servant workforce following both DRP programs, as well as normal attrition (about 500) over the same time period: about 14,000
The final number could well fluctuate in the coming days, based on factors including a departure approved beyond January 9, 2026, as well as the employee withdrawing from the process or the resignation not being approved."
Further cuts will be necessary if the agency is to reduce its workforce to the 11,853 level outlined in the agency's FY2026 budget request.
[8]The real reason why Trump is killing the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawai'i
[9]NASA Goddard Center Director quits as agency staffers issue dissent letter
[10]Thousands of NASA senior staffers expected to quit after budget slashed
[11]Former reality TV star appointed NASA interim administrator
It is unclear where all those staff will go. Some will opt for retirement. Others, according to Grunsfeld, might head into the private sector. "Probably a lot of them will go to defense contractors and work on the 'Golden Dome'... Which is a doomed project."
The [12]Golden Dome is a proposal to protect the US from foreign threats, including ballistic missiles, via a constellation of satellites. Its cost far exceeds NASA's proposed budget.
"I'm sure a lot of interesting technology will come out of it," said Grunsfeld, "but we've done this before with Star Wars."
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"Star Wars" was a media-coined nickname for the US's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), announced in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan. While SDI did not deliver as initially envisioned, the dream of a space-based missile defense system has not gone away, and thanks to NASA's cuts, there could soon be a wave of scientists available to try to make the latest dream a reality.
"Can you imagine a constellation of weaponized satellites orbiting the Earth?" said Grunsfeld. "A constellation of sensor satellites orbiting the Earth that are looking for missile launches and trying to track missile launches?"
"In a world with aircraft and commercial rocket launches and everything else controlled by AI... What could go wrong?"
The Register asked NASA to comment. ®
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[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/22/nasa_goddard_resignation/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/10/nasa_staff_layoffs/
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You don't need to be a Rocket Scientist to work this one out
I used to work alongside a team from BT Global Services, when BT had a permanently-running voluntary redundancy (VR) programme.
It was, of course, the best, most-employable staff who applied for VR - usually after they had found another job.
Or not
For years, as a way of pleading for better civil service recruiting tools (e.g. batter pay), NASA was fearfully publicizing the fact the somewhere north of 20% of its workforce were eligible for retirement with full benefits. I don’t know if that was still true on January 20 of this year, but it appears likely that the prospect of working for a Trump-lapdog-run NASA was sufficient to convince many of those senior folks that retirement had become A Good Idea™, even if they hadn’t found another job or simply weren’t interested in looking for one.
Isn't that part if the cunning plan?
Offer voluntary redundancy then fire anyone who doesn't take it
"
"employees who accepted early exit offers tended "to be the most senior people with the most knowledge."
Of course.
"
If you are a couple of years from retirement and are given a nice phat offer to retire early, it's a no-brainer.
Skills in engineering are highly portable so it's not going to be an issue for those that want to keep working to find new jobs.
Golden...
The Golden Dome.
Do you mean the Orange Boob?
Re: Golden...
I think we saw the golden dome at the end of last week's South Park.
Golden Dome?
That's just over spray when Trumplethinskin's makeup artist misses right?
lmao. A second Glastnost (after Reagan's first) before the promised collapse into feudalism is impressive. I really am starting to question if Bejing isn't piloting the cock in command this time to drive the US into a wall and shatter it into many small states/cities to be hoovered up at their leisure.
Apollo 12
One of the reasons Apollo 12 was completed and didn't just kill off the crew was due to a ground support person having seen the sort of issue the rocket had after being struck by lightning and knowing what to do about it. The infamous "Switch SCE to AUX". That sort of knowledge comes from doing a thing for a long time and being exposed to all sorts of hiccups.
I learned tube guitar amps at the knee of a person that could hear the amp or a description of a problem and know instantly what component failed. I could call him with a burnt part I didn't know the value of and he could tell me what should be there or have a good guess at the proper range of values that would be used. He might also have been able to tell me that the stage is the same as another amplifier that I did have a schematic for. The reason for all of that was decades of experience. He's since passed away so I don't have his expertise anymore and have to muddle through as best as I can.
Re: Apollo 12
His name is John Aaron (I believe he is still alive), he was in the EECOM chair for the Apollo 12 launch, and he was 26 years old at the time. They grew steely-eyed missile men quickly in those days.
"employees who accepted early exit offers tended "to be the most senior people with the most knowledge."
Of course.