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

491–500 of 774 posts

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

#491

Post by jacobolus »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #482
jacobolus wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point seems to be to cut US scientific capacity (and more generally intellectual research capacity) across the board, as a way of hitting back at "the elites" who have the temerity to call GOP politicians and donors out for their lies and bad behavior.

> a way of hitting back at "the elites" who have the temerity to call GOP politicians and donors out for their lies and bad behavior True for academic institutions. No evidence this is the motivation at NASA. Simpler: science costs money and leadership believes that money is better spent giving folks like me a tax cut than paying for poor folks' healthcare or basic research. Fortunately, it looks like Beijing is read…

The cuts to NASA as well as NOAA, NIH, USGS, USDA, FWS, DOE, etc. are not really saving that much money, but are destroying literally trillions of dollars of future economic value (not to mention all sorts of work whose value can't be easily quantified).

Maybe "smashing things and ruining people's lives and work is fun per se" is a better explanation than anything more complicated. Pretty shitty for the rest of us though.

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

#492

Post by triceratops »

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.

It doesn't support what you wrote.

"The U.S. budget deficit exploded in fiscal year 2009, ultimately reaching $1.4 trillion under President George W. Bush...The deficit would remain above $1 trillion throughout the 2012 fiscal year, but it was slashed to as low as $440 billion in the later years of Obama's presidency."

Comparing Biden to GWB doesn't make any sense. Their presidencies were 12 years apart and in very different circumstances.

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

#493

Post by triceratops »

stogot wrote: post #389
CamperBob2 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that particular act of stupidity is about fucking up NOAA so it can be privatized by Trump cronies, while simultaneously burying "inconvenient truths" that inconvenience the same people. Defunding NASA is about the tax cuts. NOAA is different.

Side note: Inconvenient Truth documentary might have actually been more widely accepted if it wasn’t a political ad for Al Gore

How was it a political ad?

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

#494

Post by crote »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #424
kylecordes wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely so, but you have probably listed a bunch of organizations already utterly swamped with eager and qualified job candidates relative to their hiring numbers.

>a bunch of organizations already utterly swamped with eager and qualified job candidates relative to their hiring numbers So....the same challenges that everyone working in the private sector has? What am I missing here?

Imagine if Google or Apple suddenly went bust. What do you think that would do to the job market in San Francisco?

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

#495

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

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…

> Their science missions are inspiring, but not as inspiring as they ought to be.

NASA's science missions have been incredible.

The James Webb Space Telescope, a 6.5-meter-diameter infrared telescope at Lagrange Point 2 that can measure the atmospheric chemistry of planets orbiting other stars and measure the spectra of galaxies that were around 10 billion years ago.

The Curiosity rover landed on Mars by being lowered to the ground from a rocket-powered "sky-crane." It was powered by a radioactive battery, has been driving around and taking measurements for more than a decade, and has shown that Mars was likely habitable billions of years ago.

What kind of inspiration do you feel is lacking there?

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

#496

Post by largbae »

overfeed wrote: post #480
potato3732842 wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I think GP is suggesting that NASA administrators might have an incentive to apply budget cuts to programs that get more public outrage. However I would imagine human spaceflight to be the more visible type of program for the average voter.

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

#497

Post by lupusreal »

Pfhortune wrote: post #417
lupusreal wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privatizing government institutions won't do anything to help, but it is nonetheless the case that the American government has a large amount of responsibility for what's going on. The reason why American companies cannot simply sell food to Gaza is because the government of Israel controls access to Gaza and the government of America supports them in this. Without the American government's various anti-BDS laws, it…

…sell food to Gaza? The people of Gaza have little way to buy food right now. Gaza does not possess a hoard of wealth to trade to private companies for food et al, just lying in wait for Israel’s violence to cease. I agree that the American government is complicit but private industry is no less complicit. Capital wants to remove the population of Gaza and turn it into beachside real estate. This much has been said o…

The economic circumstance of Gaza is a consequence of Israel's genocidal policies, and removing the population of Gaza is the goal of Israel, not ""Capital"".

Smack down Israel and their American sycophants and food and investments will both start flowing into Gaza.

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

#498

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

nine_zeros wrote: post #194
samrus wrote: post #153

I understand wanting to make the organization more efficient, but i don't think this is what's happening here. I think this is the classic republican strat of gutting federal agencies, pointing to the inefficiencies caused by the loss of institutional knowledge, and using that as an excuse to privatize to their friends. The fact that Elon's DOGE suggested these cuts lines up

[flagged]

>As an example, they gutted NC DMV. So quality of service and wait times deteriorated.

The dmv experience has been the butt of jokes for decades, unless your referencing some action from 50 years ago I think you need a better example.

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

#500

Post by skissane »

kylecordes wrote: post #212
orochimaaru wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why won’t the skillset be transferable to places like space x, Amazon kuiper, blue origin, or any of the big defense tech or start ups (eg anduril)?

Likely so, but you have probably listed a bunch of organizations already utterly swamped with eager and qualified job candidates relative to their hiring numbers.

I totally believe they get swamped with eager candidates, but highly experienced ones?

Someone ex-NASA may well have deep experience in certain specific areas which few other candidates could claim.

The thing about a voluntary "deferred resignation program" – the people most likely to take it are those who are confident they can find good opportunities somewhere else. If you didn't have that confidence, you'd be much less likely to sign on to it.

Post reply on HN