Hundreds of current and former NASA employees have signed an open letter of dissent against Trump's proposed cuts at the agency — and they're sounding the alarm on the safety of its astronauts in an ominous way.

"The last six months have seen rapid and wasteful changes which have undermined our mission and caused catastrophic impacts on NASA's workforce," the letter states, addressed to interim administrator Sean Duffy.

In total, 287 current and former employees have signed the document, at least four of whom are astronauts, according to Nature. In the era of Trump's retribution-driven politics, 156 chose to remain anonymous.

A key theme in the letter is that the administration's policies "compromise human safety." It's a broad claim that gets narrowed into the tip of a blade when it invokes the specter of one of NASA's deadliest catastrophes.

"The culture of organizational silence promoted at NASA over the last six months already represents a dangerous turn away from the lessons learned following the Columbia disaster," the letter warns.

The Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when a Space Shuttle carrying seven astronauts disintegrated upon reentering the Earth's atmosphere, killing everyone onboard. The letter's implications are unmistakable: that astronauts could die.

Further underscoring the grave stakes, the document has been submitted as a "formal dissent": an official procedure for voicing disagreement that was implemented, the New York Times notes, in the wake of the Challenger and Columbia disasters.

The Trump administration has threatened to slash nearly half of NASA's $7.3 billion science budget next year, and its overall budget of $18.8 billion by nearly a quarter. It has already cut nearly $118 million in NASA grants and contracts, according to a database maintained by the Planetary Society, and has initiated plans to fire or force out nearly 2,700 employees — around 15 percent of its 17,000-strong workforce. 

"These cuts are arbitrary and have been enacted in defiance of congressional appropriations law," the letter claims. "The consequences for the agency and the country alike are dire."

NASA's slim hope is that Congress might decide to overturn some of the White House's proposed cuts. But the signatories are furious that the agency is being expected to operate as if its budget's already been slashed, even though it hasn't been finalized. 

The letter calls on Duffy, the interim administrator, to not implement the Trump administration's proposed cuts, as legally, he's not obligated to operate with a diminished budget until they're approved by Congress.

The letter has been named the Voyager Declaration, after the two NASA spacecraft that were launched to explore interstellar space in 1977, which are still persevering on their mission to this day.

And, tellingly, it was dedicated to the more than a dozen NASA astronauts who have tragically lost their lives during spaceflight missions.

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