The office on the ambiguous corner of the federal government where NASA relies on to safely land astronauts on the moon faces pressure for Mars' robotic probes to cut at least 20% of the close team of experts, according to two people familiar with the order.
People said the thinning of staff has already begun at the Astro Geography Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. More employees are expected to be fired following the new public call for early retirement and resignation on April 4th. The office is part of a US Geological Survey based on the Department of the Home Office, and is the subject of cost-cutting efforts launched in January with a massive email sent to the federal government by Musk's team.
Representatives from the Ministry of Home Affairs, USGS, and the Astro Geography Centre did not respond to requests for comment regarding staff reductions or potential impacts.
The cuts could affect the mission of the crew to future Mars, a key goal for Musk, who founded SpaceX. He says he is thinking of a company to make human life a multiplicity.
Matthew Golombek, a geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has been working on selecting multiple probe landing sites to Mars, but described the precision mapping at the Astro Geographic Science Center as “a gold standard used by essentially everyone in the community.”
Earlier this year, the office had 53 employees. The eight are already set to leave and are more encouraged to consider the latest offers.
Dr. Golombek said that the experts rely on “for the excellence of mapping, for selection of almost every landing site.” He added that he cuts the “incredibly experienced and knowledgeable executives of the center.”
The consequences of reducing the team of interplanetary mapmakers in the office are significant. Jared Isaacman, the NASA-led President Trump candidate, told the Senate committee on Wednesday he would propose a “parallel” effort to send astronauts to Mars.
One researcher at Flagstaff Office, known simply as “astros,” among many experts in the field, was worried that within these changing budget priorities, personnel would prove fatal to mapping and planetary science important projects, including identifying hidden water ice deposits in MARs, which are invaluable for human exploration.
“I can't imagine taking randomly with no whole project of the remaining 40s that there's no one left to be cancelled,” the researcher said.
The researchers added that even the departure of just five workers will cause the office to be in major trouble, depending on seniority and field of expertise.
Two employees who requested anonymity to protect their government careers were familiar with this latest call to volunteers on the “deferred resignation/retirement program” at a recent staff meeting. The mandatory layoff known as effective reductions in the federal government is, if not a employee volunteer, one of the employees said.
The field of astronomy is interdisciplinary and has experts in terrestrial fields such as mineralogy, volcanology, and geography that can be useful in space exploration. The USGS Astrogeology Center is part of the internal division, but according to a recent budget document, it works very closely with NASA, and is “almost fully funded by NASA.” For decades, the Center's experts have played a leading role in creating detailed topographic maps of Mars, the Moon and other worlds, as well as the strategic planning and scientific goals for generations of NASA missions.
The scientist also taught Apollo astronauts, including Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, about crash courses in lunar geology, making it even better informed of rock samples collection. The training was revived for NASA's Artemis program, which plans to bring astronauts back to the surface of the moon in 2027.
Office geology experts competed to help NASA find the first new landing site for two historic Viking Mars landers after the original site turned out to be too dangerous in 1976. In 2021, Perseverance Rover used the center's maps and software to safely and autonomously guide it to the surface of Mars.
“We're a great fan of this world,” said Christopher Edwards, a professor of planetary science at Northern Arizona University, south of Flagstaff's Astro's office.
“They'd create these hazard maps and since the rover was off, they'd actually do real-time matching with the onboard maps,” Dr. Edwards said. “You know, 'Oh, hey! This is a safe place to land! This is not a safe place to land!”
Companies that are part of the booming commercial and space sector also rely on the expertise of the Astro Geographic Science Center.
“SpaceX sometimes asked USGS questions, and the people at USGS were very excited,” said David SF Portree, a former archivist and public relations manager at the Astrology Science Center, a semi-self-historist and science writer in Arizona. Porterie recalled multiple opportunities the office worked for the company.
One project written by current Astrogeology Staff members included helping SpaceX assess whether Dragon Space capsules could land on land within the US continent. (SpaceX ultimately chose to land water.)
SpaceX did not reply to requests for comments about past or current work at the Astrogeology Center or how it would affect the company's Mars program.
Prottee, who wrote the official history of NASA's 50-year plan for the crew mission to Mars, said he was worried that effective scientists would often not be able to pass on highly specialized expertise. This extends to the Trump administration's executive order for a government-wide employment freeze that affected the office's student contractors program.
“It has a ripple effect far beyond Flagstaff and far beyond Astro,” he continued. “Stop the tap. It prevents the creation of the next generation.”
Dr. Edwards, from northern Arizona, said he is worried about pushing for mass launches of new recruits known as probation workers.
“All of these temporary or interim type positions are not just for youth,” Edwards said. “That's what you move when you become a federal employee. They may actually be firing the subject expert.”
“That's crazy for me,” he added.
