Notice a lack of Tweeting from NASA? You have the government shut down to thank.

Due to the shut down, 97% of NASA employees have been furloughed. NASA has around 18,000 employees and about 17,500 employees haven’t been at work since October 1, 2013.

The only NASA employees that are going to work are “essential” employees who are involved with the daily operations of the International Space Station and NASA security.

The shutdown will likely delay the Mars MAVEN Mission until 2016, if it continues. Scientists scheduled to launch the probe to Mars on November 18, 2013. However, if employees continue to be furloughed, we are not going to see this happen. This is because Mars and Earth need to be in a certain position from each other in order to successfully launch this probe. If scientists can’t launch on November 18, we will have to wait until 2016 until the planets are aligned in this position again.

Even NASA’s website is down! How are we going to peruse the latest pictures of space?! If you head to their website right now, you’ll see that it says, “Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available. We sincerely regret this inconvenience.” I regret this inconvenience, too!

Because of the shutdown, NASA employees can’t even Tweet from the department’s official Twitter account. On October 1, NASA tweeted, “Sorry, but we won’t be tweeting/responding to replies during the government shutdown. Be back as soon as possible…”

Even @AsteroidWatch is down! On their page it says, “Sorry, but we won’t be updating this Twitter account during the government shut down. Hope to be back soon.”

@AsteroidWatch! What if an asteroid is headed for Earth right this second? Does this mean we won’t know when it’s going to hit? How will we prepare? Should I just get in my fallout shelter right now, just in case?

Do you guys see what the shut down is doing to me?!

C’mon, Washington, DC! Get it together!

Source: Slate.com