{"id":25931,"date":"2025-04-14T14:05:43","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T14:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25931"},"modified":"2025-04-14T14:25:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T14:25:18","slug":"doge-cuts-hobble-office-that-would-aid-nasa-and-spacex-mars-landings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25931","title":{"rendered":"DOGE Cuts Hobble Office That Would Aid NASA and SpaceX Mars Landings"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Astrogeology Science Center, which has helped astronauts and robots reach other worlds safely, is facing a substantial number of job reductions.<\/p>\n

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An office in an obscure corner of the federal government that NASA has relied on to safely land astronauts on the moon and robotic probes on Mars is facing pressure to cut its tight-knit team of experts by at least 20 percent, according to two people familiar with the mandate.<\/p>\n

The thinning of the staff has already started at the Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Ariz., the people said, the result of an assortment of voluntary resignation offers put forward by the Department of Government Efficiency, led by the billionaire Elon Musk. More employees are expected to be laid off in the coming weeks, following a new open call for early retirements and resignations on April 4. The office, which is part of the U.S. Geological Survey under the Department of the Interior, has been subject to the cost-cutting efforts initiated in a mass email<\/a> that Mr. Musk\u2019s team sent across the federal government in January.<\/p>\n

Representatives for the Interior Department, the U.S.G.S. and the astrogeology center did not reply to requests for comment on the staff reductions or their potential ramifications.<\/p>\n

The cuts could affect crewed missions to Mars in the future, a key goal of Mr. Musk, who founded SpaceX. He has said he conceived of the company to make human life multiplanetary.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Matthew Golombek, a geophysicist at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has worked on the selection of landing sites for multiple probes to Mars, described the Astrogeology Science Center\u2019s precision mapping as \u201cthe gold standard that basically everyone in the community uses.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the start of the year, the office had 53 employees. Eight are already set to leave, with more encouraged to consider the latest offer.<\/p>\n

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The Astrogeology Science Center, which has helped astronauts and robots reach other worlds safely, is facing a substantial number of job reductions.An office in an obscure corner of the federal government that NASA has relied on to safely land astronauts on the moon and robotic probes on Mars is facing pressure to cut its tight-knit team of experts by at least 20 percent, according to two people familiar with the mandate.The thinning of the staff has already started at the Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Ariz., the people said, the result of an assortment of voluntary resignation offers put forward by the Department of Government Efficiency, led by the billionaire Elon Musk. More employees are expected to be laid off in the coming weeks, following a new open call for early retirements and resignations on April 4. The office, which is part of the U.S. Geological Survey under the Department of the Interior, has been subject to the cost-cutting efforts initiated in a mass email that Mr. Musk\u2019s team sent across the federal government in January.Representatives for the Interior Department, the U.S.G.S. and the astrogeology center did not reply to requests for comment on the staff reductions or their potential ramifications.The cuts could affect crewed missions to Mars in the future, a key goal of Mr. Musk, who founded SpaceX. He has said he conceived of the company to make human life multiplanetary.Matthew Golombek, a geophysicist at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has worked on the selection of landing sites for multiple probes to Mars, described the Astrogeology Science Center\u2019s precision mapping as \u201cthe gold standard that basically everyone in the community uses.\u201dAt the start of the year, the office had 53 employees. Eight are already set to leave, with more encouraged to consider the latest offer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25933,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25931"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25934,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25931\/revisions\/25934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}