NASA Closes Doors to 15,000 Employees as U.S. Government Shutdown Begins

More than 15,000 NASA civil servants have been furloughed as the U.S. federal government enters a shutdown.

The grinding halt forces NASA and other agencies to scale back nearly all of their day-to-day operations after lawmakers in Washington D.C. failed to pass a government funding bill by the deadline. Only a fraction of NASA's workforce remains on duty, assigned to missions that cannot be paused without risking astronaut safety, critical hardware, or the Trump administration’s highest priorities.

With most science programs and public-facing activities frozen, the shutdown leaves NASA in a holding pattern until Congress approves new funding.

NASA's updated shutdown plan, released Sept. 29, outlines how the agency will operate during the funding lapse, and confirms the scale of furloughs now underway. Out of NASA's 18,218 civil servants, 15,094 have been sent home, while a little more than 3,100 are classified as "excepted" and remain on the job.

Most of NASA's research portfolio, from science grants to technology development, has been placed on hold, freezing progress across a wide range of projects. Public engagement efforts such as visitor centers, NASA TV and social media platforms have gone dark, limiting the agency's ability to communicate with the public.

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Greg Guenthner:

Bitcoin and Gold Jump as Stocks Dip Amid U.S. Government Shutdown

Popular stores of value like Bitcoin and gold jumped Wednesday, diverging from a spooked stock market that contracted in the wake of the U.S. government’s first shutdown in nearly seven years. 

Bitcoin is up 3.6% in the last 24 hours, to $117,293 at writing, reaching its highest price in about two weeks. The token has spiked over 7% since Sunday.

Gold, meanwhile, soared to a new all-time high Wednesday morning above $3,922 per ounce. It has remained closed to the mark, recently priced at $3,902 per ounce — up 4.6% in the last week.

Those bullish moves contrast current sentiments in the traditional financial market, where prices slipped Wednesday following the U.S. government’s shutdown last night at midnight. The S&P 500 fell half a percentage point at market opening, to $6,658. The Nasdaq composite similarly dipped half a point to $22,530.

As of this writing, the major stock indices have pulled closer to even on the day.

Crypto market sentiment is currently bullish that Bitcoin will continue to surge in the relatively near term. A Myriad market puts the odds of BTC breaking another all-time price record and surging to $125,000 as overwhelmingly likely (65% odds).

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Davis Wilson:

Meta Plans To Sell Targeted Ads Based on Data in Your AI Chats

Meta announced on Wednesday that data collected from user interactions with its AI products will soon be used to sell targeted ads across its social media platforms.

The company will update its privacy policy by December 16 to reflect the change, and will notify users in the coming days. The new policy applies globally, except for users in South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, where privacy laws prevent this type of data collection.

Meta’s core business has long relied on building detailed profiles of Facebook and Instagram users to sell hyper-targeted ads. The company offers advertisers a way to reach specific demographics and user groups. Now, Meta will also use data from conversations with its AI chatbot to build out those profiles, giving it another powerful signal to target its ads.

The social media giant already has lots of information about its users, but Meta AI has created a rich new stream of information. The company says more than a billion people chat with Meta AI every month, and it’s common for users to hold long, detailed conversations with the AI chatbot.

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