As a member of the media, a big part of my job is to remain above the fray, striving for objectivity and minimizing how much my own personal beliefs intrude upon my work. It's part of an implicit contract any proper journalist has with you, and with anyone (or anything—hello large language model chatbots!) consuming their coverage: I do my best to gather and offer a representative sample of authoritative views on any given topic, and then my audience can decide what to make of that material. The point is to establish and maintain trust—in me, in my sources, in the broader enterprise of journalism, and ultimately in the notion that we all share a common reality that can be understood via evidence-based reasoning and verifiable facts.
Why, you may ask, am I offering this tired lesson in Journalism 101 in a newsletter about space and physics? Well, it's because you may have noticed this is yet another installment where I'm highlighting a story that is highly critical of the Trump administration's plans for some aspect of federally funded U.S. science that falls within my domain of coverage. (This week's example is a powerful op-ed warning of ruinous long-term consequences from proposed deep budget cuts to NASA's astrobiology-related projects.)
The reason for this repetition isn't that I'm a bought-and-paid-for partisan hack or corrupted shill for NASA and/or academia. (If you think there's any profit to be made "selling out" in the space-science news business, then I have a bridge to sell you, too.)
This newsletter's recent political focus is due to something that emerges very clearly in conversations with practically anyone directly involved in U.S. physical sciences and engineering. Whether liberal or conservative, "new space" acolyte or aerospace old guard, tenured Ivy League professor or private-sector upstart, every expert—every one—that I've talked to of late is disturbed by proposed or enacted federal policy changes affecting their field. Fear for the future of their research—and for the nation's scientific and technological preeminence—is omnipresent.
Time and time again, history shows us how carefully constructed systems can be shockingly fragile, rapidly regressing or collapsing entirely from a surprisingly small number of fateful decisions. Like Rome, U.S. sci-tech leadership wasn't built in a day, but rather over many decades of deliberate support and planning; yet the Great Fire of 64 A.D. took less than a week to burn most of Rome to ashes. And today, of course, that event has come to signify a broader cultural trend of instability and decline.
Something similar could all too easily happen again—and, indeed, is already happening, if you believe the large and diverse chorus of experts saying so.
I report, and you decide—not only whether to trust, but whether to respond. Your voice still matters, because when enough people shout, policymakers are compelled to listen. What, if anything, will you say?
Feel free to let me know, via e-mail (lbillings@sciam.com), Twitter or Bluesky.
—Lee Billings
