A woke California PhD student is going viral online after declining a coveted NASA internship she spent “years” seeking — and she’s blaming “the current administration” for her shocking decision.
Daniela Lucas, a 26-year-old bioengineering student at UC San Diego, recently uploaded a TikTok video showing her dramatically selecting “Decline Offer” for an internship in NASA’s Human Health and Performance program.
“No one tells you how hard it is to reject an offer from your dream internship at NASA because of the current administration,” Lucas, 26, wrote over the video.
“I worked years to receive this letter, just to have to decline,” she added, including a crying face and devil emoji.
Weepy piano music played over the video, as Lucas clutched at her face and then shook her head, looking incredulous.
Lucas — who grew up in Venezuela and immigrated with her doctor father and family to Florida in 2015 and earned a full ride to Miami Dade College, according to her UCSD bio — did not elaborate on what specifically led to the drastic decision.
Her video has been reposted by numerous accounts across social media — with reactions ranging from incredulity and mockery, to support for Lucas sticking by her beliefs.
“I feel like NASA dodged an asteroid there,” one commenter wrote on X.
“I endorse her decision as the best outcome for NASA,” said another.
A young liberal woman turns down a NASA internship “because of the current administration” pic.twitter.com/aSZzhzwk1S
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) April 23, 2025
“This has to be fake. No way someone applies for and is smart enough to be offered a NASA internship only to turn it down,” wrote a third. “But if it is real she sure showed them!! Or not.”
Others were on Lucas’ side — and said President Trump could learn from her.
“You can disagree with her reasons, but she’s sticking to it. Our so called conservative politicians should take note. This is what sticking to the cause looks like,” one person wrote.
“Whelp good on her for sticking to her convictions. At least she’s committed unlike our politicians in the GOP,” another said.
NASA internships were recently ranked as the single most prestigious program across all fields by internship resource Vault.com — beating out the likes of Google, Apple, Goldman Sachs, the CIA, SpaceX and BlackRock.
Interns have gone on to become astronauts and astronomers discovering planets outside our solar system, and have launched lifelong careers at the space agency, NASA said.
Trump has generally been a friend to NASA.
He boosted NASA’s funding by 10% to $22.63 billion by the end of his first term, according to Time Magazine, and has long been outspoken about sending humans back to the moon — something Lucas’ would-be internship department is directly involved in.
NASA currently has plans to have Americans orbit the moon in Spring 2026 as part of a plan to walk on the moon again shortly thereafter. And during his inauguration speech, Trump announced plans to “pursue our manifest destiny into the stars” and land humans on Mars.
But NASA also recently fell in the crosshairs of the administration’s plans to slash federal spending — with an April report from Ars Technica revealing Trump intended to slash NASA’s budget by 20% in 2026, with most of the cuts effectively halving budgets across all research departments.
That’s something Trump’s space exploration pioneer Elon Musk — who is heading up the effort to slash federal spending — called “troubling” in a statement to Politico.
The federal agency also falls under the purview of Trump’s agenda to rid government spaces of DEI policies, which former President Biden funneled $20 million into expanding at NASA.
Neither Lucas nor NASA responded to requests for comment.
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