National Aeronautics and Space Administration

We largely know about DOGE’s activities at NASA because Riley Sennott forgot to make his calendar private. Given the vast involvement of SpaceX at NASA already, observers have naturally been concerned about what sort of industrial espionage or procurement interference that DOGE might get up to. This fear was amplified when Musk ally Jared Isaacman was nominated to lead the agency. However, DOGE’s activities at the agency have been the same severe cost-cutting and personnel reduction they’ve tried everywhere else. Not even science is safe.

Positions

Position	Date	Person
NASA 1/XX	1/XX	Scott Coulter appointed «Missing details, but Scott Coulter started at NASA and was detailed to SSA.»
GSA? NASA c.3/14	c.3/14	Riley Sennott likely detailed as Senior Advisor Buiness Insider
GSA? NASA 3/14	3/14	Alexander Simonpour likely detailed as Advisor Business Insider

Events

Agency	Date	Event
2/13 NASA	2/13	Official: NASA leadership replies to a congressional inquiry to report that DOGE had identified a single individual who would be employed at the agency. agency comms
2/14 NASA	2/14	Sighting: The NASA administrator emails all staff to report that “DOGE has arrived” at the agency. My News 13
2/19 NASA	2/19	Access: According to one agency employee, DOGE workers are granted access access to contracts, partnerships, performance reviews, classified national-security information, and satellite data, among other materials. (fuzz: missing identifications for these systems and staffers) Atlantic
March 2025
3/14 NASA	3/14	Access: ProPublica reports that a DOGE detailee at NASA Scott Coulter has “wide access to internal databases at NASA.” ProPublica
3/14 NASA	3/14	Directory: A Business Insider article reports that Alexander Simonpour has shown up at NASA and also has a GSA address (meaning he was likely detailed from the GSA). Riley Sennott and Scott Coulter also are listed in the NASA online directory. Riley Sennott, Alexander Simonpour Scott Coulter Business Insider
April 2025
4/08 NASA	4/08	Oversight: A letter from Democrats on the House Committee of Science, Space, and Technology expresses specific concern about the lack of qualifications of DOGE staff at the agency. It explicitly names Scott Coulter, Riley Sennott and Alexander Simonpour as the DOGE team at the agency. congressional letter
4/11 HHS, USDA, Commerce, Defense, ED, Energy, HUD, DOJ, DOL, State, DOT, VA, EPA, NASA, Archives, NEH, NSF, SBA	4/11	Disruption: Luke Farritor uses his admin access to lock out all government officials at multiple agencies from using grants.gov to issue new grants. Instead, all grants must now be sent to a new email address which will be reviewed by DOGE staffers before grants can be posted. Wash. Post
4/30 GSA, NASA	4/30	Interagency: As part of a DOGE-driven effort to find ways to punish Harvard by pulling its grants from the federal govenment, Josh Gruenbaum emails Alexander Simonpour to ask if there are grants that can be revoked by NASA. The next day, Simonpour relayed the request to other NASA staffers and then followed up on May 8th stating that the White House had imposed a 5pm deadline for the information. GSA, NASA Alexander Simonpour Josh Gruenbaum The Crimson
May 2025
5/08 GSA, NASA	5/08	Interagency: DOGE staff at NASA, GSA and the White House finalize a list of five NASA grants to be killed and discuss the language for the terminiation letters in a series of email discussions and meetings to 11pm that night. The agency sends a letter to Harvard the following day. GSA, NASA Alexander Simonpour Josh Gruenbaum The Crimson
June 2025
6/26 HHS, USDA, Commerce, Defense, ED, Energy, HUD, DOJ, DOL, State, DOT, VA, EPA, NASA, Archives, NEH, NSF, SBA	6/26	Official: In an email to agency partners, the operators of grants.gov declare that the revised mechanism added in April that routed all Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) through a DOGE email address has been reversed. Instead, agencies are to return to using the tool like that did previously. This doesn’t necessarily mean that DOGE or political appointees will not be reviewing grants, but they have no longer locked other users out of the system. Wash. Post
July 2025
7/09 NASA	7/09	Disruption: At least 2,145 senior (GS-13 to GS-15) employees at NASA are leaving the agency, due to DOGE’s anti-personnel efforts and a proposed budget that would cut the agency budget by 5000 people and 25% of its operating budget. It is unclear if NASA will be able to meet its promise to return astronauts to the moon in 2027 or later send people to Mars with such a reduction in expereinced high-level personnel. Politico