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4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

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Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#321

Post by charcircuit »

samrus wrote: post #179
dextrous wrote: post #142

Politics aside, according to a pretty comprehensive study (118 missions) it does seem that SpaceX is much more efficient than NASA [1]. Data like this would suggest privatization of space missions is a good idea. Maybe this conclusion is biased somehow, or perhaps the purpose of a dedicated govt org is different in some way that justifies its budget and scope despite the difference in efficiency? https://qz.com/email…

Efficiency is important for public institutions but not the highest priority. The highest priority is public service. These institutions should have public good as their north star, not shareholder value

How are those any different considering the public are essentially the shareholders.

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#322

Post by BobbyJo »

cma wrote: post #312
eagerpace wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hesitated posting this because my very moderate east coast American perspective seems to be appreciated less and less here. I posted this on a lazy Sunday morning and it got a lot of positive initial comments and discussion. Then a few hours later it turned negative. Science is great but launch vehicle innovation is where the problem is so that’s why I focused on SLS. We could easily have 100 JWSTs today if somethi…

Can you expand on what you mean by token uses? Wasn't Saturn V used for golf on the moon?

Putting the first people on the moon, the first people on any foreign celestial body, as a show of power during the cold war isn't what I'd consider "token".

Putting people on the moon today is a lot less substantive, and doing it with decades old technology makes it even less so.

I see the correlation you're trying to draw: "neither is of any practical use", but I think even that ignores the very deliberate effects the first space race had on the USSR.

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#323

Post by giantg2 »

jzb wrote: post #308
giantg2 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As an example, they gutted NC DMV." When did that happen? I didn't see anything saying they were taking anything away. I saw they increased pay by 5%, authorized retention bonus, and are supposed to add about a 5% increase in the number of license workers. You could just increase pay by $20k and add another 100 workers, but that ignores concerns about operational inefficiency and outdated technology. It will be inte…

The population of NC has grown about 30% in the last 20 years, but staffing has been capped. Wait times to get a license are ridiculous. https://www.wral.com/consumer/5onyourside/ncdmv-long-waits-d...

Yes, and they can't even fill the positions they have under that cap.

'“Whether the root cause is a lack of money, that’s still to be determined. Or whether it’s how we’re spending the money that’s already appropriated,” Boliek said.' From your article.

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#324

Post by QuantumGood »

waltbosz wrote: post #220
nine_zeros wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Is the privatized NC DMV any better than the public one? I was just at the Delaware DMV getting my 2 vehicles inspected and registration renewed, and while not an entirely horrible experience, it did seem like there were a lot of inefficiencies and complacentcy. I've also noticed the difference in the US post offices around me and the FedEx stores and wonder why the post offices aren't nicer customer experiences.

There is an entropic force that leads most organizations to optimize for survival of the organization over time, and worsen the ability to serve the ostensible purpose the organization exists to serve. Changing the type of the organization doesn't matter much if this tendency is not addressed honestly in the mission statement or somewhere similar.

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#325

Post by EasyMark »

olddustytrail wrote: post #197
maxloh wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that people wanted to stay in their own country. However, she could likely get a good position in the space industry in Europe. The bottom line is, she would be very likely to get a good salary, even better than she did in the US, in China, Russia, or India, which are desperately seeking space specialists with experience in more advanced technologies. It is a shame that the US couldn't even keep their payroll,…

Both India and China hold Most Favoured Nation status with the USA. That hardly marks them as enemies.

China is most definitely an adversary, bordering on enemy, of the USA, other than trade we really are in a cold war with them by all measures and many aspects. Culture, education (attracting best students), Asian interests (Taiwan/Japan in particular), government styles (recently arguable however with Trump's actions moving us closer to autocracy), and the list goes on. Very little of that is going on between us and India.

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#326

Post by _proofs »

hopelite wrote: post #250
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be they tried to hide it and were embarrassed when they got caught. Sometimes they even got thrown out of office.

I am quite convinced that this is at least one of the "benefits" of things like the sexual liberation movement and even the push to breach national norms against pornography; you don't even have to be embarrassed or step down, let alone be prosecuted for perversion, degeneracy, sexual abuse, etc. if you are a ruling class perverse person that is bored with normal things and therefore seek ever increasingly perverse,…

sorta sounds like altered carbon's "meth" class of wealth.

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#327

Post by donkeybeer »

Demiurge wrote: post #246
throw123xz wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If many around me warn me about the Nigerian prince scam and I fall for it, then I think I deserve some of the pain. Sure, I'm still a victim, but personally I'd be questioning my intelligence and would try to see where I had failed so it doesn't happen again.

What if half the people you know falls for it and tells you you’re missing out?

Its already that way with way more than half. I still find it hard to believe in the imaginary even though greater than 90% of people do.

Trump should have been a much simpler problem. Those who want to be stupid badly can't be helped.

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#328

Post by convolvatron »

QuantumGood wrote: post #324
waltbosz wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the privatized NC DMV any better than the public one? I was just at the Delaware DMV getting my 2 vehicles inspected and registration renewed, and while not an entirely horrible experience, it did seem like there were a lot of inefficiencies and complacentcy. I've also noticed the difference in the US post offices around me and the FedEx stores and wonder why the post offices aren't nicer customer experiences.

There is an entropic force that leads most organizations to optimize for survival of the organization over time, and worsen the ability to serve the ostensible purpose the organization exists to serve. Changing the type of the organization doesn't matter much if this tendency is not addressed honestly in the mission statement or somewhere similar.

I was totally with you until you proposed that a careful mission statement is the solution to organizational ossification. I've always considered them a symptom, and to the extent that they are prescriptive, you can safely assume that the operational reality is the polar opposite.

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#329

Post by pimlottc »

jzb wrote: post #303
noobermin wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not worth making this point anymore. Bannon et al have been explicit for decades now they want to destroy the federal government. It's ideological, that's it quite simply. All these discussions about efficiency, even more so the debt given they just blew up the debt to never before seen levels just shows that sincerity is not deserved when talking to Rs.

It is worth making the point: a lot of people simply don’t see it (yet?) for what it is and still support the people doing it.

I think GP's point is that it's achingly difficult to believe anyone at this point still buys into the "efficiency" bullshit. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 20 times...

Re: 4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

#330

Post by fastball »

Larrikin wrote: post #96
fastball wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Your use of the word fuck and aggressiveness of your question indicates you know exactly why.

Are the use of the word fuck and the aggressiveness separate aspects?

And no, I do not know exactly why. In what universe is SpaceX a company that mostly just cares about "increasing shareholder value" and not literally pushing the boundaries of the human endeavor?

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