Last week, in BAN 834, “A N D R O M E D A Redux”, I mistakenly said the Andromeda Galaxy can be seen high to the southwest after sunset. It’s actually in the northwest. Oops! I wrote this thinking about where it was in the sky last month, and getting a little turned around in my directions (I swear, having a house that isn’t oriented to the cardinal directions messes me up every time). Thanks to BAN reader Richelle Rousse for pointing out my error!

Last week, NASA took down a web page about Rose Ferreira.

Rose is a wonderful woman; she had it very tough growing up in the Dominican Republic, suffering under stifling misogyny that thwarted her attempts to learn about the Moon and the stars. Well, almost thwarted: through great perseverance and with dignity, she made it out of that life, and now works at NASA, a success story to make the heart soar. She is an outspoken supporter of science, and a role model for everyone, especially for women and Latinas.

Her struggle to become who she is now was lauded by NASA in 2022 when a wonderful news story about her was posted to the NASA website. Rose is a friend of mine, and I was very proud of her.

And now that article is gone, scrubbed from NASA’s servers^*. Why?

Racism. Misogyny. Bigotry. Anti-science zealotry. Take your pick, or mix and match.

Trump has been issuing a flurry of Executive Orders since he took office, most of which are directly aimed at gathering his power and suppressing any opposition to him. Like many fascists before him — Hitler and Stalin come to mind, but I’m sure you can think of others — he needs a bogeyman to focus his base. The GOP has been using this propaganda method for years — remember the migrant caravans that always popped up when the Republicans needed them too, and disappeared as soon as their usefulness was gone? — and they’ve now focused on DEI: a program that supports diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

DEI is a noble pursuit — it doesn’t punish white people, but helps historically underserved people. But the GOP has twisted it into scapegoat, misusing the term just as they misuse woke. This time, though, with Trump in power and the GOP owning all three branches of government, they have turned on the bigotry fire hose full force. If you’ve been paying any attention to news at all you may know that Trump has unleashed a series of Executive Orders meant to root out any mention of DEI and to defund anyone who is involved.

That’s why Rose’s page was taken down. Despite the clear illegality and unconstitutionality of this censorship order, some federal administrators are bending the knee, taking down all references to women and people of color.

Think I’m exaggerating? Nope. NASA has instructed employees to remove pronouns from their emails. They were told to “drop everything” and immediately take down any mention of women and indigenous people from their websites. You can find lots more examples online.

NASA is one of the shining jewels of the United States. People who are not white, cis-het, and male very much participated in making it that way. There was a whole movie about this, for criminy sake!

To literally remove all mention of them from official outreach is disgusting.

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But the destruction doesn’t stop there. Science itself is on the chopping block. Trump has been attacking various science agencies, threatening to cut their budget. He has already withdrawn the US from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement. The list goes on and on.

More recently (and he’s only been in office three weeks) he has gone after the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. The cuts he is threatening would be mortal blows to these two incredibly important organizations, which fund billions of dollars in research. A lot of universities rely on funding from those agencies, and will take a huge hit, as will the local economies where those schools are.

That money isn’t spent, either: it’s invested. The money we make back on science funding is far larger than what we put in, but even ignoring that, that funding supports important research that saves lives, expands our knowledge, and is critical to our civilization. Abdicating that responsibility is the same as handing a blank check to other countries to step in. Notably China, which Trump professes to consider a threat.

This cannot stand. None of this can, from his attacks on LGBTQ+ folks to, well, everything else. But part of Trump’s methodology is to flood the news with so much garbage that it’s difficult to cope, making it easier to ram through his wishes.

I am a scientist, and a science communicator, and someone who very much loves science. So that is what I can focus on.

I know people want to read about astronomy and space; that’s why I started this newsletter. But it didn’t take me long to tackle politics, too, since that affects science vitally. Sometimes people even tell me to “stay in my lane”, but hey, the Universe is my lane. That includes politics.

And science is very much political. It always has been. If your politics is to deny people access to knowledge, science is political. If your politics is to deny reality and make people suffer while you reap short-term profits, science is political. If your racism and misogyny demand federal science agency websites scrub all mentions of women, Black people, or any support for minorities or underserved people, then science is goddamned political.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve argued about climate change, evolution, the efficacy of vaccines, and more, only to be told to keep politics out of science. Always — and I mean every single time — this comes from someone who is “conservative”. Well, I’ll tell you what. You want me to keep politics out of science?

You first.

It’s the so-called “conservative” party — in reality as radical as it gets — that politicized these topics. They did it for money, they did it to consolidate power, they did it for ideology or for any number of nefarious reasons, but they did it. Scientists were happy doing science and, should the data show we needed to do something for the betterment of the world, they’d speak up about it. The ozone hole is a great example; when the science was showing that certain chemicals being used in spray cans, among other sources, was destroying the vitally important ozone layer in the upper atmosphere, scientists spoke up and politicians banned those chemicals. This was in the 1980s, and the ozone is now well on its way to recovering.

If only we could have such unanimous consensus on global warming, but alas, Big Oil has poisoned the debate right along with the planet.

You can argue that science itself is apolitical, which has been done — but to ignore how that science is used by politicians is dangerous to the point of madness. We can try to talk to the public more, we can try to train more scientists how to communicate better, and we can spend money on campaigns to make our outreach more far-reaching and effective. All of this helps get the word out about real science.

But none of that, none, will matter if the country which we’re trying to support and help and communicate to is under the thumb of fascists.  

So what can we do? 

To say “vote” is both trite and naïve, I’ll admit, even though it’s true. Perhaps more important is to make sure you’re an educated voter; there was so much misinformation flying in 2024 that it could be difficult to figure out what was true and what wasn’t. Millions of words have been written on that topic, so avail yourself of them. The internet is searchable.

But we also need to be active citizens. I’ve been calling my Senators and Congressperson multiple times about various issues, making sure my voice is heard. One topic I’ve been hammering is the damage to the state economy from the cuts to universities and research institutions — keeping it local is a great way to get your Congressperson to listen.

If you are not sure what to say or what topics to talk about, there are great organizations that can help, like 5calls.org. They have scripts you can use to read over the phone if you get nervous talking live. You can even take a script, modify it to make it more in your voice, and send it to Congress for free using FaxZero. You can go here to find your Representative and here for your Senators. Most of them have forms on their site you can fill out to make yourself heard as well. Indivisible is another good site, too. 

I’ll note that I have heard many times that getting just a few dozen phone calls on a topic is considered to be a lot by Congressional staff! So in this case your voice matters! Just one extra call can make a difference. AOC talked about this on social media:

Another thing you can do is protest. This decision is of course entirely up to your own personal needs, abilities, and preferences, but big protests can get things done. I know, Trump has made it clear he wants to quash protests but at the moment they’re still legal and, in my opinion, necessary. Your best bet here is social media; be on the lookout for announcements of protests, especially in your area. Make sure the call to protest is legit! Check your sources and ensure the people making the call are for real. And if you do protest, know your rights and be prepared.

Or you can just talk. That may be the hardest thing of all, talking to friends and family. But if you can connect with them through mutual trust, or on values you share (like science), then this can have the biggest impact of all.

My friend, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, has something to say about this: 

And remember, we’re not alone: global trust in science still remains high, and from what I can tell it still does in the US despite all the noise and nonsense.

I cannot see the future, nor can I predict how this will all unfold. But I do know one thing for sure: it will certainly be even worse if we say nothing, do nothing.

Say something. Do something. Make a difference. We can save science in this country, and we can save this country, and we’ll have to do it ourselves.

^* Update (Feb. 19, 2025): Shortly after this issue was sent the page about Rose was back online on NASA’s site, with no explanation of why it was taken down or put back up (and, oddly, with the publication date changed). Small victories.

You can email me at [email protected] (though replies can take a while), and all my social media outlets are gathered together at about.me. Also, if you don’t already, please subscribe to this newsletter! And feel free to tell a friend or nine, too. Thanks!