Read this today:
“Occasionally in human history,” Nosanov wrote, “a superpower will choose to abandon a position of leadership, or yield dominance of a frontier, in favor of, or because of, internal or domestic conflict.”
In the case of the NASA layoffs, which impacted about 530 employees and 40 contractors at the agency’s joint facility with Caltech in Pasadena, California, this travesty occurred because Congress is in gridlock over budget issues.
To Nosanov’s mind, that failure of leadership is unacceptable precisely because of how important the JPL is to America’s extraordinary accomplishments in space — and because, unlike the mistakes made by rulers past, our current ones have historical precedent that should cast out their “ignorance.”
Source: https://futurism.com/the-byte/ex-nasa-employee-slams-government