For anyone who has seen the Sci-Fi TV series “The Expanse,” it is tempting in these times to take a cue from Amos about “the churn.” If unfamiliar with the story, it’s the oft-used trope of (seemingly) ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. Finding yourself acting “above your pay grade” is still a thing, 325 years from now. Amos sees the circumstances that surprise everyone else as more of the same. To him, it was noise before. It’s only more noise now. He calls this “the churn”.
“This boss I used to work for in Baltimore, he called it the churn. When the rules of the game change. (What game?) The only game. Survival. When the jungle tears itself down and builds itself into something new. Guys like you and me, we end up dead, doesn’t really mean anything.” -Amos Burton, The Expanse
For NASA, tuning to find a signal has lately been an exercise in hearing nothing but noise. From Congress, we have a tentative push, if not yet an approved NASA budget, at amounts slightly above the 2025 budget. From the White House, we see an attempt to sidetrack any such continuity through a preemptive strike. It is difficult for a NASA project to continue in 2026 at 2025 funding levels if all the current employees are told to leave now and flip the sign at the door to “CLOSED.” As a backup, it appears that regardless of the congressionally appropriated 2026 funding, the White House is poised to make a case that such stuff is mere guidelines. About spending appropriated by Congress, well, “It’s a ceiling. It is not a floor.” Worse, there is a creature we have not seen take a jab at NASA since 2012, *recissions. This is where Congress claws back the money previously given. Here today. Gone tomorrow.
What’s an engineer, or scientist, NASA, or contractor, or anyone who performs their role in helping NASA reach for the stars, to make of all this?
The Human Space Flight side of NASA, as planned, calls for astronauts to return to the surface of the Moon on Artemis 3. That’s one flight after the next one where astronauts go to the Moon, but only orbit around it. A lander should be online after the lunar orbital mission–this lander being the SpaceX Starship lunar lander (and by Artemis 5, the Blue Origin Blue Moon lunar lander). But this is NASA, where “should be” also means delays, even with SpaceX.
A change in plans is inevitable. NASA, although not necessarily by design, is already funding a means to reach the Moon without the SLS or Orion. It’s not unimaginable that a Dragon meets up with a Starship in Earth orbit, and together these go to the Moon, including landing. On the return leg, the Starship (now on fumes) meets up with the Dragon in Lunar orbit and provides it with a necessary boost, as the Dragon would otherwise be unable to leave lunar orbit and return to Earth. This is one alt-Moon system. It could turn out to be other close cousins, competitors, or cooperative variants. It’s not if a plan called Artemis, with SLS and Orion, will change. It’s when and how.
As a program and project analyst, always ready to offer the proverbial outside perspective, I recall a common refrain–“Being overcome by events.” This was too often on the critique list. Sadly, outside advice predictably pushes rocks up the same few hills: (a) that doesn’t add up, (b) that’s not sustainable, and (c) your lack of urgency exposes you to being overcome by events. People in projects rarely liked any outside advice, and the tone of the replies was predictable. Adding up is overrated. If we were to say what we honestly thought this would cost, we would never get anything funded. (Lie? Who, us?) As to sustainability, we have political sustainability, not those other kinds with definitions from the dictionary or the UN. We have funding. Our sponsors appear dedicated to assuring us of future funding. So, sustainable? Check. The last item about events, that had varying responses, from “No one can predict the future, Edgar” to “Can we wrap this up? I have another meeting.”
Yet the sense of NASA projects being overcome by events never had anything to do with a straw man about predicting the future. It was a statement about time passing. The more time with a lack of progress, the more you will get the kind of attention that mumbles about cancelation. Engineers and scientists, but it does not take a degree to see it, all imbibe the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. For a spontaneous process, the entropy of the universe increases. Layman’s version–everything goes to shit. Enshittification, meet 2nd Law. Poetic version–time grinds us into dust, and then it settles.
All this neglects the other elephant in the room, the science half of NASA. Much of the current administration’s proposed funding cuts in NASA are in the sciences, space science, and Earth science. Decades of experience in NASA left me remarkably clear-eyed about the response a messenger might receive when they deliver bad news. Thank you! That’s very constructive. Let’s work together on these improvements. No, not quite. Those responses occur in another universe, about fifty-seven 45-degree turns away from this one. (A favorite, “Bring me solutions, not problems.” After we gave a briefing focused entirely on solutions.) Over time, the immune systems of projects fought off good advice more effectively, to focus without distraction on executing the orders that came with funding. There were fewer mandatory reviews by outsiders, and the end of collecting the data that might give anyone ideas about adding things up. But the NASA science enterprise is a meta-level above this messenger/audience paradigm. Here we have a collection of projects that themselves deliver bad news to all Earthlings, about the climate, and carbon in the atmosphere, and rising temperatures, with all its dire implications.
Over in our sister world, the Space Force is looking at an enormous budget plus-up in 2026. The Space Force would see an increase of $11.3B from the FY 2025 enacted budget. As someone who enjoys writing and is now attacking a Sci-Fi novel of my own, I’m reminded of a recent talk with some fellow writers about Sci-Fi as “pew pew.” Not something I have in mind. But it appears the Starfleet of NASA languorously moving from scene to scene, dialogue in a conference room, then more dialogue on the bridge, is now in disfavor. Pew pew would seem ascendant in the moment. So derivative. Another novel that is not novel.
The question is, what comes next? Amos would advise “survive.” Unsaid in that philosophy is why bother? As with TV series, it’s comforting to whip out the tropes, channel inspirational speech, live to fight another day. We live for a better day, for others, something about hope, faith, blah, blah. Yes, I just blah-blahed hope, and faith. Thirty-plus years in NASA meant spaceships, crawling in them, wondering what would break next, not if, but when, science and technology that blew apart neurons as if my brain spent time in a blender, and people. People in an organization who have hope in their blood. Fine, couldn’t help but go there. Optimism. It’s ingrained from years of training.
When I write, I take a jumble of thoughts and organize them into words, sometimes unearthing something clearer. Nearing the end, I have to at least be able to answer the question, “What is the point?” I could say current events are something I never saw in NASA during my time from 1988 to 2021. But that would lack perspective. As Twain said, history does not repeat, but it rhymes. Perhaps channeling some thoughts about how things work out, “In the end” would work. But these are the three worst words of condolence ever. Words do not mean much if you are part of the debris field in a story that goes on, for others. For everyone in this story, only our actions remain as comfort. One action item (as we said long ago in NASA speak)–for everyone to remember these times, their friends and co-workers, and experiences helping explore out there. It’s all anyone takes with them, in the end.
*A mere $15M recission back then.
Zapata Talks NASA 