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

721–730 of 774 posts

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

#721

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

godelski wrote: post #719
candu wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government investment in science is...the only way basic science happens, really. I'd recommend reading The Entrepreneurial State [1] here: in essence, basic science pays off too slowly to interest even the most deeply-pocketed capital interests, but it pays off, so wise societies invest in it; Silicon Valley owes its existence to massive formative public investments in underlying technologies. Not to mention that sm…

> a high minimum investment This is the only part I actually disagree with. Science is incredibly cheap. It can have a long time to mature but interestingly that is dependent on the number of "bonds", with quicker returns when there's more "bonds" issued. I'd say there's 4 common classes of misinterpretation: Perception bias: ---------------- Most of science is performed by grad students and academics. Neither of whi…

Just a note you may find helpful. I feel your post is too long to be digested and responded to in a forum like this.

Maybe I'm wrong, and if so I apologise! But as soon as I saw the essay like format, I knew I wasn't going to spend time on it. I think shorter points that provoke discussion may work better here.

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

#722

Post by psadauskas »

dehrmann wrote: post #572
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...

Bureaucracies like to grow, and they're very resistant to cuts, so they become inefficient entities poorly suited to current needs. Private companies have competition as a force that forces some amount of accountability, but I have yet to hear a strategy for effectively discontinuing work the government shouldn't be doing.

> Private companies have competition as a force that forces some amount of accountability

[citation needed]

Private companies these days just buy all their competitors to minimize accountability and maximize shareholder returns.

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

#723

Post by natebc »

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)?

These are (mostly) scientists that have been doing science for a science organization.

Those companies are transportation companies when it comes to space.

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

#724

Post by csa »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #721
godelski wrote: post #719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a high minimum investment This is the only part I actually disagree with. Science is incredibly cheap. It can have a long time to mature but interestingly that is dependent on the number of "bonds", with quicker returns when there's more "bonds" issued. I'd say there's 4 common classes of misinterpretation: Perception bias: ---------------- Most of science is performed by grad students and academics. Neither of whi…

Just a note you may find helpful. I feel your post is too long to be digested and responded to in a forum like this. Maybe I'm wrong, and if so I apologise! But as soon as I saw the essay like format, I knew I wasn't going to spend time on it. I think shorter points that provoke discussion may work better here.

Just a note you may find helpful.

> I feel your post is too long

It’s about 700 words.

It’s thought through, well-written, neatly organized, and it’s a fine set up for further discussion.

If that’s too long for you on this forum, then I’d probably take a look in the mirror and ask some tough questions.

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

#725

Post by nytesky »

eagerpace wrote: post #666
nytesky wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JWST cost $10B. The launch was expensive at $1.5B; but getting that down to $750M won’t really change the availability.

I'm a firm believer that if the mass and volume constraints were relaxed the design of such an instrument could be greatly simplified.

Hmm, I didn’t consider that, very good point. With 10x the volume, maybe the mirror and sunshine origami could have been avoided or much simpler. I wonder how to figure out how much the cost was because of that complicated mechanics…

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

#726

Post by chadcmulligan »

shkkmo wrote: post #716
chadcmulligan wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was hoping it was nonsense and someone would point out the errors, no such luck so far.

It's not complete nonsense, but it conveniently leaves out key relevant details and includes key pieces of misinformation needed to make the talking points make sense (as you would expect from rage bait.) > Early on, SLS designers made the catastrophic decision to reuse Shuttle hardware The law that mandated that NASA built the SLS also required that they re-use that hardware. This wasn't a choice made by NASA design…

good to know, but the outlook for success is still the same? just the blame is not only NASA.

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

#727

Post by soulofmischief »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #718
soulofmischief wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Flip it around. I care about the salaries and working condition of garbage men, teachers and doctors, even if they don't value mine. All three of those jobs you listed have vested interest groups who are standing in the way of a better life for those who provide these essential services, or are artificially controlling the market. What we do about it is educate the public and form institutions that are motivated…

>No. Flip it around. I care about the salaries and working condition of garbage men, teachers and doctors Great that you care? And what are you dong about it? Are you voluntarily paying more taxes to your local city/council/state?

What would handing money over to my government without any strings attached do?

In America we ostensibly participate in a representative democracy founded on the sentiment of no taxation without representation, and so our first duty is to be politically involved by educating ourselves holistically, voting appropriately for our local, state and federal representatives, participating in accompanying community building, wealth and knowledge dissemination in order to create and maintain the institutions which I mentioned in my previous comment.

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

#728

Post by Cheyana »

kulahan wrote: post #706
karaterobot wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a reference to Wernher von Braun. I think it's a really pointless thing to say, since it adds nothing to the conversation and just sort of makes an unrelated, uninformative reference. But here we are nonetheless.

Yes, that's why I'm asking him for clarification.

“ What does this even mean? I literally cannot figure it out. Like, they’ll just put warm bodies anywhere” Yes, that is literally it. The current administration has no qualms about appointing unqualified people to cabinet positions, whether they’re former entertainment CEOs espousing the merits of A1, or drunken news commentators to lead our military… if the spray tan man saw them on the teevee they must be good, with extra bonus points for doing the ol’ sieg heil in public, along with considering that the Fuhrer had “some good ideas”.

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

#729

Post by shkkmo »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #726
shkkmo wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not complete nonsense, but it conveniently leaves out key relevant details and includes key pieces of misinformation needed to make the talking points make sense (as you would expect from rage bait.) > Early on, SLS designers made the catastrophic decision to reuse Shuttle hardware The law that mandated that NASA built the SLS also required that they re-use that hardware. This wasn't a choice made by NASA design…

good to know, but the outlook for success is still the same? just the blame is not only NASA.

Artemis and SLS have many problems but I would look elsewhere than that article if you want an understanding of what they are and why they exist.

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

#730

Post by spwa4 »

oblio wrote: post #382
timeon wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why it will get worse? They got what they voted for.

Didn't Trump just cut taxes for the top 1% while most of his voters are low earners with low educational attainment?

That would be one reason things won't get better for his voters. At which point they'll look for more extreme politicians. It will get worse.

Hell, it already has gotten worse in both France and Germany compared to the US. Imho Macron is more or less the same kind of politician as Trump (rich, and in it to make the rich richer), just a very different person (for one thing he's easily got 10x Trump's IQ, 10x Trump's looks, and doesn't look like an ancient golden retriever that got demummified for a presidential term). Obviously this guy failed to improve France's economic prospects, and every election cycle the actual Nazis, led by Le Pen, gain 5% extra of the vote. Germany differs a lot in the details, but something similar is happening.

The situation in (some parts of) Europe is like if you're hoping for 3rd Trump term, because Steve Bannon became a presidential candidate that polls over 50%. When Trump has just made immigration policy stricter in desperation, because even Trump realizes what a disaster that would be.

Post reply on HN