NASA Deploys Security Guards at Tense Staff Event as Gutting Looms

Morale at NASA is bottoming out as the Trump administration threatens to cut budgets.

Future cullings still loom on the horizon, with disgusted employees calling the agency's new management out for "targeted" and "cruel" layoffs last month.

Earlier this month, acting administrator Janet Petro revealed that work at some regional offices could soon be consolidated, hinting at the possibility of thousands of livelihoods being uprooted. This week, the Trump administration canceled the lease at its top climate monitoring lab at Columbia University in New York City, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), as the result of devastating cuts carried out by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

The gloomy atmosphere made for a "tense" meeting during a Monday town hall at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, according to the well-sourced former insider Keith Cowing, who now blogs at NASA Watch, with security guards overseeing the proceedings in the back of the overflow room.

In light of having lost their headquarters in NYC, GISS staffers will have to work from home through September, per Cowing's reporting. But termination of the lease could end up being far more expensive, at least in the short run, highlighting how Musk's DOGE is wasting boggling amounts of money in its pursuit to gut government agencies.

The space agency is going through a major transitional period. Staffers and managers alike have been waiting for the new administrator to take up the reins and provide some much-needed clarity in the wake of the chaos and destruction the Trump administration and DOGE have left behind.

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Billionaire fighter jet pilot-turned-SpaceX astronaut Jared Isaacman, who's widely expected to be confirmed as NASA's next administrator in the coming weeks, has remained noticeably tight-lipped about proposed cuts to the agency's budget.

In carefully worded responses to questions by bipartisan members of the Senate Commerce Committee last week, Isaacman called Trump's purported goal of slashing the space agency's science budget nearly in half not an "optimal outcome."

The president has made a big deal out of NASA's efforts to send astronauts to the Moon and eventually to Mars. Given Isaacman's personal experience flying to space with the help of SpaceX twice, space exploration will likely be a priority going forward.

"A commitment to keeping on to the Moon mission is the key requirement that we have to have in this position," said ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee Maria Cantwell (D-WA) in a statement following the group's decision to advance Isaacman's nomination today. "Given this explicit commitment, I support Mr. Isaacman’s confirmation."

Whether those priorities will come at the expense of climate science and other areas of research at NASA remains to be seen.

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