Since Donald Trump retook the White House earlier this year, the relationship between NASA staffers and government leadership has become unbelievably fraught. From the point-of-view of the rank and file, it's been a deluge of unforced errors as layoffs, budget cuts, and asset liquidations take a devastating toll on morale. According to the group Goddard Engineers, Scientists and Technicians Association (GESTA), which represents a broad swath of NASA staff,
Designing the system to return Mars samples to Earth at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory - the Southern California lab that pioneered American rocketry and the scientific exploration of our solar system - was her dream job. As she worked toward degrees in mechanical engineering, she watched JPL launches and became enamored with the photos the lab took on Mars.