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In scathing letter, NASA workers rebuke ‘rapid and wasteful changes' at agency
In scathing letter, NASA workers rebuke ‘rapid and wasteful changes' at agency

Yahoo

time3 days ago

  • Politics
  • Yahoo

In scathing letter, NASA workers rebuke ‘rapid and wasteful changes' at agency

A group of 287 scientists and current and former NASA employees has issued a declaration lambasting budget cuts, grant cancellations and a 'culture of organizational silence' that they say could pose a risk to astronauts' safety. The document — titled 'The Voyager Declaration' and dedicated to astronauts who lost their lives in tragic spaceflight incidents of the past — is addressed to acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, a staunch Trump loyalist who abruptly replaced Janet Petro, a longtime NASA employee, in the agency's top role on July 9. The letter has 156 anonymous signatories and 131 public signatures — including at least 55 current employees. Hours after the letter published, Goddard Space Flight Center Director Makenzie Lystrup, who has led the NASA campus since 2023, abruptly resigned. Lystrup did not give a reason for her departure. 'Major programmatic shifts at NASA must be implemented strategically so that risks are managed carefully,' states the letter to Duffy, a former member of Congress, prosecutor and reality TV personality who also currently serves as Transportation secretary. 'Instead, 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 raises concerns about suggested changes to NASA's Technical Authority, a system of safety checks and balances at the agency. Established in the wake of the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster that killed seven astronauts, the Technical Authority aims to ensure mission safety by allowing NASA employees at all levels of the agency to voice safety concerns to leaders outside their direct chain of command. 'If you have a significant disagreement with a technical decision that's being made, (the system) gives someone an alternate avenue that's not their project manager or program manager' to express that concern, a source at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, told CNN. Changes to that system 'should be made only in the interests of improving safety, not in anticipation of future budget cuts,' the declaration reads. The source said that they considered looming changes 'a really scary prospect, especially for my colleagues who work directly on the human spaceflight side of things.' The letter comes as the agency is grappling with the impending loss of thousands of employees and broader restructuring. In a statement, current NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens responded to the Voyager Declaration. 'NASA will never compromise on safety. Any reduction — including our current voluntary reduction — will be designed to protect safety-critical roles,' she said. 'Despite the claims posted on a website that advances radical, discriminatory DEI principles, the reality is that President Trump has proposed billions of dollars for NASA science, demonstrating an ongoing commitment to communicating our scientific achievements,' Stevens added in the statement. 'To ensure NASA delivers for the American people, we are continually evaluating mission lifecycles, not on sustaining outdated or lower-priority missions.' In her resignation email to staff, Lystrup said she was leaving her post at Goddard with confidence in Cynthia Simmons, the current deputy center director who will take over on an interim basis, and 'the center leadership team, and all of you who will help shape the next chapter of this center.' Lystrup did not mention agency leadership. Her last day will be August 1. Spokespeople at NASA headquarters and Goddard Space Flight Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Lystrup's resignation. A risky resistance The signed letter is the most recent in a string of declarations rebuking proposed cuts and changes at other federal agencies. Some National Institutes of Health employees led the way in June, publishing a declaration opposing what they called the politicization of research. Another letter, signed by federal workers at the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month, resulted in about 140 people being placed on administrative leave. At least some of those workers will remain on leave until at least August 1, 'pending the Agency's inquiry,' according to internal email correspondence obtained by CNN. One signatory of the NASA letter who spoke to CNN said they felt that expressing dissent against the Trump administration may pose a risk to their livelihoods, but they believed the stakes were too high to remain silent. Ella Kaplan, a contractor employed by Global Science and Technology Inc. and the website administrator for the NASA Scientific Visualization Studio, said she decided to publicly attach her name to the Voyager Declaration because 'the overall culture at NASA has very much shifted — and it feels a lot less safe for me.' 'That's been felt kind of universally by most minority employees at NASA,' Kaplan said. While Kaplan said her job has not yet been directly threatened, in her view, 'I'm a member of the LGBT community … and I'm probably going to be fired for this at some point, so I might as well do as much community organizing as possible before that point.' A changing culture The letter and its signatories implore Duffy to evaluate recent policies they say 'have or threaten to waste public resources, compromise human safety, weaken national security, and undermine the core NASA mission.' The declaration's criticism of changes to NASA's Technical Authority stem from statements made at an agency town hall in June. During that meeting, NASA executives said they planned to attempt to make the Technical Authority more 'efficient.' 'We're looking at: 'How do we do programs and projects more efficiently? And how much should we be spending on oversight?'' said Vanessa Wyche, NASA's acting associate administrator. Garrett Reisman — a former NASA astronaut and engineer who later served as a SpaceX advisor — told CNN that he believes implementing some changes to the Technical Authority may be welcome. He noted that NASA may have become too risk averse in the wake of the Columbia tragedy, and the current structure may be hampering innovation. But, Reisman said, any changes to the space agency's safety backstops need to be made with extreme care. And currently, he said, he does not trust that will happen. 'I have very little confidence that it will be done the right way,' Reisman, who signed the declaration, said. 'So far, this administration has used a very heavy hand with their attempts to remove bureaucracy — and what they've ended up doing is not making things more efficient, but just eliminating things.' Trump's anti-DEIA efforts The signatories who spoke to CNN each expressed opposition to President Donald Trump's directives to shutter Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility — or DEIA — initiatives. At NASA, leadership complied with Trump's executive order by shuttering a DEIA-focused branch, scrubbing pronouns from email signatures, and removing references to a pledge made during the president's previous term to land a woman and person of color on the moon for the first time. The space agency also shuttered employee groups that lent support to minority workers. The source who spoke with CNN anonymously said that DEIA policies not only ensure a welcoming work environment — they're also essential to practicing sound science. 'The concept of inclusivity being a pathway to better science is something that has become really entrenched in the overall academic and scientific community in the last decade or so,' the source said, adding that the changes 'set an immediate tone for the destruction that was going to come.' 'Indiscriminate cuts' Among the other policies that the letter decries is the Trump administration's call for NASA to shutter some projects that have Congressional backing — a move the signatories say is wasteful and 'represents a permanent loss of capability to the United States both in space and on Earth.' The NASA employee told CNN that leadership has already begun shutting down some facilities that the Trump administration put on the chopping block in its budget proposal, despite the fact that Congress appears poised to continue funding some of them. 'We've also been hearing repeatedly passed down from every level of management: No one is coming to save you; Congress is not coming to save you,' the source said. 'But it seems like Congress is moving towards an appropriations that's going to continue to fund our projects at approximately the same level.' The source noted that they have first-hand knowledge of leadership beginning to decommission a clean room — a facility free of dust and debris where sensitive hardware and science instruments must be prepared for spaceflight — despite the fact that there are ongoing tests happening at the facility. The Voyager Declaration also criticizes what it refers to as 'indiscriminate cuts' planned for the agency. The White House's proposal to slash NASA's science budget by as much as half has been met with widespread condemnation from stakeholders who say such cuts threaten to cripple US leadership in the field. Recent agency communication to staff has also noted that at least 3,000 staff members are taking deferred resignation offers, according to an internal memo, the authenticity of which was confirmed to CNN by two sources who had seen the communication. Broader workforce cuts could also be on the horizon. NASA leadership under Petro also worked on an agency restructuring plan, though the details of that initiative have not yet been made public. Other Trump-era changes denounced in the Voyager Declaration include directives to cancel contracts and grants that affect private-sector workers across the country and plans to pull the space agency out of some projects with international partners. The White House budget proposal calls for defunding dozens of projects, including the Lunar Gateway space station that the US would have worked on with space agencies in Canada, Europe, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. The letter and its signatories argue these policies are wasteful, squandering investments that have been years or decades in the making. 'American taxpayers have invested a lot of money in my education and training directly,' the Goddard source said. 'I'm in it for the public service — and I want to return that investment to them.' Editor's Note: This story has been updated with additional details.

In Pictures: Swords and lances fly at High River Medieval Faire
In Pictures: Swords and lances fly at High River Medieval Faire

Calgary Herald

time29-06-2025

  • Sport
  • Calgary Herald

In Pictures: Swords and lances fly at High River Medieval Faire

Article content Combatants went medieval on each other this weekend. Article content The High River Medieval Faire drew hundreds to the High River Rodeo Grounds with market stalls, food vendors and last but not least: fully armoured medieval combat demonstrations. Article content The event was organized by the Averni Legion, a Foothills-based team in the sport of Buhurt (from Old French béhourd meaning 'wallop'), where combatants don fully functional armour, and wield real — but unsharpened — swords, axes, pole arms, and other weapons. The combat is scored like many other martial arts, but the blows are real. Article content Article content Article content Article content 'We had a huge success this year, decided to bite a little more off the plate and double in size,' Neilson said. 'Everything so far seems to be going quite well.' Article content With the Averni Legion also only a few years old after splitting off from Calgary's Silver Gryphons, the knight captain is happy to see the sport of buhurt rapidly expand across North America. Article content 'The growth is amazing. We love seeing it grow because the more we get, the better calibre fighter will show up,' Neilson said. Article content Article content They also called in the cavalry — literally. In the rodeo arena, the Society of Tilt and Lance Cavalry turned out to demonstrate full-contact jousting and mounted combat. Article content In the jousting portion, competitors ride toward each other with a wood railing separating them, and aim their lances not to dismount the other rider, but to hit their shield. The lances have a replaceable wooden dowel tip, scored to break off in segments. The truer the hit, the more points a knight is awarded. Article content Article content Headed by society president Radar Goddard, the group trains up their steeds to run through the linear jousting course, leap obstacles, and keep their cool as their riders are aiming lances downrange. Article content Article content Having travelled all over North America to compete, and even to Denmark where she jousted on the front lawn of a castle, Goddard said the sport has become an international community. Article content 'One of the things we do when we're having a tournament or an event, we try to invite someone who comes from another jousting culture,' Goddard said. Article content 'We have some stuff that is stone-cold in common, we're doing historical re-enactments, and we all have the same problems: getting the horses there, getting the horses trained, getting all the armour. Article content Article content 'We train the horses to handle grown-up men in armour and run against each other with lances,' Hagerup said. 'We break them on each other's shields, and that's really, really fun. Article content 'It's action, it's power, it's position, and quite a lot of humbleness, because you have to be aware of the risk you and others are taking. At the end, you sit together and celebrate together.' Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content

Former Young & Restless Star Daniel Goddard Says His Time on the Show ‘Amounted to Nothing'
Former Young & Restless Star Daniel Goddard Says His Time on the Show ‘Amounted to Nothing'

Yahoo

time10-06-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Yahoo

Former Young & Restless Star Daniel Goddard Says His Time on the Show ‘Amounted to Nothing'

Daniel Goddard is well-known among The Young and the Restless fans for his roles as Cane Ashby and Caleb Atkinson. Recently, the actor made a shocking revelation years after leaving the show, stating that his time there brought him nothing. Here is everything you need to know about Goddard's latest statement regarding the popular soap opera. Daniel Goddard, a former star of The Young and the Restless, recently began portraying Professor Henry Dalton on General Hospital. In a recent interview with Woman's World, Goddard discussed his new role and reflected on his time on The Young and the Restless. He mentioned that he had stepped away from acting but was invited to audition for the role of Jack Brennan on General Hospital. However, at the time, he was focused on his business ventures. The 53-year-old also shared that it was difficult for him to get back to auditioning after stepping away from acting. He said, 'I had a lot of hesitation because I had a lot of fear. Fear of not being good, of failing, of letting down a fanbase.' Goddard added how 'those 12 years or so on Y&R amounted to nothing, because I was back to auditioning.' However, Goddard managed to overpower his fear and had a great time auditioning. He shared, 'When I left, I thought, 'Geez, I missed that!' Because I hadn't auditioned in four years. I had no intention of going back to acting, but it was a moment of awakening for me.' Daniel Goddard discussed the differences between working on both shows. He explained that in The Young and the Restless, actors receive the entire script, which allows them to see what other characters are saying about them. 'I was also always going into the writers' room to read scripts four weeks ahead, so I'd know where the character was going,' he said. On the other hand, in General Hospital, he only receives the pages that include his own character. The post Former Young & Restless Star Daniel Goddard Says His Time on the Show 'Amounted to Nothing' appeared first on - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.

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