NASA suspends numerous advisory committees to comply with Trump executive orders
In what appears to be an over-reaction by NASA, it has ordered that numerous science advisory committees suspend all meetings and work so that it make sure they are complying with Trump’s executive orders requiring the removal of all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs.
The orders listed twenty different working groups as well as the cancellation of the first in-person meeting of the Mercury working group this week.
In reviewing the released list of these groups, only two, the EDIA Working Group (Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility) and the H2O program (Here to Observe), are expressly focused on promoting these racist policies. EDIA’s job is to make sure DEI is implemented across all working groups and science projects. H2O is an educational program restricted to “under-represented students” only, which really means minorities only. All other kids need not apply.
All the other research groups are focused on research and science, not DEI. While a review of their work to make sure they don’t have racial quotas might make sense, it seems NASA’s memos shutting them down entirely during that review appears to be overkill, and might actually be an example of malicious compliance, a tactic used by the bureaucracy to generate bad press against a politician’s policy orders. By over reacting the bureaucrats try to make the elected official’s new policy look stupid.
For example, the cancellation of the first in-person meeting of the Mercury exploration working group (MExAG) seems absurd. It was scheduled to occur this week in Maryland to discuss for example the Japanese/Italian BepiColombo mission, and the sudden cancellation resulted in quotes like this:
“We are forced, therefore, to cancel MExAG 2025,” the Mercury committee’s chair Carolyn Ernst, a planetary scientist with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, wrote in a memo obtained by Space.com. “This turn of events is shocking and concerning, and is extra painful given the order comes four days before our first in-person meeting.” Some committee members had already begun travel for the meeting, Ernst added.
The nearly three-day hybrid meeting was expected to include at up 200 scientists attending either in person of virtually, one scientist Ed Rivera-Valentin shared on the social media site Bluesky. It was expected to include a number of researchers connected to the BepiColombo Mercury mission run by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the European Space Agency. The probe just made its sixth flyby of Mercury on Jan. 8.
I can see no logical reason for NASA’s management to cancel this meeting other than to create bad press for Trump.
There one other possibility. NASA’s management might simply be running scared, and has decided it must over-react in order to make sure it doesn’t get fired for appearing defiant.
I must add that the suspension of the Earth science working groups is not related to DEI, but to adhere to the Trump executive orders requiring a review of the government’s global warming and climate research. For that order a larger suspension of work makes more sense.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
In what appears to be an over-reaction by NASA, it has ordered that numerous science advisory committees suspend all meetings and work so that it make sure they are complying with Trump’s executive orders requiring the removal of all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs.
The orders listed twenty different working groups as well as the cancellation of the first in-person meeting of the Mercury working group this week.
In reviewing the released list of these groups, only two, the EDIA Working Group (Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility) and the H2O program (Here to Observe), are expressly focused on promoting these racist policies. EDIA’s job is to make sure DEI is implemented across all working groups and science projects. H2O is an educational program restricted to “under-represented students” only, which really means minorities only. All other kids need not apply.
All the other research groups are focused on research and science, not DEI. While a review of their work to make sure they don’t have racial quotas might make sense, it seems NASA’s memos shutting them down entirely during that review appears to be overkill, and might actually be an example of malicious compliance, a tactic used by the bureaucracy to generate bad press against a politician’s policy orders. By over reacting the bureaucrats try to make the elected official’s new policy look stupid.
For example, the cancellation of the first in-person meeting of the Mercury exploration working group (MExAG) seems absurd. It was scheduled to occur this week in Maryland to discuss for example the Japanese/Italian BepiColombo mission, and the sudden cancellation resulted in quotes like this:
“We are forced, therefore, to cancel MExAG 2025,” the Mercury committee’s chair Carolyn Ernst, a planetary scientist with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, wrote in a memo obtained by Space.com. “This turn of events is shocking and concerning, and is extra painful given the order comes four days before our first in-person meeting.” Some committee members had already begun travel for the meeting, Ernst added.
The nearly three-day hybrid meeting was expected to include at up 200 scientists attending either in person of virtually, one scientist Ed Rivera-Valentin shared on the social media site Bluesky. It was expected to include a number of researchers connected to the BepiColombo Mercury mission run by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the European Space Agency. The probe just made its sixth flyby of Mercury on Jan. 8.
I can see no logical reason for NASA’s management to cancel this meeting other than to create bad press for Trump.
There one other possibility. NASA’s management might simply be running scared, and has decided it must over-react in order to make sure it doesn’t get fired for appearing defiant.
I must add that the suspension of the Earth science working groups is not related to DEI, but to adhere to the Trump executive orders requiring a review of the government’s global warming and climate research. For that order a larger suspension of work makes more sense.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Malicious compliance?
Per Wikipedia: Malicious compliance is the behavior of strictly following the orders of a superior despite knowing that compliance with the orders will have an unintended or negative result.
A five dollar word/phrase for undermining undercutting in an anal retentive fashion.
Zoe Lofgren is yet one more reason why I floated the concept of a largely independent NASA with a Constitutional amendment for it to get 1% of the budget, a lifetime Chief Administrator appointment and no further Congressional oversight.
We need pro-human spaceflight guys locked in–otherwise when the DNC gets back in power NASA will just be a Climate sat organization.
You start hacking at the bureaucracy and inevitably you have to start trimming things that are never productive, like meetings.
Let’s hope the new administrator can steer the ship in the right direction, albeit with less budget.