Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

kcrw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 774 posts

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

#471

Post by [deleted] »

eagerpace wrote: post #131
reactordev wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anytime you have subcontractors of the subcontractor of the prime contract holder, you’re going to get construction projects that go 20 years. It’s totally a jobs program. Job security and predictable pay outs. The entire space coast of Florida was built on this, from Kennedy Space Center down to Jupiter, FL.

Beyond FL, they’re careful to make sure parts of the rocket at built in EVERY state! Now something that should be cutting edge innovation is tied to Congress which is intentionally not innovative and you wonder why it falls behind.

[deleted]

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

#472

Post by rhcom2 »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #137
torlok wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking forward to SpaceX launching the next Voyager mission.

They have done some pretty interesting not for profit missions like inspiration 4. do the axiom missions count too (lol)?

Appreciate the charitable fundraising but Inspiration 4 was just run of the mill rich folks doing space tourism.

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

#473

Post by maxloh »

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.

Yeah. I admit that statement is somewhat overstated for India.

However, China is now the country with the most potential to engage in a full-scale war with the US. It was Russia, but it is now stuck with Ukraine, and probably for years ahead.

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

#474

Post by saltcured »

nomel wrote: post #426
toomuchtodo wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s going to kill institutional knowledge and be so expensive to repair after regime change.

Ever org I've worked for slowly became unable to innovate because of "institutional knowledge". I think it's important to forget, to some extent, every once in a while. It forces a new traversal of the problem space, but in a modern context, with modern tools, fresh eyes, and a better understanding of what's needed. Thus we have Space X. There are some great interviews with Jim Keller, who has a similar perspective:…

I think you are using a non-standard definition of institutional knowledge that begs the question in the rest of your posts.

The standard phrase "institutional knowledge" merely refers to knowledge and skills that are carried by members of the organization. This is often much more than what is formally codified into the processes and training materials. As such, it can lead to loss of capability when there is too much turnover.

You seem to be conflating it with some other kind of bureaucratic conservatism or group-think. While that is a common dysfunction of long-running organizations, I think it is an orthogonal characteristic.

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

#475

Post by godelski »

justin66 wrote: post #143
eagerpace wrote: post #125

I’m trying to think how I feel about this. I’ve been obsessed with space for a long time, remember traveling to see my first rocket launch of the shuttle in 2006. Follow the commercial development closely since then. Their science missions are inspiring, but not as inspiring as they ought to be. NASA needs an overhaul. This isn’t how I would do it, but that’s not how things work in the real world. SLS is the elephant…

> NASA needs an overhaul. This isn’t how I would do it, but that’s not how things work in the real world. SLS is the elephant in the room and is a complete disaster. It’s a jobs program limping along decades old technology when the commercial options are better. It’s more accurate to say that Congress needs an overhaul. Over the years NASA administrators have pushed back on SLS to the fullest extent you’d expect, but…

  > It’s more accurate to say that Congress needs an overhaul.
It's also worth mentioning that this is a big reason NASA is so expensive. There's a lot of contracts and so NASA actually has contractors in every single state. They even brag about it[0], which should be a good hint to you that it is political. This makes is a bit of a wealth distribution system. That's either good or bad depending on your perspective and what you think the main goals are...

But there's a few programs that have these types of problems, not just NASA. IMO, there's probably more efficient ways to meet each goal, by decoupling the problem. But either way, we can't solve "the problem" unless we actually recognize what it is (and there's a lot more than what I've just mentioned)

[0] https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/nasainthe50states/

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

#476

Post by freddi333 »

mrobins wrote: post #387
giantg2 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Are they 1% as inspiring as what the DoD does with their budget?" It would be closer to 2%, but we could measure it by engagement. Ask people what their last positive interaction was with NASA vs the military. The military does all sorts of outreach with things like the Blue Angels, stadium flyovers, competitions at fairs, etc. Ask them what NASA has done over the past year vs what the military has done over the pas…

How many people on HN have a James Webb wallpaper?

How many people have a fighter jet?

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

#477

Post by giantg2 »

mrobins wrote: post #387
giantg2 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Are they 1% as inspiring as what the DoD does with their budget?" It would be closer to 2%, but we could measure it by engagement. Ask people what their last positive interaction was with NASA vs the military. The military does all sorts of outreach with things like the Blue Angels, stadium flyovers, competitions at fairs, etc. Ask them what NASA has done over the past year vs what the military has done over the pas…

How many people on HN have a James Webb wallpaper?

I don't think James Webb was launched in the past year. Even so, HN is a tiny percentage of the country and focused on STEM. I would expect the number of people with a James Webb wallpaper nationally to be under 2%.

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

#478

Post by cozzyd »

Should have stuck with 1080p.

On a more serious note, the administration's NASA budget is just completely nonsensical. I'm biased as a grantee, but the budget request called out our balloon experiment as should happen this year but refunded the balloon program (?!?). The congressional markups keep it so that's hopeful but there's still substantial uncertainty if we're actually going to Antarctica in ~3 months to fly our $20M experiment.

Even if all funding is ultimately secured will so many good people leave from the NASA balloon contractor that it will be difficult to have an Antarctic balloon campaign?

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

#479

Post by scarface_74 »

unnamed76ri wrote: post #465
scarface_74 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not hard to look up.. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/030515/which-united...

Yes, thank you for providing a source that supports what I wrote. Big of you to highlight your prior mistake.

Are you really saying that Clinton didn’t balance the budget that Bush II undid and that Trump’s latest “Big Beautiful Bill” is projected to add 3 trillion to the budget on top of what he did in 2017?

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

#480

Post by overfeed »

potato3732842 wrote: post #463
gammarator wrote: post #441

Comments about SLS miss what’s happening. SLS is inefficient and wasteful, but human spaceflight is not what’s getting cut at NASA. Instead, very productive current and future science missions are getting killed, in defiance of Congress [1]. Until this year, NASA was the world leader in space science. We’re pushing out the experts who build and operate astrophysics missions like Hubble, Chandra, JWST, Kepler, TESS, S…

>but human spaceflight is not what’s getting cut at NASA. Instead, very productive current and future science missions are getting killed, in defiance of Congress [1]. Sounds like ye olde Sowell quote[1] about organizational priorities and budget cuts in action. [1] https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2013/03/thomas_sowell_budge...

This isn't cogent, IMO, since Republicans control all 3 arms of government. Who would be the target of intentional public outrage? Also, this is far less incendiary than the cuts to public benefits.
Post reply on HN