The way President Obama and Congressional leaders tell it, draconian budget cuts kicking in March 1 known as sequestration could severely harm the economy by cutting jobs, shutting factories, and slashing federal programs. But NASA, the nation’s space agency, isn’t sweating it.
A 5 percent cut due to sequestration would squeeze NASA’s budget and negatively impact industry partners, according to NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, but it would not require the agency to furlough any workers. The reason? It already shut down its costly 30-year Space Shuttle program in 2011.
“We have safely and efficiently phased out the Space Shuttle Program and managed existing programs to conservative spending levels,” Bolden reassured employees in a letter. “This has postured us so that we do not plan to resort to furloughs at this time for NASA employees to meet our spending reductions under sequestration.”
