NASA employees oppose budget cuts in open letter

LOS ANGELES — Over 280 current and former NASA employees issued a formal open letter to NASA's interim administrator Sean Duffy on Monday, expressing strong opposition to the Donald Trump administration's proposed budget cuts and policy changes.

The letter, titled "The Voyager Declaration", warned that "rapid and wasteful changes" over the past six months "have or threaten to waste public resources, compromise human safety, weaken national security, and undermine the core NASA mission". Duffy, also the US secretary of transportation since January, was appointed by Trump on July 9 to serve as NASA administrator.

The cuts are "arbitrary", said the letter, warning that thousands of NASA civil servants have already been laid off, resigned, or retired, resulting in the loss of specialized expertise critical to the mission.