Nasa Faces Brain Drain As Thousands Exit Under Voluntary Resignation Scheme

Almost 3,900 of NASA’s workforce is set to leave the agency thanks to voluntary incentives, with senior staffers among those heading out the door.

The figures were issued by NASA HQ on Friday. About 3,000 employees opted to take part in a second round of the agency’s Deferred Resignation Program. Some 870 participated in the first round, earlier this year.

The exodus has led observers to bemoan the loss of talent. Former Hubble astronaut Dr John Grunsfeld described the departures to The Register as “a real brain drain.”

He told us that employees who accepted early exit offers tended “to be the most senior people with the most knowledge.”

The number of NASA employees leaving is subject to change. Staff could decide to drop out of the buyout programs, or NASA might opt to reject their resignations. However, the headcount reduction has caused alarm.

A letter of dissent titled “The Voyager Declaration,” with hundreds of signatures from current and former NASA employees, said: “Thousands of NASA civil servant employees have already been terminated, resigned, or retired early, taking with them highly specialized, irreplaceable knowledge crucial to carrying out NASA’s mission.”

Figures on NASA’s website put the workforce at just under 18,000. The number given in the FY2026 budget request is 17,391. A drop of almost 4,000 is therefore substantial. It also calls into question how NASA would manage to continue all its missions should the cuts in the White House’s original budget proposal be unpicked by lawmakers.

A NASA spokesperson told us:

“NASA’s Deferred Resignation Program, Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, and Voluntary Separation Incentive Program closed July 25. Safety remains a top priority for our agency as we balance the need to become a more streamlined and more efficient organization and work to ensure we remain fully capable of pursuing a Golden Era of exploration and innovation, including to the Moon and Mars.

Numbers are as follows:

Deferred Resignation Program #1: about 4.8% of the workforce (about 870 individuals)

Deferred Resignation Program #2 (including VERA and VSIP, in addition to DRP): about 16.4% of the workforce, approximately 3,000 employees<

NASA’s expected remaining civil servant workforce following both DRP programs, as well as normal attrition (about 500) over the same time period: about 14,000

The final number could well fluctuate in the coming days, based on factors including a departure approved beyond January 9, 2026, as well as the employee withdrawing from the process or the resignation not being approved.”

Further cuts will be necessary if the agency is to reduce its workforce to the 11,853 level outlined in the agency’s FY2026 budget request.

It is unclear where all those staff will go. Some will opt for retirement. Others, according to Grunsfeld, might head into the private sector. “Probably a lot of them will go to defense contractors and work on the ‘Golden Dome’… Which is a doomed project.”

The Golden Dome is a proposal to protect the US from foreign threats, including ballistic missiles, via a constellation of satellites. Its cost far exceeds NASA’s proposed budget.

“I’m sure a lot of interesting technology will come out of it,” said Grunsfeld, “but we’ve done this before with Star Wars.”

“Star Wars” was a media-coined nickname for the US’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), announced in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan. While SDI did not deliver as initially envisioned, the dream of a space-based missile defense system has not gone away, and thanks to NASA’s cuts, there could soon be a wave of scientists available to try to make the latest dream a reality.

“Can you imagine a constellation of weaponized satellites orbiting the Earth?” said Grunsfeld. “A constellation of sensor satellites orbiting the Earth that are looking for missile launches and trying to track missile launches?”

“In a world with aircraft and commercial rocket launches and everything else controlled by AI… What could go wrong?”

The Register asked NASA to comment. ®

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