LOS ANGELES — Over 280 current and former NASA employees issued a formal open letter to NASA's interim administrator Sean Duffy on Monday, expressing strong opposition to the Donald Trump administration's proposed budget cuts and policy changes.

The letter, titled "The Voyager Declaration", warned that "rapid and wasteful changes" over the past six months "have or threaten to waste public resources, compromise human safety, weaken national security, and undermine the core NASA mission". Duffy, also the US secretary of transportation since January, was appointed by Trump on July 9 to serve as NASA administrator.

The cuts are "arbitrary", said the letter, warning that thousands of NASA civil servants have already been laid off, resigned, or retired, resulting in the loss of specialized expertise critical to the mission.

The employees voiced concern over reductions in NASA science and aeronautics research, the decommissioning of operational spacecraft, and withdrawal from collaborations with key partners.

Recently, similar statements have emerged from employees at other US federal agencies. On International Moon Day and US National Space Exploration Day, both celebrated on Sunday, NASA employees from the Goddard Engineers, Scientists and Technicians Association took to the streets of Washington, to express their opposition to potential cuts, outlined in the White House's 2026 budget proposal.

Xinhua