NASA Looking at Organizational Change Amid Workforce and Budget Cutbacks

Acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro and other top agency leaders held an internal Town Hall meeting on Wednesday to share what they know, and don’t know, about NASA’s future. Three are long-time NASA employees themselves now unexpectedly charged with downsizing their agency’s budget, infrastructure and workforce more perhaps than at any time in history. Certainly more than since the end of the Apollo program. While much remains uncertain, organizational restructuring and piercing budget and workforce cuts are in the offing.

President Trump’s FY2026 budget proposal for NASA would cut the agency by 24.3 percent, from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion.  The science budget and the space technology budget would each be cut in half, and aeronautics about one-third. Only the human spaceflight budget would increase, with a $1 billion boost to begin preparations to send people to Mars on top of existing plans to send them back to the Moon through the Artemis program.

The Town Hall meeting was a chance for NASA leadership to update the workforce on what’s happening now and what the future may hold. It was not open to the public, but that did not deter reporters from getting recordings and sharing them with the world. Keith Cowing at NASAWatch (@NASAWatch on Bluesky and X) appeared to be first, posting the audio to Soundcloud.

Audio from today’s #NASA Town Hall: soundcloud.com/keith-cowing…
Speakers
– Janet Petro, Acting NASA Administrator
– Brian Hughes, NASA Chief of Staff
– Vanessa Wyche, Acting NASA Associate Administrator
– Casey Swails, Deputy Associate Administrator

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— NASAWATCH (@nasawatch.bsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 2:54 PM

The overall message was that it’s a very difficult time for the agency and its workforce, but they have to face the challenges, adapt to the new reality, and remain committed to their mission — “our North star” —  as they reshape NASA for the future.

Petro acknowledged how hard it is for employees, facing not just cutbacks and terminations to programs many have worked on for years, but decisions on whether to leave the agency now, voluntarily, or wait to see if they are forced out involuntarily through a Reduction-in-Force (RIF) or similar process.

Petro is credited with avoiding the termination of probationary workers that affected most government agencies. Only 23 NASA employees out of about 17,000 have been forced to leave so far, tiny compared to other science agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

More have taken advantage of the Deferred Retirement Program (DRP), Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA), and Voluntary Separation Incentive Pay (VSIP) and Petro hammered home the point that now is the time to seriously consider their options. The last date to take the DRP is July 25.  Swails said 900 people took the DRP when it was first offered and 1,500 have taken it so far during this second round.

A new agency organizational structure is in the works. They are looking at three options: mission-centric where the agency is principally organized under the Mission Directorates; a Center-centric model organized around the NASA field centers; or a product-line model. Petro said she’ll make a decision “within weeks,” but it will be at a top-level. Details “will take a little bit of time to flesh out.”

Without such details, she said she realizes that making decisions on whether to leave now or wait is difficult, but staying may mean being asked to take on “a new role, a new mission or a new organization.”  If that’s “not for you, I really encourage deep reflection on your part at this time.” Her goal is to minimize, if not eliminate, involuntary workforce reductions and went so far as to say NASA is not considering RIFs at this time.

Under the President’s budget proposal, NASA’s workforce needs to drop from 17,391 Full Time Equivalents at the start of the current fiscal year (FY2025) to 11,853 FTEs by October 1 when FY2026 begins, just three months from now.

Petro, Wyche, and Swails are all NASA veterans themselves who could not have anticipated being put in a position of downsizing the agency so harshly and abruptly.  Petro joined NASA in 2007 and rose to become Director of Kennedy Space Center before the Trump Administration picked her instead of Jim Free to be Acting NASA Administrator on January 20 to the surprise of all, including her. Wyche has been at NASA since 1989, becoming Director of Johnson Space Center in 2021, and came to headquarters in February to replace Free after he retired.  Swails was and is the Deputy Associate Administrator with almost 20 years of NASA experience under her belt.

Joining them on stage were two newcomers: NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens and NASA Chief of Staff Brian Hughes. Stevens was press secretary to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).  Hughes headed the Florida arm of President Trump’s 2024 campaign and has a long history in Florida politics.

One audience question was when a new NASA Administrator will be in place. Jared Isaacman’s nomination for the post was abruptly withdrawn by President Trump after he and Elon Musk had a falling out. Musk advocated for Isaacman.

Bloomberg reported last week that Petro told them at the Paris Air Show it would be October at the earliest and possibly as late as March 2026 before an Administrator is confirmed. At the Town Hall, Hughes, with his close ties to the White House, said much the same thing. After joking that if he knew the answer he’d head to a gambling establishment, he more seriously estimated it would take six to nine months. The “White House is actively working with the President to next steps,” but when he’ll get to that next step is “uncertain.” Considering all the other nominations pending in the Senate, “it’s hard to imagine it happening before the next six months and could perhaps go longer than that into the eight or nine month range, but that’s purely speculation.”

Petro reiterated that she is committed to remaining as Acting Administrator until a new Administrator is in place. She also has said repeatedly that no one is looking forward to that day more than her.

Some in the space community are criticizing the Petro team for not fighting back against the Trump Administration’s budget proposal.  Asked what they are doing in response to the proposed 47 percent cut to the science program and the 24 percent cut to the overall budget, Wyche and Petro gave answers reflecting a glass-half-full perspective.

We are part of the Executive Branch and we support the President’s budget, so we’re not advocating for any changes. What we’re doing is we’re looking at what we do have and I want to say the Mission Directors have done a really good job of thinking about what the future looks like. While the cuts are significant, it does allow us to continue to do many good things … [like] the Roman Space Telescope. … How do we take what we have? How do we work differently? How do we partner with others to increase what we have and do more with it?     — Vanessa Wyche

“[Regarding science] there’s still $4 billion. There’s a lot of science that can still be done with $4 billion. Hats off to Nicky [Fox, head of the Science Mission Directorate] and her whole team for taking a really hard look and making some really tough decisions, but maximizing the science that we’re going to need going forward. … NASA is a member of the  Executive Branch of government and so it’s not our job to advocate. But let’s look at this in a positive way. We’ve still got a lot of money. Let’s see how much mission we can do.” — Janet Petro

At Kennedy Space Center and Johnson Space Center respectively, Petro and Wyche lived through President George W. Bush’s decision to terminate the Space Shuttle program and President Barack Obama’s cancellation of the Constellation return-to-the-Moon program, but those pale in comparison to today’s situation. The last time NASA has looked at such steep cuts was the end of the Apollo program during the Nixon Administration when the NASA budget dropped from about $68 billion to $24 billion in today’s dollars, but that was spread over several years. Casey Dreier, Chief of Space Policy at The Planetary Society, says the FY2026 budget request would give NASA its smallest budget since FY1961 (adjusted for inflation), before Alan Shepard became the first American in space.

NASA may not be able to advocate for itself, but The Planetary Society and others are doing just that. Neither the House nor the Senate has held an appropriations hearing on NASA’s budget request yet so it’s not clear how far if at all they are willing to go to save any of NASA’s portfolio.  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), chair of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee that oversees NASA, wants to add $10 billion for NASA in the “One, Big Beautiful” reconciliation act being debated in the Senate right now, but it is far from clear if that will make it through to the end. Most of that is for human spaceflight programs. Cruz represents Texas, home to JSC and the NASA astronaut corps.

 

This article has been updated.