The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will handle the audit of NASA’s payments. In this case, measures will be taken to prevent conflicts of interest involving Elon Musk.
The verification announcement was made by NASA Acting Administrator Janet Petro after speaking at the Commercial Space Conference. According to her, NASA employees are now trying to deal with all the executive orders that have been “dumped” on them since Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Among these edicts is the creation of the Elon Musk-led DOGE, whose stated goal is to eradicate wasteful spending in the federal government. The introduction of DOGE has caused much controversy amid reports that its employees attempted to access critical payment systems and sensitive information at various agencies without proper authorizations.
This week, reports surfaced that DOGE employees were spotted at NASA. Petro did not confirm that information, but said the aerospace administration’s payments would also come under scrutiny. At the same time, she did not specify exactly what DOGE would be looking for.
Musk’s role at DOGE, where he has been named a “special government employee” by the White House, has raised legitimate concerns about conflicts of interest, given the numerous contracts SpaceX performs for NASA. Petro replied that precautions were taken. “We have very strict conflict-of-interest policies, so any employee or any person who is coming in we will check out their conflicts of interest and make sure they don’t have any conflicts of interest with any of the companies that we work with.” Such conflicts of interest will be reviewed by NASA’s legal office, Petro added.
While NASA works with executive orders, there is uncertainty in the space industry about the future of the Artemis lunar program. On February 7, Boeing said it was preparing to lay off hundreds of employees working on the SLS rocket, citing changes to the Artemis program, although neither NASA nor the White House has yet announced them.
Petro said that, contrary to some reports, she had not been lobbying the White House to keep the Artemis 2 and 3 missions, noting that she was a “temporary person.” This will be decided by the new NASA administrator. However, the nominee for this position, Jared Isaacman, has not yet gone through the approval process.
According to Spacenews.com
