NASA to lose nearly 4,000 workers due to Trump's "delayed resignation"

NASA will suddenly lose nearly 4,000 workers. These employees, who make up more than 20% of the US space agency's workforce, have accepted the "deferred resignation" offered by the Trump administration in its efforts to reduce government spending . This seemingly contradictory measure, given that the president recently expressed his desire to prioritize plans for manned missions to the Moon and Mars.

According to NASA, approximately 3,000 employees have participated in the second round of its Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), which closed Friday night. These are in addition to the 870 who participated in the first round and the departures of regular staff, bringing the agency's civil service workforce down from more than 18,000 before Trump took office in January to approximately 14,000.

Those leaving the agency under deferred resignation will be placed on administrative leave until their agreed-upon departure date. An agency spokesperson indicated that the numbers could change slightly in the coming weeks.

"Safety remains a top priority for our agency as we balance the need to become a more agile and efficient organization with working to ensure we remain fully capable of achieving a golden age of exploration and innovation, including the Moon and Mars," the agency said in a statement.

In his 2026 federal budget request, Trump proposed cutting the agency's overall funding by 24% and drastically reducing its science budget by nearly half. The White House stated that it wants to focus on " beating China to the moon and sending the first human to Mars." China aims for its first manned moon landing by 2030, while the US Artemis program has suffered repeated delays.

Recently, nearly 300 current and former NASA employees, more than half anonymously, signed the Voyager Declaration, a letter rejecting the Trump administration's "indiscriminate" cuts to the agency. According to the signatories, including four retired astronauts, these measures waste public resources, compromise worker safety, undermine the organization's goals, and weaken national security. Prominent scientists outside NASA, including 20 Nobel Prize winners, also endorsed the letter.

NASA is now led by an acting administrator after Trump's initial pick, tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, a friend and collaborator of Elon Musk's space ventures, was ultimately rejected by the Republican president.