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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

#511

Post by rockskon »

orochimaaru wrote: post #121
rockskon wrote: post #73

NASA has been downsizing a lot. Friend of mine is a contractor for NASA who has been trained as a parts engineer for sourcing and testing electronic components that go into satellites and spacecrafts will be out of a job in a few months as her entire branch is eliminating all contractor positions. Now she has a specialized skillset that isn't very readily transferable to other local companies and industries. Sucks. C…

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)?

Considering her coworkers are calling the mass contractor layoffs "getting DOGEd", SpaceX is less than appealing.

Similar sentiment is felt about any other organization run by people who are seen as having had a hand in kneecapping NASA - working for their companies is not appealing. Perhaps her views will change after she's had more time to process the sting of the layoff notice.

And her prior work for the DoD left her with an extraordinarily bad impression of the culture. Admittedly she'd only worked at a single Navy Yard and different branches in different services can have different cultures, but nevertheless - the DoD is not appealing either. Depending on the results of her job search, that might change.

For Amazon Kuiper - no relevant roles are available in the region and, as far as what's listed on the website, there's no jobs that allow for working remotely outside of relevant travel.

Blue Origin...same issue as with Kuiper - remote work doesn't seem to be a thing and they've no local presence with relevant jobs available.

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

#512

Post by LtWorf »

nradov wrote: post #128
LtWorf wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your ideology is "it's ok to kill any amount of people to avoid someone I don't like to be democratically elected somewhere in the world" I don't think we will ever agree.

[flagged]

1. They don't just kill people you don't like, they kill randos with bombs

2. People you don't like don't deserve mass murder anyway

3. Killing communists is what nazis do. In fact they're so good at killing they killed much more people than any communist ever did. If your morals align with the nazi party, you're probably a nazi and you should REALLY REALLY REALLY do some serious thinking.

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

#513

Post by LtWorf »

mittensc wrote: post #368
LtWorf wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italy and sweden are dictatorships now? The problem here is that anything becomes a dictatorship to you the second anyone you don't like is elected. edit: oh I see it's a newly created account for the purpose of trolling… silly me.

what do italy and sweden have to do with anything?, deflect again? Also, who are you and why do you think I would care enough to troll you? I'm answering to what you posted. New accounts are for anonimity since you can't clean up history easily on hn if you doxx yourself... you might want to try that.

> what do italy and sweden have to do with anything?, deflect again?

Just 2 countries where your totally innocent stay behind organizations did some totally democratic USA sponsored terrorism.

> you might want to try that.

I'm not a right wing extremist so I don't really need clean slates that often.

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

#515

Post by throwawayq3423 »

msgodel wrote: post #485
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>that money is better spent giving folks like me a tax cut The federal government now accepts donations if you don't want the money.

The current government would take any money you give them and give it back to rich people in the form of tax cuts.

So no, I don't want to Venmo cash to somebody who doesn't need it.

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

#516

Post by rockskon »

Robotbeat wrote: post #124
rockskon wrote: post #73

NASA has been downsizing a lot. Friend of mine is a contractor for NASA who has been trained as a parts engineer for sourcing and testing electronic components that go into satellites and spacecrafts will be out of a job in a few months as her entire branch is eliminating all contractor positions. Now she has a specialized skillset that isn't very readily transferable to other local companies and industries. Sucks. C…

The satellite industry in the US is larger than ever, FWIW. Between Starlink, OneWeb, Kuiper, plus a gazillion startups like Astranis, K2 Space, etc, not to mention defense satellites, there has never been a time when more satellites have been launched by the U.S. I think your friend will be fine. The real issue is the capability loss for NASA.

So - physically relocating is not an appealing prospect given she's a house and a spouse with a local job.

Is it typical for companies in the satellite design/manufacturing space for parts/electrical components engineers to be able to work remotely outside of travelling for inspections/supplier audits/component testing?

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

#517

Post by MinimalAction »

I'm amazed at the short-sighted nature of this late-stage capitalistic world. A company like Meta which makes its fortune via insane amount of anti-user policies gets to earn a revenue of $164B with a profit of over $62B. A scientific organization that benefits everyone in so many innumerable ways, something that serves as a champion of humanity cannot be allowed to maintain a budget of $25B a year. Shut everything, let us bow to our AI overlords!

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

#518

Post by wat10000 »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #509
jacobolus wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

NOAA, NASA, NIH, FWS, and DOE all regularly push how bad the situation is around global climate change. That's likely why they're getting targeted. The GOP's position on climate change is sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming LALALALALA and having credible government agencies pointing out the ongoing effects is detrimental to this strategy. Meanwhile the USDA, FWS, and DOE do those pesky regulatory thing…

I think it’s even simpler: government is seen as bad. The military and some law enforcement are excepted, but otherwise, dismantling government agencies is a goal in and of itself.

I listened to way too much Rush Limbaugh in the 90s and none of this stuff is a surprise. Distressing, but exactly what this particular segment of Republicans have been working towards.

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

#519

Post by johnnyanmac »

nomel wrote: post #442
viraptor wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entrenched ways are not the same as institutional knowledge. You can have one without the other. Some things are not written down but executed as part of common knowledge, and if you drop enough people you'll have to relearn it the hard way.

> Entrenched ways are not the same as institutional knowledge. I disagree, fundamentally. Institutional knowledge is a set of "truths" that are respected, so necessarily prune the solution space. The only way to get those pruned branches back is to disregard it , by reconsidering, and re-traversing that solution space.

In my eyes, institutional knowledge is figuring out what things do NOT work, not what did back then. When you lose that, you're wasting years or even decades hitting the exact same pitfalls the old guard hit once upon a time. Many truly bright minds aren't those asserting how this was the best method and then burying their heads in the sand when other ideas come out.

My time working with some of the brightest minds in my industry taught me that they aren't necessaily some visionary, nor super genius, nor even some workaholic putting 20+ hours a day into their craft (though I have met a few I would describe as such). The gap between me and them wasn't over some raw intellect. It was many times a matter of me thinking of an idea and them talking about how that was tried 5-20 years ago and why that lead down a huge rabbit hole.

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

#520

Post by hansvm »

wat10000 wrote: post #518
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NOAA, NASA, NIH, FWS, and DOE all regularly push how bad the situation is around global climate change. That's likely why they're getting targeted. The GOP's position on climate change is sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming LALALALALA and having credible government agencies pointing out the ongoing effects is detrimental to this strategy. Meanwhile the USDA, FWS, and DOE do those pesky regulatory thing…

I think it’s even simpler: government is seen as bad. The military and some law enforcement are excepted, but otherwise, dismantling government agencies is a goal in and of itself. I listened to way too much Rush Limbaugh in the 90s and none of this stuff is a surprise. Distressing, but exactly what this particular segment of Republicans have been working towards.

I could buy that argument if it weren't for the disparity in which organizations are being targeted and the degree to which they're being attacked. Getting rid of all government is just the story they use to appease their base.
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