'I'm Really Disappointed': Former Astronaut Mark Kelly Slams Trump Administration's Cuts To NASA

On Sunday, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) spoke to CNN's Jake Tapper.

Transcript

00:00Reuters is reporting that 20 percent of employees at NASA, around 4,000 individuals, are set

00:06to depart the agency through the Trump administration's deferred resignation program.

00:11You are, if people don't know, a retired astronaut.

00:13What goes through your mind when you hear that?

00:16Well, some of the best people that NASA has, and NASA is tasked with doing some really

00:22hard things that benefit our country, our national security, our economy, that really

00:27grows our economy, great-paying jobs.

00:29We built industries through the investment in science, including with NASA.

00:35And the president is undercutting his own programs.

00:40In 2017, he started a program to take American astronauts back to the moon, to put them there

00:45permanently, to grow an economy on the surface of the moon.

00:49And now his own budget undercuts those efforts.

00:53I was with Sean Duffy, who's going to be the temporary NASA administrator, just last

00:57week.

00:58And we talked about, like, where should NASA be going?

01:00And how do you actually achieve the goals that this president set in his first administration?

01:05He's got an opportunity here.

01:07You know, he can fund these programs.

01:09They can be successful.

01:10He can claim and take a victory lap maybe at the end of his administration.

01:15Or he can let NASA, you know, just kind of die, along with other science that only the United

01:21States has been able to do.

01:23You know, some other nation isn't going to pick up the kind of scientific research that

01:27we do at places like the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or the NIH and universities.

01:34So I'm really disappointed to see these cuts.

01:37I've got a friend of mine, by the way, a guy I flew in space with, one of my crew members

01:41for my last mission in 2011, he's going to launch in space Thursday.

01:47So I'm hoping to be down there to see him make one final trip into space.

01:52And it's one of the things, I think, that really makes our country great.