‘An Extinction-Level Event’: NASA and NOAA Expect To Drop Vital Services and Missions Due To DOGE-Mandated Funding Cuts

As a result of the broader campaign by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to dramatically clear-cut the funding of dozens of federal agencies, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have announced that they will be cancelling numerous space missions and weather services, threatening to not only curtail the our understanding of both the cosmos and our planetary home, but also the very safety and livelihoods of Americans across the country.

NASA has announced the closure of its Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy; the Office of the Chief Scientist; and the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility branch of the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity. The Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy, established by the Biden Administration, was an “easy target”, according to a former employee, who added that “some people thought this might be coming.”

The employee, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of political reprisal, also said that the office also included NASA’s chief technologist and chief economist, and “helped with strategic planning across the agency,” such as coordinating the myriad lunar missions being conducted by both private and government agencies, “making sure those missions don’t interfere with one another.”

“There’s a lot of interest in the lunar south pole, and there’s concern about operating near one another,” the source added. “I don’t think these issues will be tackled moving forward.”

NASA may also be facing a funding cut to its science budget of up to 50 percent, a situation that would seriously kneecap the agency’s Science Mission Directorate office, which oversees “pretty much everything NASA does that’s not a crewed spaceflight mission”, according to Casey Dreier, a spokesperson for The Planetary Society.

While more important missions, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, might survive the cull, older endeavors, such as the Hubble Space Telescope; the Perseverance and Curiosity Mars rovers; and the Voyager missions, might face the axe, along with future missions that are still in their planning stages. These cuts would constitute “a profoundly brutal consequence that would symbolize the nation turning its back on the cosmos,” Dreier remarked; in regards to the personnel cuts he also said that “if you completely destroy the pipeline of people, you have a significant and long-lasting consequence.”

“It is an extinction-level event.”

At NOAA, 880 employees were terminated and dozens of federal contracts were cancelled on February 28, 2024, with the potential for the agency to lose more than a tenth of its workforce after future cuts and resignations are taken into account.

Alongside the personnel losses, massive funding cuts have prompted the organization to announce that they will “discontinue” their monthly seasonal weather forecast and global climate report press calls; monthly reports compiled by the National Centers for Environmental Information, however, will continue to be issued.

These calls issued updates on numerous forecasts and measurements such as global land and ocean temperature data, seasonal weather forecasts and drought updates, and enabled reporters to engage in Q and A sessions to better clarify their understanding of the data.

Part of the reason these reports are being discontinued is that remaining employees are wary of incurring the wrath of the current White House administration by mentioning climate change, according to former NOAA climate scientist and public affairs specialist Tom Di Liberto, who was one of the subjects of DOGE’s recent employee purge.

“They don’t want to be stuck between telling the truth and getting on the wrong side of political appointees,” Di Liberto admitted. Indeed, researchers discussing January’s record-high global temperatures during last month’s call avoided making any mention of climate change, and when “asked explicitly if human-caused climate change played any role in the record high temperatures, the NOAA press representative abruptly ended the call,” according to New Scientist.

In addition to losing their jobs, Di Liberto said that “it’s also fear that the work they’re doing that is going to help people is going to stop, or fear of being told that they can’t say what they’re able to say based on the science”; in addition to studying climate change, NOAA is in charge of vital services such as the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center, organizations that provide life-saving forecasts and weather warnings in the case of weather disasters such as major hurricanes and tornado outbreaks.

Three-fifths of American citizens disapprove of the wide-reaching cuts being made by DOGE, and numerous legal and constitutional challenges have been brought against the organization, with many of the cuts and terminations being made under dubious legal circumstances, by circumventing Congressional approval, violating the privacy of American citizens and eliminating legal protections not only for vulnerable minorities, but also persons with disabilities and women of all walks of life.

“Donald Trump and Elon Musk are recklessly and illegally dismantling the federal government, shuttering federal agencies, firing federal workers, withholding funds vital to the safety and well-being of our communities, and hacking our sensitive data systems,” Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency stated during the opening statements of “The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud” hearing held on February 12, 2025, before pointing out that “the people that actually investigate waste, fraud and abuse at these agencies are the inspector generals [sic], who Donald Trump fired his first week in office.”