Worrying times at NASA
Discussion
In the same week that Trump announced the formation of a Space Force, NASA is looking a a major revamp of the way several of its research centres operate :
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Rogue NASA
20 hrs ·
THIS IS WHY THIS PAGE EXISTS. Listen up, folks.
NASA employees were told today that Headquarters would be conducting a study into turning its research centers into "Federally Funded Research & Development Centers". This would effectively create vast cuts to the Civil Servant workforce and potentially turn NASA Ames (Mountain View, CA), NASA Glenn (Cleveland, OH), and NASA Goddard (Greenbelt, MD) into private research campuses, eliminating much of the pure research and moving to a "for-profit" model only. This is an AWFUL move and one rife with long-term pitfalls to our innovativeness and competitiveness as a nation in fields like materials, combustion, propulsion, aviation, electronics, communications, etc.
These cuts to NASA's workforce in lieu of contractors is being sold in the guise of becoming more "agile and flexible", but really represent a shrinking of the government workforce, sacrificing NASA's ability to innovate in order to put more money in the hands of large corporations.
It seems the administration is trying to shrink its books in order to make up for the devastating tax cuts already imposed this year, even though NASA's Civil Servant workforce has been decreasing by 2-3% for a decade already. Bleeding the agency dry of talent and the ability to do their jobs is unacceptable - this will not happen without a fight! #AdAstra"
"
Rogue NASA
20 hrs ·
THIS IS WHY THIS PAGE EXISTS. Listen up, folks.
NASA employees were told today that Headquarters would be conducting a study into turning its research centers into "Federally Funded Research & Development Centers". This would effectively create vast cuts to the Civil Servant workforce and potentially turn NASA Ames (Mountain View, CA), NASA Glenn (Cleveland, OH), and NASA Goddard (Greenbelt, MD) into private research campuses, eliminating much of the pure research and moving to a "for-profit" model only. This is an AWFUL move and one rife with long-term pitfalls to our innovativeness and competitiveness as a nation in fields like materials, combustion, propulsion, aviation, electronics, communications, etc.
These cuts to NASA's workforce in lieu of contractors is being sold in the guise of becoming more "agile and flexible", but really represent a shrinking of the government workforce, sacrificing NASA's ability to innovate in order to put more money in the hands of large corporations.
It seems the administration is trying to shrink its books in order to make up for the devastating tax cuts already imposed this year, even though NASA's Civil Servant workforce has been decreasing by 2-3% for a decade already. Bleeding the agency dry of talent and the ability to do their jobs is unacceptable - this will not happen without a fight! #AdAstra"
James_B said:
I ask this as a genuine question, as I don’t know the answer, but what sort of thing does NASA do nowadays, and should it still be being done by a government agency?
A naive view would be that Musk seems to be doing some of the same things far cheaper. Is that fair, or a long way from the truth?
Building rockets is only a very small part of what NASA doesA naive view would be that Musk seems to be doing some of the same things far cheaper. Is that fair, or a long way from the truth?
Eric Mc said:
Einion Yrth said:
Don't kid yourself, "we choose to go to the moon" was act of economic warfare. Science had bugger all to do with it.
Indeed. They were almost 2 years into the planning of Apollo before scientists asked "Do you plan to do any actual science on these missions?".It wasn't quite an afterthought but the scientists had to fight to get some genuine science into the programme. In the end, they actually did quite a lot.
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