Of all the catastrophic outcomes of this administration, what's happening at NASA is one of the saddest. The premier science and exploration institution, built over years by our most gifted, so much given back to society, gutted and disabled. And all for fucking what?

TFA is playing coy about Laurie Leshin’s resignation as director of JPL:

> It’s not clear if Lystrup and Leshin’s departures are related to the ongoing turmoil at NASA and other government agencies.

It was crystal clear that Leshin resigned because she got crossways with administration politics.

It also seems apparent that Janet Petro, the former acting administrator, was exited for the same reason. The administration now has someone compliant as acting administrator while they burn the whole agency down.

The apparent lesson seems to be, “nothing in the government is allowed to do anything good”, or perhaps, “no source of authority may exist outside the administration“.

What is the actual intent behind decimating NASA ? It's tiny compared to the defense budget and fairly high ROI in terms of maintaining US scientific leadership.