Sadly, getting more places with less money is absolutely possible, but the key to making it happen is abandoning planetary science. It’s a shift from a paradigm where engineering exists to support planetary science efforts to engineering for engineering’s sake
As someone who worked from home for almost a decade before being pulled into the office, I regularly got flack from my peers for it as well as older boomer types. IME, people who are forced into the office frequently feel a sense of “fairness” where they want everyone else to come in as well.
“If I have to be miserable, you should too”