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

https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/npr/npr-story/nx-s1-5481304

by ProAm • 12 months ago

516 590 12 months ago

arghandugh• 12 months ago

Thanks, tech industry! A generational disruption in all forms of science and the destruction of the crown jewels of America’s last century, but at least now you get to be ruled by a violent senile pedophile and his deranged crackhead enablers.

jewelry• 12 months ago

How come is it the tech industry to blame? Trump’s election result is because of the decades of de-industrialization and undereducated people left out of the growth during this time. I don’t see why tech industry would be the first to blame.

oc12• 12 months ago

If i leave a knife on the table and you decide to stab me with it, who is to blame? The knife, me or you?

sokoloff• 12 months ago

What part of this do you think is the fault of the “tech industry”?

The tech industry certainly has its flaws and things to criticize, but this doesn’t seem part of it, unless I’m missing a connection somehow.

ddos27• 12 months ago

Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Ellison and of course Elon Musk who funded the trump

hansmayer• 12 months ago

Who were the people in the front row behind the current president during his inauguration ceremony, I wonder?

bluealienpie• 12 months ago

Probably the creation of techno-fascist state, or at least the desire to have one as outlined by Thiel and co. The excessive deference that all tech companies have had towards elected leaders instead of striving for independence under the law, and now they strive to co-opt government to achieve their goals.

jakubmazanec• 12 months ago

Some of the tech industry leaders were going all-in on Trump before the election [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40562399

isoprophlex• 12 months ago

The relentless disintermediation of, well, everything in society is powered by big tech. No middle class can exist anymore in the neoliberal turbocapitalist system that's trying to grow into place everywhere; there is just the little human puttering about, and a bunch of extremely rich oligarchs and tech bros taking their money.

Technology made all of this possible. From amazon (destruction of local shops) to uber (not saying the old system was good, but who needs transit concentrated into the hands of a few) to google (monopolizing and stifling search and adtech). And who knows what role large scale manipulation by stochastic propaganda parrots will play.

prpl• 12 months ago

Well, among other things, the Vice President was quite literally a tech venture capitalist with all sorts of tech support (not that kind though)

isodev• 12 months ago

Just a wild guess: The connection is uncontrolled growth, where companies evolve from a normal business to a perpetual "increasing shareholder value" grift (think the Apples, Googles, Microsofts, Metas, (Space)Xs out there...). It happened when tech incorporated "the user" as a product (as opposed to tech working to actually solve problems and elevate the status quo).

croes• 12 months ago

So Thiel and Musk have nothing to do with Trump getting elected.

Or Social networks as an easy way of spreading misinformation.

New to the club AI that delivers convincing sound, photo and video „proofs“ for any fake news they want including elaborated texts fitting to their target audience

kortilla6• 12 months ago

The tech industry overwhelmingly voted against Trump. Pick a different boogeyman

mittensc• 12 months ago

who did most of the tech billionaires sponsor?

sour-taste• 12 months ago

The workers did, the people with money welcomed him with open arms hoping for less regulation and big contracts. Look in the row behind trump during his inauguration if you need proof.

Ygg22• 12 months ago

ruled by a violent senile pedophile and his deranged crackhead enablers

Which one?

If you want to blame anyone, try the financial sector and financialization of everything. They fed the conflagration and created perfect condition for Trump-like figure to rise.

t0lo2• 12 months ago

It's a very worthwhile story to follow imo :)

crinkly2• 12 months ago

I work for one of the largest financial companies. It's not us or the sector. There's a whole shadow sector behind the scenes doing this stuff run by billionaire funded think tanks who manipulated tech markets and leverage political and social manipulation through their connections. It's the world we live in but we didn't create it.

Shit education leads to pliable humans leads to social manipulation leads to desired outcomes from marketing efforts.

smokel• 12 months ago

Any practical tips on how to improve upon the current situation?

kbrkbr• 12 months ago

Inner emigration?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_emigration

actualwitch• 12 months ago

Start perusing https://news.ycombinator.com/active as your hn frontpage and make note of a very obvious flagging bias there. Vouch and upvote the information that is getting hidden while not breaking the guidelines. Hulk Hogan's death being front page news while MechaHitler getting flagged tells you everything you need to know about this site.

thowaway7564902• 12 months ago

That's not what's important right now. What's important is figuring out whose fault this is

- Randy Marsh

oc12• 12 months ago

Thanks also Y Combinator and friends for making this possible

pi-err2• 12 months ago

You could swap "tech" for "big media" and just play the same blame game for Reagan's and Bush Jr's elections.

the crown jewels of America’s last century

Including Nasa in this pure idealization of the past. Nasa had many flaws that enabled a catastrophic Shuttle program and then the slow loss of US go-to-LEO capability.

There's probably more to expect of US investment in space without incompetent or contradictory military and political oversight than the current nasa zombie programs.

And it's unclear that Nasa can ever be without that oversight.

exe345• 12 months ago

Yes, too much oversight is the problem here, not lobbying and self-interest/corruption.

pydry2• 12 months ago

The shuttle program wasnt what NASA wanted to do, it was the military that pushed for that.

It's ironic that you'd blame them for the thing they didnt want to do.

If theyd kept their budget and autonomy after the moon landing it looked like they wouldve been building reusable rockets like the ones elon is building now, except in like, 1980.

jimbo808• 12 months ago

Do you remember when a President of the United States was impeached for an affair with an adult intern?

Do you remember when a Republican presidential nominee defended his opponent from a racist question at a Republican Rally, calling him a "decent family man?"

Then, can you think of a time when a POTUS committed a pump a security he was selling, only to dump it immediately after his inauguration, and it it was barely talked about at at all?

h4ck_th3_pl4n3t3• 12 months ago

...and you still didn't get your Praxis nation! Ha!

hopelite4• 12 months ago

“… at least now you get to be ruled by a violent senile pedophile and his deranged crackhead enablers.”

Which one? *blank stare*

America has a deeply rooted problem with a parasitic and evil, lying, conniving, devious ruling class and their treasonous, accomplice enablers… to clarify what may be dismissed by some because you call them “crackheads”.

amanaplanacanal2• 12 months ago

It used to be they tried to hide it and were embarrassed when they got caught. Sometimes they even got thrown out of office.

Robotbeat3• 12 months ago

FWIW, this is the brainworm faction that fought the techbro faction and got them kicked out of the throne room. Think Russell Vought and the OMB, not Elon. Elon registered his disapproval of the huge science cuts in the President’s budget request. The nominated techbro NASA administrator was cancelled because he wasn’t anti-science enough.

spicyusername2• 12 months ago

Wow, that's terrible news...

I just don't understand why this is something people would want.

spwa44• 12 months ago

Because a LOT of people have been left out of economic progress in Europe especially, and in the US. They want, even need change, and Trump came with a "believable" story for change. As in, more change than a president Harris would have delivered.

Unless we get economic progress more equally spread this will get worse and worse.

derriz4• 12 months ago

I don't think this is true or at least is not reflected by any statistics.

Inequality, as measured by GINI has been falling both for the EU as a whole and within most European countries for decades now. The last decade in particular has seen declines in nearly all EU countries.

Taking the EU on average the last time it increased was in 2014 - which is to be expected as the 2013 expansion allowed a number of relatively poor countries into the union.

For individual countries, you can check the statistics here: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI

A few examples, I looked at Ireland in particular, and inequality has never been lower - the earliest statistics I could find is from the mid-1980s. Inequality peaked around 2000 for the UK and has declined hugely since then. France is more equal than it was in 2000 although the fall is less dramatic than that for the UK. Admittedly Germany has seen a slight rise since 2000 but Germany has also absorbed millions of very poor refugees in that time.

The US is an outlier globally - with rising inequality over the last few decades.

Slightly off-topic, this untrue claim of rising inequality in Europe is often presented without challenge and then used to justify some radical political solution. To my mind, it's using the same political "mind hack" that the the MAGA/alt-right in the USA have used (in this case concerning race, immigrants, global multilateralism, or social tolerance - "wokism" - in general).

For both, the veracity of the claims is apparently unimportant and uninteresting as long as the claim aligns with one's political orientation. The goal of these oft repeated untruths is to provoke indignation or anger - in order to drum up support for some radical political "solution".

watwut6• 12 months ago

This has exactly zero with being left out of economic progress and wanting it. They literally vote for people who are leaving them outside of all subsequent economic progress. And that was also their voting record in the past. What they actually voted for was culture war - disgust with trans specifically and hate toward anything that can be casted as liberal which includes science. It was wish for Christian autocracy and enforcement of associated values.

The feel good explanations are just that - feel good euphemisms. Acting on them failed in the past repeatedly. Politicians who tried to improve situation of these people were punished, repeatedly. Meanwhile, politicians acting in offensive and harmful way were rewarding even when they made lifes of their voters worst.

We really should stop projecting these good faith falsehoods when the are and were clearly false.

exe345• 12 months ago

Trump came with a "believable" story

If they believed Trump, they deserve everything they get. Sadly those who didn't believe didn't vote enough.

linguae• 12 months ago

I don’t know enough about economic conditions in Europe to say something intelligent, but unfortunately I’m very pessimistic about the near- and medium-term future of America. There’s nothing on the horizon that will make life better for everyday Americans, who are currently struggling to keep up with the sharp rise in the cost of living in recent years. From tariffs to business uncertainties, all I see is life getting even more expensive, and we might reach a tipping point where everything falls apart. I’m also very concerned about the national debt and the dollar.

All I know is that the 1990s until now have been a bonanza for some people but increasingly difficult for many others. I blame this on the financialization of our economy, with housing policy in America’s coastal metro areas definitely not helping (municipalities restrict supply through zoning and other mechanisms, and the financialization of our economy only exacerbated matters by pouring gasoline on the demand side). This is a failure of our leadership class; I’m not just talking about politicians, but I’m talking about our wealthy, our corporate executives, and even ourselves when we have positions of influence. Collectively the leadership of our country has chosen maximizing their own material benefit at the expense of maintaining a livable society. The result is anger due to Americans increasly having a harder time just getting by while our “leadership” keeps adding to their power and wealth.

Due to anger over establishment politicians, the Republican Party has been completely captured by MAGA, and the Democratic Party has a very vocal left wing that came close to winning the 2016 primary and was a serious contender in 2020.

Unfortunately Trump on a good day is far more destructive than Clinton, both Bushes, Obama, and Biden on their worst days. Trump’s neo-mercantilist economic policies won’t bring prosperity, but unfortunately his stance on “culture war” matters have resonated with large swaths of the American electorate; we’ve long had problems with racism, xenophobia, religious bigotry, anti-intellectualism, and other related issues since the colonial era.

Moreover, despite Trump’s promises in 2016 to “drain the swamp,” Trump is backed by many prominent billionaires and other influential and powerful people. Trump is not a one-man operation; he would have no power without an entire apparatus of GOP politicians and a stacked Supreme Court.

The only thing keeping Trump’s popularity afloat is his relentless attacks on “enemies” of MAGA, such as immigrants, scientists, universities, unflattering media outlets, Democratic politicians, etc. But eventually the fallout of his reckless policies will trickle down to Trump voters in the form of higher prices for goods and services, and either when Trump runs out of enemies or when the MAGA base gets crushed by the weight of high prices and are looking for answers, what are Trump and MAGA politicians going to do?

Unfortunately I don’t see any easy solutions. A return to the pre-2017 status quo ante is only going to lead to the same leadership that led to such anger in the first place. However, staying the course is definitely going to lead to a crash. The solution is going to need to come from the people, but it’s hard for average people in America to compete against systems that entrench the power of our two-party system and that require massive amounts of money to effectively compete. There are no easy ways out of this mess.

timeon3• 12 months ago

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

indy• 12 months ago

Because a lot of people believe that large government institutions are nothing more than job programs for voters of Democrats.

The image is that for every scientist at Nasa there are countless administrators, HR ladies and diversity hires

spicyusername2• 12 months ago

That's a very cynical and ignorant image...

Yeul4• 12 months ago

Even the US is not exempt from economic rules. Trump and the rich want less taxation. The deficit cannot grow infinitely. Something has to be cut.

amanaplanacanal2• 12 months ago

It has nothing to do with the deficit. If it did, the big beautiful bill would have looked much different.

myvoiceismypass3• 12 months ago

Trump and the Republican Congress are adding several _trillion_ to the deficit with the latest bill they rammed through in the middle of the night. They do want less taxation, but only on the richest of the rich.

Not to mention - tariffs are essentially an inflation tax on _every_single_purchase_.

oblio2• 12 months ago

I'm confused, won't Trump's tax measures increase the deficit by trillions? Isn't he already spending more than Biden over the same time interval?

How exactly is Trump reducing the deficit by any significant margin?

const_cast2• 12 months ago

The Rs do not give a flying fuck about the deficit and to even so much as imply otherwise is nothing short of dishonesty. We're well past the point of giving benefit of the doubt on proven, and obvious, lies.

jeffbee3• 12 months ago

Many Americans are invested in getting rid of Earth science altogether. The less the people know about the state of the atmosphere, the better it is for Exxon. NASA had an extremely large Earth science mission.

kacesensitive2• 12 months ago

I know a few of these people. The two I've spoken with since their resignation basically said, "we're definitely getting laid off unless something insane changes with the funding cuts so at least this way we get a severance."

It's really sad how our NASA funding is the lowest it's been since 1961.

https://www.planetary.org/articles/nasa-2026-budget-proposal...

I'm so sick of the not only incompetent leadership in the U.S., but the literal anti-science stance our government has taken. We're 6 months into this nightmare, I really can't see how it can get worse.

ineedaj0b• 12 months ago

i too knew a lot of NASA employed peopled and it’s always regrettable to lose a job but.. what the heck was our space program doing? i know they blamed changing leadership and changing budget but the space shuttle’s replacement program was run horribly.

the only working part of cape canaveral was whatever spy satellites they needed to launch.

thankfully spaceX does a pretty good job and while I wish it was still nasa leading the globe in space travel, the main decline of our era is unwieldy bureaucracy and not even nasa could figure out how to run a profit despite a monopoly.

righthand2• 12 months ago

Run a profit? What does that mean? What profitable business is currently available for an aeronautics and space agency that was never about making "profit".

torlok• 12 months ago

Looking forward to SpaceX launching the next Voyager mission.

verzali3• 12 months ago

NASA does way more than Artemis. And, absurdly, the budget is cutting almost everything but Artemis and instead shoveling more money into pointless rockets.

perihelions5• 12 months ago

Congress expressly directed NASA to create SLS, and expressly structured it to maximize job creation in designated Congressional districts—a goal obviously in tension with getting shit done*.

I don't think it's correct to blame the NASA, the agency, for management decisions made by their overseer!

*(Imagine what SpaceX would look like if Starbase were split into 50 pieces in 50 states—nosecones from Alaska, winglets from Senator Shelby's district in Alabama... Imagine, if their senior executive wasn't breathing down everyone's necks to build things faster, but instead prioritized employee headcount as his objective function (maximizing–not minimizing). The way Congressional lawmakers run their pet projects is quite ridiculous).

dahart• 12 months ago

and not even nasa could figure out how to run a profit despite a monopoly

You seem to be unaware that NASA does run a profit, and that SpaceX wouldn’t have been possible without NASA’s research and money. NASA has invested tens of billions in SpaceX.

https://www.planetary.org/articles/nasa-versus-spacex

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Economic_impact...

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/3721375-how-much-does...

rockskon5• 12 months ago

A phrase I've taken to heart from someone who has lived in a less stable nation than the US - it can always get worse.

nozzlegear• 12 months ago

We're 6 months into this nightmare, I really can't see how it can get worse.

Please, don't jinx us

Jtsummers2• 12 months ago

The two I've spoken with since their resignation basically said, "we're definitely getting laid off unless something insane changes with the funding cuts so at least this way we get a severance."

I hope they did the math. The DRP is not a severance, and if they were laid off, they'd have been caught in a RIF and should have received an actual severance.

If there's a RIF, they get a severance of 1 week per year for the first 10 years of work, 2 weeks per year above that, and a bonus percent if over 40. It maxes at 52 weeks pay. If you have 18 years (at least 26 weeks of severance, more if over 40) with the fed, waiting for the RIF was always better than taking DRP unless you were going to retire or quit anyways. Under that, the choice should have been "Will a RIF happen before 30 September - my severance?". If you will get a 4 week severance, then will you get RIF'd before 2 September? If you think the answer is yes, taking the DRP makes sense, if no then the DRP costs you money. The only benefit to taking DRP if you're not going to get RIF'd is if you believe you can get another job before 30 September.

After 30 September, if they haven't found a new job they won't qualify for UEI since they voluntarily separated (true in most states, there may be some that would give them UEI but I've not heard of one that gives people unemployment for quitting).

Legally, they also have to ask NASA for approval for any second jobs until 30 September. If they don't and take an industry job (say with SpaceX), I wouldn't put it past this administration to fuck with them. The penalties are mostly administrative, but some ethics law violations can involve some steep penalties and prison time.

kubb• 12 months ago

So basically, Elon Musk is eating NASA, and people are cheering.

Robotbeat3• 12 months ago

Nope, this is Russell Vought and the OMB. The anti-tech-bro group (the brainworm faction, courtesy of RFK Jr) that fought with Elon and successfully got him kicked out of the throne room. Elon registered his opposition to the huge science cuts at NASA in the President’s budget request.

magicloop• 12 months ago

The real game the current administration is playing is to land on Mars before their current term expires. This mirrors the political, prestige, and technology triumph of the Kennedy administration. This is why the BBB Bill refocussed on the Mars mission despite having cuts.

What is being cut is otherwise a symptom of the budget deficit (7%) and the fact that politically they cut areas where there are not republican votes, as politicians obviously try to maintain their voter base as a consideration in their decisions.

Note historically a criticism of the original lunar mission was that USA diverted funds from hospitals and other public programs to fund the mission. So some were bitter despite the triumph.

It goes back to the fundamental conundrum. You have a back of corn. Do you plant the corn, or eat the corn? If AI delivers for America (planting the corn) and USA lands on Mars, these 4k NASA employees will not dwell in the public imagination despite our respect for their commitment, skill and service.

perihelions5• 12 months ago

"before their current term expires"
"This mirrors the political, prestige, and technology triumph of the Kennedy administration"

Trump may have said "before my term ends"; what JFK said was "before this decade is out".

IMHO, this is like a diametric opposite of Richard M. Nixon landing on the moon, two presidencies after Kennedy (and of opposite party); acting for Americans' obvious shared interests (not personal vanity); being the final link in an unbroken chain of sustained, stable governance. We've lost the capacity for greatness of that era. We don't have that, that chain of stable governance in service of national interests; what we have is an attention-deficient narcissist, capriciously destroying every great American thing that exists which doesn't have name attached.

(Ironically, the thing Kennedy so fervently competed against no longer exists today. That fearsome adversary, the triumph of Sputnik and Gagarin, was also demolished in this century by a Trump-like figure, spouting vapid promises of greatness as he vandaled and looted it to the ground).

lostmsu2• 12 months ago

a Trump-like figure, spouting vapid promises of greatness

Can't pinpoint who you are referring to. Gemini thinks Yeltsin? But neither it nor I remember any "greatness" promises from the guy.

mrtksn• 12 months ago

Good framing but IMHO it’s a bit like thinking by analogy.

Last time, USA was behind in space race and they didn’t just use what they already had to go to the moon, instead they started a huge movement that inspired and educated generations of scientist and engineers. this redeemed all the issues with cutting services from other places to go to the moon.

This time around, it looks like a desperate attempt to do something that worked in the past and looks impressive on face value, but it’s actually empty inside.

Last time, huge number of people were provided with resources and education that had outstanding impact on America, much much more than the act of landing on the moon did by itself.

This time you get resources directed to a generation of hateful people and sex offenders who use the already available technology to produce a show.

nradov2• 12 months ago

There is zero chance that humans will land on Mars before the end of the current administration. It isn't technically feasible. They are not seriously planning on this.

maxerickson• 12 months ago

I don't think we should underestimate how poor their grasp of technical reality might be.

151552• 12 months ago

So have they announced this theoretical 2026 mission yet? How does this work with one single launch window remaining?

verzali3• 12 months ago

They're not going to land on Mars by 2028.

Balgair2• 12 months ago

Yes, but the administration doesn't know that.

oceanplexian2• 12 months ago

I would be willing to bet there's a high probability that Starship lands on Mars by 2028 without people on it. The real question will be in how many pieces.

theshackleford• 12 months ago

The real game the current administration is playing is to land on Mars before their current term expires.

This will literally not happen and anyone who thinks it will needs to seek professional help.

jeffbee3• 12 months ago

land on Mars before their current term expires

As a nation we need to figure out how you, probably a person who considers yourself a functioning adult member of society, came to believe and even repeat this.

UncleMeat2• 12 months ago

There are 3.5 years left in the administration. The time between Apollo 1 and Apollo 11 was 2.5 years. At its closest point, Mars is more than 100 times further away than the Moon. Just a trip there takes like nine months when delivering small payloads that don't need to return. And you need to time it so that you plan the mission when mars and earth are very near each other, which is only every couple of years.

The idea that the Trump administration could put a man on mars before the end of their term, even if this was a very top priority is ludicrous.

asacrowflies2• 12 months ago

This is nothing but lies and bullshit ....landing a man on Mars in the next three years is so batshit insane I worry for your sanity.

optimalsolver3• 12 months ago

I always wonder how many caught up in these federal mass firings voted for Trump. I can't imagine they could've foreseen this outcome.

USAID was probably a stronghold of Dem voters, but what about the Dept. of Agriculture, or the Forest Service?

monkeyelite4• 12 months ago

Isn’t a criticism of democracy that individuals vote for their immediate benefit (MY job, MY housing) with no consideration of longer term consequences?

optimalsolver3• 12 months ago

I suppose they're involuntarily practicing a high form of civic virtue, although that doesn't pay off the mortgage.

bradley13• 12 months ago

I'm sure the bureaucracy can stand some serious cutting. However, with voluntary programs like this, you tend to lose the best people.

jart3• 12 months ago

NASA ended their space shuttle program in 2011 and hasn't been able to send things into space since. For the rest of that decade, the only way Americans could access ISS was by purchasing tickets on Russian spacecraft. NASA pivoted to partnering with private government contractors like ULA, which did 4 launches in 2024, probably spy satellites for the military, but their Atlas V rocket only has 14 launches remaining before retirement. That's it. Aside from the greatly maligned SpaceX of course, which did their first manned mission in 2020 and operated 134 launches in 2024.

There are still maybe one or two cool jobs left at NASA like controlling the Voyager software. But I imagine everyone else at NASA who respects themselves would have left for SpaceX a long time ago, rather than waiting for Trump to incentivize their retirement. Half of all revenue collected by the US federal government in 2024 (totaling $2565 billion) was given to retirees. Mostly middle class and government retirees. So this policy shift is very aligned with the US status quo, which is paying people to do nothing, rather than having them go through the motions of tilting at bureaucratic windmills trying to do something.

Even in this thread you see how pervasive the attitude is. I've seen several comments here so far talking about how the economic system isn't giving them enough money, but I've yet to see anyone here express a willingness to eat ramen, sleep in the trenches, get their hands dirty, and endure whatever pain and peril it takes if it grants the opportunity to help out getting things done with space exploration. Those are the kinds of people who create material abundance.

verzali3• 12 months ago

This is a dumb take. NASA has (or had until Trump can back) plenty of interesting things. New Horizons, Europe Clipper, the James Webb, Hubble, Mars missions, ISS operations, human spaceflight, etc, etc are all being done by NASA workers. They do way more than just launch rockets and SpaceX can't even come close to the stuff NASA was doing.

throwawaymaths3• 12 months ago

I imagine everyone else at NASA who respects themselves would have left for SpaceX a long time ago

not everyone wants to work for a company that is well known for grinding 20-somethings into the dust with an extremely poor work-life balance.

bevr1337• 12 months ago

For the rest of that decade, the only way Americans could access ISS was by purchasing tickets on Russian spacecraft.

Perhaps our coolest diplomacy program. I love that RU and USA have managed to cooperate in space through many decades of conflict.

jeffbee3• 12 months ago

Man who believes NASA exists to hurl stuff into space. What a sad, narrow existence.

Lord-Jobo4• 12 months ago

Hey everyone, consider looking at the Wikipedia page for an agency before posting piss-takes on social media regarding that agency.

Sending things to space is a small part of what NASA does. "Aeronautics" is not "space rocketry", and all federal agencies do more than what their name indicates.

Balgair2• 12 months ago

Hot Take:

Maybe this DOGE approach of sledgehammering the bureaucracies is all there is left to do?

Look, I have family that works for the Feds. I have also collected money from federal programs. I know the pain that is coming and is here. It really really sucks, and it will suck for me too, though not as badly.

But the 'scalpel' approach where you go in, understand the system, take out the bad parts, leave the good, don't get rid of the best people and programs; yeah, it doesn't work very well either. I've seen it tried in a few organizations, some have had a little success, most have not. What usually happens is that the most politically connected programs and people stay and the least are cut, and only after years of twaddling and overspending anyway. THe people that are there to cut things get swamped in meetings and smoke blown up their ass from every direction; they are made incompetent by design, and so the cuts are incompetent too.

I'm not about to say that I have any idea of the history of NASA spending cuts or those of the US gov in general. I know SLS is a dumb program but only because I know people that say that.

But, again, Hot Take, maybe the only thing left to try is the sledgehammer?

magicalist• 12 months ago

Sounds less like a hot take than a false dichotomy? The only choice is one of two non-specific analogies?

UncleMeat2• 12 months ago

We are overspending! Let's, uh, sledgehammer a small part of the pie (non-military non-entitlement spending) while increasing military and law enforcement budgets and cutting taxes!

The only thing left to do was the sledgehammer?

timeon3• 12 months ago

But why would you do that at all? If you want to save some money why not replace expensive healthcare system with one from some European country? That would save more money.

tmpz22• 12 months ago

Destroying things is easy building things is hard. In a six month term musk destroyed a lot. What is he rebuilding?

space-savvy• 12 months ago

My perception as one who works in space based climate research is that both have being done, mass firings of people that makes no account of their skills or value, plus targeted firings that are less about finding waste and more about advancing ideology - anti-diversity, anti climate and earth science. From my view it’s awful, as I opine that the goal is to starve all non-military or non-human spaceflight efforts.

Cutting all probationary employees or recent promotions was just an awful strategy. For every department in the government.

ACCount367• 12 months ago

You're onto something.

The issue is, if you do small targeted cuts, you'll spare the very people you want to cut. Because they're the best at playing office politics and finding ways to justify why they shouldn't be cut.

If you can't find a way to bypass that, your options are few. One of those options is the sledgehammer approach. Axe entire agencies, fire everyone and never hire of the fired people back. Rebuild an organization from the ground up, with new people and less rot.

It's what was done in ex-USSR countries after the fall of USSR. It wasn't pretty. It worked.

tonyhart74• 12 months ago

I hope spacex,blue origin etc can pick up these people

hope the best for them

declan_roberts• 12 months ago

I don't think long termers at NASA are the kinds of people that survive at spacex, blue origin, etc. unfortunately

OrvalWintermute3• 12 months ago

My engineering colleagues could jump to SpaceX / Blue Origin / Newspace in a second, and they work insane amounts. Much Newspace pays NASA to borrow talent to help stand up their space programs.

However, they want to do NASA work which is very R&D focused and has great opportunities for innovation, plenty of low TRL work, and a bro ad variety of missions.

Industry isn’t doing that much low TRL work

rockskon5• 12 months ago

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. Can't imagine she's the only one from NASA facing this crisis.

orochimaaru• 12 months ago

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)?

kylecordes• 12 months ago

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.

rockskon5• 12 months ago

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.

harimau7774• 12 months ago

It could be that those companies aren't located somewhere they are willing to live or it could be that they don't want to work for companies owned by Elon or Bezos.

natebc• 12 months ago

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

Those companies are transportation companies when it comes to space.

Robotbeat3• 12 months ago

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.

TechDebtDevin2• 12 months ago

I think that's what this is, the 4k people in NASA probably never would have quit (great benefits or whatever), maybe the strategist at the top (whether they are right or not) think its better for this talent to be concentrated at private firms? And tbf, the private sector does move fast :/

rockskon5• 12 months ago

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?

harimau7774• 12 months ago

Doesn't a lot of that require you to live in Texas?

maxloh2• 12 months ago

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, forcing them to leave the country and flow to its enemies.

olddustytrail• 12 months ago

Both India and China hold Most Favoured Nation status with the USA. That hardly marks them as enemies.

ponector2• 12 months ago

> in the space industry in Europe I bet they are not willing to take a huge paycut. Also the language barrier may be an issue.

TechDebtDevin2• 12 months ago

Well this antecdote kind of gets in the way of the other antecdotes, that NASA is being privatized. Maybe this is just a way of forcing specialized labor into certain outfits (Space X, Costa Mesa, SF.. )

MOARDONGZPLZ• 12 months ago

Costa Mesa seems like a random addition here?

archontes• 12 months ago

NASA has been downsized with a machete.

And Russell Vought is holding the weapon.

admissionsguy• 12 months ago

Good, space program run by the government was very wasteful for many decades.. scientific missions were nice but also a bit of extravagant luxury

const_cast2• 12 months ago

Yes, nothing more extravagant than... science? What a... luxury? Really? This is the take we're going with? Okay.

And, on the topic of "extravagant luxury" - nobody is saving any money. Do you think you're gonna get a check in the mail with the "savings" we get from cutting NASA? Come on.

The reality is that we're cutting everything and our debt is skyrocketing. We're not saving anything, we're actually losing money at a more rapid pace. You're being robbed by republican fiscal policy.

It's a lose-lose. Maybe maaaaaaaaybe, if we were REALLY saving a TON of money these cuts could be justifiable. But, we're not. We're saving -2 Trillion dollars. Baby that's your tax money.

andrewstuart• 12 months ago

In the end there will only be money for paying national debt interest.

myvoiceismypass3• 12 months ago

The deficit will be increasing with the BBB. So, no.

eagerpace9• 12 months ago

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 in the room and is a complete disaster. It’s a jobs program limping along decades old technology when the commercial options are better. You can debate some of the specifics, sure, but if all this current state of uncertainty brings is a clean slate and new ways of thinking in 4 years, that’s better IMHO than looking back 4 years from now watching NASA brute force a token moon landing on the back of ancient technology. Which they may still do!

reactordev2• 12 months ago

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.

eagerpace9• 12 months ago

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.

orbisvicis• 12 months ago

If only you could offer congress deferred resignations...

arccy• 12 months ago

isn't congress on fixed time contracts already....

cosmicgadget3• 12 months ago

No one would take it since the stock (trading on proprietary info) plan is so good.

justin66• 12 months ago

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 not their call how Congress allocates money.

Losing career managers, scientists and engineers isn’t going to fix any of the things you want to see fixed.

toomuchtodo2• 12 months ago

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

eagerpace9• 12 months ago

That’s a great point. I think it’s just trying to boil the ocean.

SJC_Hacker7• 12 months ago

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 not their call how Congress allocates money.

They don't call it the Senate Launch System for nothing

vkou• 12 months ago

I think it's more accurate to say that our oligarchs need an overhaul. Some of the worst people who are actively working against the public are consistently ending up in positions of incredible, unchecked power.

godelski17• 12 months ago

  > 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/

jordanb3• 12 months ago

SLS is the elephant in the room and is a complete disaster

SLS isn't great but it does.. you know.. work.

belter2• 12 months ago

Except for the under powered orbits but that is a whole other issue.

https://youtu.be/XFIvKSVRtZ0

https://youtu.be/sGT-8PHSVso

eagerpace9• 12 months ago

Does it? Do we want to repeat what we did 50 years ago or do we want to do something better and stay this time?

chadcmulligan3• 12 months ago

I read this recently, and it doesn't sound good

https://idlewords.com/2024/05/the_lunacy_of_artemis.htm

perihelions5• 12 months ago

SLS doesn't serve any actual NASA needs. It's fake make-work. Case in point: Congress expressly ordered NASA to launch Europa Clipper on SLS, to make it appear that SLS was indispensable to core NASA science missions. But, due to design flaws, SLS turned out to be technically incapable of launching Clipper at all. So they backtracked and allowed free-market competition to compete for the Clipper launch. Which it did: a very, very cheap Falcon Heavy launched it instead.

Which it was capable of doing all along—Congress and NASA lied about this, misled the public, to make it appear that their jobs-creating, pork-barrel project was serving some genuine need NASA had. It wasn't! They had alternatives all along—they were pretending they didn't.

When you read about these things, you have to know all the actors you're getting information from, and what motives they have to mislead you.

There's not a single real mission in NASA's budget, or conceivable future budget, that needs an SLS—full stop. Sole exception being the moon project, which was created with the express purpose of finding a problem SLS would be the only answer for (and even that's now in doubt, what with Starship).

lupusreal4• 12 months ago

It doesn't work, not for Moon missions. It was never designed for Moon missions in the first place, the original plan was unspecified "deep space" missions without any clear plan of what it would actually be doing (because it's actual purpose is to keep money flowing to old Shuttle contractors.)

Consequently, it can't do a Moon mission like the Saturn V could, it requires the idiotic nonsense that is the NHRO, which will endanger astronauts because it can't get Orion (which is a whole other can of pork) into a low lunar orbit. It also can't handle the lander, so now Artemis has to count on SpaceX and/or Blue Origin for that, which is probably what you're alluding to not working. But if those don't work, then neither does Artemis and then how can you say SLS works?

Another problem with SLS is it's expensive AF and has a terrible launch cadence. Maybe you think that doesn't really matter, but it is for those reasons that NASA isn't going to test Orion again before putting astronauts on it. The last time they tested Orion, to verify the design and modelling, the heat shield started to come apart. But NASA can't do another test flight, because SLS sucks so hard, so instead they're going to fly Orion on an untested trajectory and trust their modeling to keep astronauts safe. Their same modeling which failed to predict Orion performance the first time. It's homicidally reckless. There is a real risk of this becoming yet another instance of NASA management's "go culture" getting people killed. Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia, each time they say they've learned their lesson and will make changes to ensure it doesn't happen again, but either those changes are only superficial or they decay over time. We're now on the precipice of NASA management flying astronauts around the Moon with a heat shield which may quite possibly disintegrate during reentry, because SLS is too expensive for NASA to test it but NASA management wants to move forward anyway.

NooneAtAll3• 12 months ago

SLS is elephant in the room - but Mars Sample Return is arguably even worse

Money for SLS is separate part of the budget, its mismanagement causes reputational damage - MSR budget is part of NASA probe budget, mismanagement there causes stall, worse performances and cancellations for AWFUL amount of other projects

lupusreal4• 12 months ago

MSR has indeed been a mess. I think it's pretty obvious that NASA has been trying to instill a "sunk costs" mentality in Congress, and it's not working out the way they wanted.

MSR is a fine enough concept though, I think Rocket Lab's proposal to get it done is sound and the government should take them up on the offer. If nothing else, the money to Rocket Lab for MSR development would help to make Rocket Lab a more viable SpaceX competitor, which should pay off for the US government in the long run.

ACCount367• 12 months ago

MSR as NASA's JPL envisioned it was a disaster. But there was a chance that someone like Rocket Lab could actually make it work without breaking the bank.

parasense• 12 months ago

The SLS was a good idea, and it's actually a great rocket. However you are correct in saying it turned into a huge program for the old school rocket industrial complex. I think the private sector currently does this better, or it's certainly debatable. However, I think it's a mistake to say only the private sector can do this kind of thing optimally. There is some multiverse in the timelines where government contractors create an industrial rocket production line that quickly and cheaply stamps out heavy lift rockets. Granted, it's easier said than done, but it still doesn't have to be so expensive. Clearly the expensive part should be the R&D with the industrial production parts being jigged, automated, and fully optimized. The SLS obviously went another route by making the rocket production bespoke with non optimal, manual labor, etc... that kind of protection is acceptable for one-off science mission payloads, but not heavy lift....

Anyhoo, NASA letting so many people resign is good if your opinion is such that lowering government expenditure is a good thing. So long as the exit package is comparable to retirement package these government employees would have got otherwise. My guess is the resignation package has great near term performance but low long term (retirement) performance, making it a great option for younger workers able to pivot to new careers.

jebarker2• 12 months ago

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

Are they 1% as inspiring as what the DoD does with their budget? I don't mean to be snarky, but level of inspiration is pretty subjective and difficult to put a price tag on. Honestly, I feel like the NASA budget needs to be considered in context relative to the DoD budget and then these cuts look much less convincing as being necessary.

giantg27• 12 months ago

"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 past year. Chances are many people couldn't name something NASA achieved in the past year. Would it be at the 2% number? I don't know.

I'm not saying one is better than the other. I think both should look for budget inefficiency, but until those are identified I wouldn't propose budget cuts. But it does seem that the NASA missions could be more inspiring recently.

CivBase• 12 months ago

Are they 1% as inspiring as what the DoD does with their budget?

I dare say a great many people are very inspired by what the DoD does with their budget. Inspired to what... well, that's another subject. And the most inspired people are not the ones living in the US.

robertlagrant• 12 months ago

Are they 1% as inspiring as what the DoD does with their budget?

People aren't inspired by safe shipping lanes. But quite a few are alive because of what global shipping enables.

camcil• 12 months ago

I worked as a civil servant for a decade and a half in various capacities up until a couple of weeks ago. I'm the last person that would tell you that there isn't plenty of fat that could be trimmed. Slicing at random, multiple delayed resignation opportunities, and threatening cuts to benefits, however, is doing the opposite. Those that are skilled enough and in demand, or like me lucky enough, to quickly find other employ, are the ones that are going to leave- leaving behind nothing but the fat.

ACCount367• 12 months ago

People who should be fired are the very people who would be the best at justifying why they shouldn't be fired. Not at all by a coincidence.

"Slicing at random" could actually outperform most other methods, as long as it's truly random. You can weasel your way out of a firing based on vibes or performance reviews - but you can't convince an RNG that its roll was wrong.

Aurornis2• 12 months ago

It’s a jobs program limping along decades old technology when the commercial options are better.

I’ve worked with a few former NASA employees now.

They all said the same thing: There were some amazing, passionate people at NASA but they were all surrounded by people who were only there to attend meetings and collect paychecks. Getting anything done was impossible because you had to navigate webs of org structure and process that had been designed to make work and jobs for people, not to deliver results.

My one ex-NASA coworker got a lot of mileage out of telling people he worked for NASA, putting it on his LinkedIn, and mentioning it when he introduced himself to new people. People respect the name. It was a stark contrast to how he described his actual time there.

aerostable_slug• 12 months ago

I share your experience.

The national labs are also a lot like this.

JumpCrisscross5• 12 months ago

There were some amazing, passionate people at NASA but they were all surrounded by people who were only there to attend meetings and collect paychecks

Which do you think takes a severance package?

Yeul4• 12 months ago

It depends on what you want out of the space program.

Americans seem to expect lots of flag waving and spaceships. Less fundamental science.

AlecSchueler• 12 months ago

but if all this current state of uncertainty brings is a clean slate and new ways of thinking in 4 years, that’s better IMHO

Isn't the greater likelihood that delivery of service will drop as a result of the cuts and they'll point to this to justify nullifying the entire programme?

eagerpace9• 12 months ago

I hesitated posting this because my very moderate east coast American perspective seems to be appreciated less and less here. I posted this on a lazy Sunday morning and it got a lot of positive initial comments and discussion. Then a few hours later it turned negative.

Science is great but launch vehicle innovation is where the problem is so that’s why I focused on SLS. We could easily have 100 JWSTs today if something like starship were operational. NASA dragging its feet for decades, building silly things likes SLS, trying to find token uses to justify it, doesn’t inspire me anymore.

cma• 12 months ago

Can you expand on what you mean by token uses? Wasn't Saturn V used for golf on the moon?

mulmen3• 12 months ago

NASA didn't want SLS and was very vocal about that. Congress earmarks funding for pet projects which is the only reason we have SLS. I'm not sure how you can say NASA is "dragging their feet" while also claiming to care about space. NASA's list of accomplishments is long and there isn't a gap.

potato37328423• 12 months ago

Then a few hours later it turned negative.

Happens all the time.

Europe vs us east vs us west.

nytesky3• 12 months ago

I’m afraid I don’t understand how Starship could help proliferate JWST. It was launched with Ariana 5 which is a mature launch system.

The bottleneck is actual manufacturing of JWST - the folding mirror was especially fraught; I think the sunshield as well.

EasyMark3• 12 months ago

NASA like most government agencies could use a good, independent audit. That's not what this is. The DOGE lie was all about going in with pre-determined goals to reduce and to embarrass every org that they "audited". It was to "prove" MAGA world's criticism even if they were completely wrong (and the vast majority are). MAGA world "leaders" think that the US's role as a lead in science and top universities needs to be damaged in order to reduce our role in the world. It can then attempt to repair it with private tech billionaire solutions that are under their 100% control, instead of having to deal with government between them and profits.

singron• 12 months ago

Are NASA employees even a significant part of SLS? Doesn't the bulk of the money go to Boeing and Northrup Grumman?

DiogenesKynikos• 12 months ago

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?

dextrous• 12 months ago

Politics aside, according to a pretty comprehensive study (118 missions) it does seem that SpaceX is much more efficient than NASA [1]. Data like this would suggest privatization of space missions is a good idea. Maybe this conclusion is biased somehow, or perhaps the purpose of a dedicated govt org is different in some way that justifies its budget and scope despite the difference in efficiency?

https://qz.com/emails/space-business/2172377/an-oxford-case-...

azinman2• 12 months ago

NASA does far more science research than spacex.

belter2• 12 months ago

Data like this would suggest privatization of space missions is a good idea

How is that working out with the US Health Care System?

Strom• 12 months ago

Better healthcare for fewer people. Might work well for space exploration.

rfrey• 12 months ago

It's working great! For certain companies.

kevindamm• 12 months ago

They compare cost, speed-to-market, schedule, and scalability, but it looks like they ignore failed launches and consider all missions successful?

I couldn't find a comparison of the number of launch failures between the two, my recollection is that this happened a lot more often in SpaceX rockets. But maybe that's included in the cost overrun figures and still puts SpaceX ahead by an order of magnitude.

I agree with the thesis of the paper, that platforms and incremental advances are more efficient and more economical. I don't quite agree that an incremental approach would have worked well for the NASA efforts in the 60s and 70s. Perhaps it should be considered as an option for these large organizations, but I'm not convinced it's always better.

Also, to do this study fairly, you would have to set up SpaceX to not benefit from any of the advances made by NASA for the decades beforehand. Some step-function style advances did happen under NASA supervision that benefitted the entire scientific community.

notahacker5• 12 months ago

Also looks like the paper explicitly said it wasn't doing a public/private sector comparison so much as observing that SpaceX doing repeatable stuff in LEO on short timelines delivered without the cost overruns of NASA doing more complex one-offs over longer timelines and concluding that, surprise surprise, the repeatable stuff and incremental improvement stuff had much better cost control than the deep space science missions and space station enhancements. Yes, if you look at the raw number of missions SpaceX has operated, most of them have been successful Falcon 9 launches and most of them have been to deploy minisats to a standard design, and its track record of these is excellent (including adding reusability). NASA's track record would look a lot better if it mostly launched satellite constellations to LEO too and better still if it held off on planning anything in deep space, but that's not really what NASA is for. If you look at SpaceX in terms of private programmes rather than missions, the Falcon 9 is outstanding and the Starlink minisats work, the Falcon Heavy seems fine, Starship has been going on a very long time (including work before the Starship name was coined like the the Raptor engine) and hasn't achieved anything useful yet, and the stated goal of going to Mars hasn't got off the drawing board. But they're very, very good at building and delivering significant improvements on the repeatable stuff that isn't NASAs focus

Also, if you're doing a fair comparison between public and private sector you've got to consider all the launch startups that aren't SpaceX, including the ones that haven't successfully launched...

stetrain• 12 months ago

SpaceX is pretty efficient at space launches, and has gotten there using a lot of NASA guidance and funding.

NASA does a lot more than space launches, and they do use private sector (including SpaceX) for most of their launches.

samrus5• 12 months ago

Efficiency is important for public institutions but not the highest priority. The highest priority is public service. These institutions should have public good as their north star, not shareholder value

charcircuit• 12 months ago

How are those any different considering the public are essentially the shareholders.

cosmicgadget3• 12 months ago

The question to ask is if NASA's numerous responsibilities and accomplishments should be owned by the People or by individuals. Efficiency is fixable.

samrus5• 12 months ago

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

juujian• 12 months ago

None of this is efficiency. Our local NOAA office has lost their sparse janitorial staff. That doesn't make the agency more efficient. That just means an overworked person making 6 figures now has to figure out how to procure toilet paper and get the bathrooms fixed. It's obstructing people eager to do important work while marginally reducing cost, that's all it is.

jgilias• 12 months ago

I don’t think it actually reduces costs if someone better paid is now doing it instead.

foobarbecue• 12 months ago

Plus now we're paying everyone full salary to not work for many months. Complete waste.

noobermin• 12 months ago

It's not worth making this point anymore. Bannon et al have been explicit for decades now they want to destroy the federal government. It's ideological, that's it quite simply.

All these discussions about efficiency, even more so the debt given they just blew up the debt to never before seen levels just shows that sincerity is not deserved when talking to Rs.

jzb• 12 months ago

It is worth making the point: a lot of people simply don’t see it (yet?) for what it is and still support the people doing it.

QuantumGood• 12 months ago

The "ecosystem" of polticial knowledge is balkanized in the U.S. (and elsewhere). "Making points" to those who are subscribed to a narrative fed from propaganda will not learn what they are told is not true. But noting causative "they say it's 'X', but it's actually 'Y'" feels more like simply properly labeling the information.

unnamed76ri4• 12 months ago

Every day the debt rises to never before seen levels. That’s not new or something exclusive to one party or the other.

poemxo• 12 months ago

This makes sense. A GS doesn't earn that much, but if they resign and go work for SpaceX and get paid as a contractor, doesn't this just cost the taxpayer more?

OrvalWintermute3• 12 months ago

The normal formula we use is a range from 1.8x to 2.4x for fully loaded contractor labor rates based on contractor salary.

I presume we’ll be paying up to $576,000 for a senior engineer (GS15) equivalent from SpaceX

onepremise• 12 months ago

It's all part of the plan, which is referred to as the butterfly revolution, by Curtis Yarvin. Leaders that have literally invested in this platform are buying into this nonsense. Peter Theil, JD Vance, Marc Andreesen, Garry Tan, Srinivasan, and many others, wanting to overthrow democracy and dissolve nation states. This effort is to establish Network States with those that worship them, sycophants and cults. They want to transform the US into an Autocracy. The polarization of the media and political parties is on purpose. They want America to fall. It's not a secret, not a conspiracy theory. It's definitely being rolled out by billionaires. It would be wise for others here to really do your research and understand why we are being polarized to hate each other. Enter butterfly revolution:

1. Reboot (“full-power start”) Suspend or bypass existing constitutional limits; concentrate absolute sovereignty in one new organization—analogous to Allied occupation powers in post-1945 Japan/Germany. Eliminate checks and balances that block rapid change.

2. CEO-Monarch model A single executive (chosen like a corporate CEO) rules; the former president becomes a figurehead “chairman of the board.” Treat the state as a firm run for efficiency, not democratic representation.

3. RAGE strategy “Retire All Government Employees” by mass-firing the civil service and replacing it with loyal appointees. Remove institutional resistance (“the Cathedral”) and ensure obedience.

4. Parallel regime Build a fully staffed shadow government in exile before inauguration; unveil it on Day 1 to take over agencies at once. Prevent the bureaucratic slow-rolling that stymied Trump’s first term.

5. Media & academia clampdown Defund or shutter universities and independent press seen as hostile. Break what Yarvin calls the Cathedral’s cultural dominance.

Resources:

"The Straussian Moment", https://www.hoover.org/research/peter-thiel-straussian-momen...

Freedom Cities in Trumps presser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJA_GBhCGgE

Billionaire example: https://www.praxisnation.com

Apocalypse Now? Peter Thiel on Ancient Prophecies and Modern Tec, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqHueZNEzig

A.I., Mars and Immortality: Are We Dreaming Big Enough? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV7YgnPUxcU&t=404s

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/magazine/curtis-yarvin-in...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no

https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2008/11/patchwork-p...

throwawayq34233• 12 months ago

All this revolution in the objectively best of times.

At least in past when people wanted to burn everything down they had a good reason. This is truly the dumbest period in human history.

mosesbp2• 12 months ago

Does anyone have access to a copy of the NASA statement on this that was shared with the media? It makes a big difference where in NASA these people were employed - this is the difference between slimming down an engineering division or cancelling one launch project and the total destruction of a smaller program for physics, which may have a much longer-term impact on US science.

bix62• 12 months ago

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/09/nasa-staff-departur...

“You’re losing the managerial and core technical expertise of the agency,” said Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society.

mosesbp2• 12 months ago

Thanks for this earlier article. From there it seems that the most staff losses are at Goddard, which is largely focused on science, not launch capabilities. So this unfortunately seems to fit into the larger “anti-science” push of the administration (e.g. the almost entirely senseless cuts at the NSF, NIH) more than it has to do with launch activities. Another dark day for US physics research…

renewiltord• 12 months ago

It may well be a problem but I’m not going to take my predictions from the guys who said “I give it two weeks before Twitter collapses”.

almosthere• 12 months ago

SLS is dead, invest in outside tech. Or for crying out loud start pulling out the crashed ships and donate them to more industries and get some real tech going.

yalogin• 12 months ago

This happens across all agencies as every organization that deals with science is gutted. This is just extremely short sighted capitalistic re-allotment and in many instances removal of research, oversight and execution of critical tasks. The short term loss of jobs is the least harmful (as harmful as it is). The long term impact of losing key institutions like nasa, fda and others is going to be devastating. These same people that cheered the gutter by will then turn around and blame the government when the country fails to lead on issues or stop diseases. The platform for continuous political exploitation is set up successfully

EasyMark3• 12 months ago

This is part of the new administration's war on science and education. They are actively gutting science, medicine, and education in order to shift wealth to the upper 0.1%. It's not about budgets or "woke", those are just excuses to dumb down America and reduce our position as a world leader in science and tech. A move in order to have short term gains for a few billionaires and an overarching goal to create a more religious and less educated society that is more easily controlled.

BobbyJo3• 12 months ago

The Federal Reserve is an example of a well run and focused organization, because they have a very short, very simple mandate: maximize employment and ensure price stability. Everything they do is in service to those two goals and every employee can hold themselves and their bosses accountable for those goals. Elected representatives and the American public can hold them accountable.

If we want a more efficient and inspiring NASA, we need to give it a mandate that we can all rally around the same way. "Pioneering the future of..." is just too generic for anyone to grade them against. As long as that's the case, congress is free to run it into the ground as a pork barrel repository.

IMO, several smaller, more focused, more measurable, organizations would serve the American public far better.

CPLX2• 12 months ago

This is a ridiculous statement. The Fed is a profoundly undemocratic institution that harnesses the power of the state to serve the interests of capital, and its current form is a recent development that coincides with the financialization of our economy and the decimation of manufacturing and the middle class.

If you want the full argument it’s here: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/federal-reserve-independe...

BobbyJo3• 12 months ago

I don't think its any less democratic than any other government organization run by appointees. Manufacturing's decimation had far more to do with globalization than banking regulation IMO.

LtWorf• 12 months ago

How dare you be critical of capitalism on ycombinator?

presentation• 12 months ago

It's good that the Fed can set monetary policy without pandering to whatever short-term goals politicians have at the time, as they've thoroughly proven their incapability to tackle long-term challenges like the deficit.

I also don't think that bailing out SVB is a sign that Dodd-Frank was just symbolic, since not doing so would have pretty significantly hurt the USA's tech sector, which is is strategic nationally for the economy.

But I can see an argument for limiting the Fed's purview to mostly be about monetary policy and less about enforcement of legislation, as it's done in other countries.

insane_dreamer3• 12 months ago

Federal Reserve is an example of a well run and focused organization,

It's also fully independent of the government and thus not affected by all this Trump/Musk/DOGE stupidity, as much as Trump tries.

linuxhansl• 12 months ago

Great. The best, i.e. those who can easily find another job, are often those who often take these offers.

There were so many options to improve efficiency with technology and then simply not refilling some of the jobs (apparently there's a 5-6% yearly attrition in government jobs anyway.) But nooo... And obviously this was never what this was about.

A friend of mine worked for the White House under the Obama administration, with the first goal to digitize the VAs information. One of the Trump's first actions in 2016 was to end that. Shameful.

mathattack• 12 months ago

If you have a PhD in physics, and your option is to deal with this abuse and get Paod X, or join an AI firm and get paid 5X, which would you choose?

shutupnerd0000• 12 months ago

Why does an AI firm need a physics PhD?

foobarian• 12 months ago

To run numpy and Jupyter

Animats• 12 months ago

Yet NASA still hasn't killed the Senate Launch System. The Lunar Gateway was just funded. The wrong stuff is being cut.

ACCount367• 12 months ago

SLS and Gateway should be the first to die, not the last. But politicians just can't stop funding their pork barrels.

myko• 12 months ago

It isn't even a real program. This entire administration is a farce.

hk1337• 12 months ago

I'm curious what percentage of the employees are engineers vs managers or some other non-engineering/non-critical type roles?

crnkofe• 12 months ago

So sad to hear this. It sounds like gutting various agencies and public sector is being done for no real purpose other than to "save". What's being saved for is something apparently nobody knows. Probably not even the current top brass.

insane_dreamer3• 12 months ago

We're not saving anything. The budget is as large as ever, with $150B increase on "border control". That's what we're gutting all this for. A crying shame.

insane_dreamer3• 12 months ago

That's a significant brain drain that will take a long time to recover from. Even if you think NASA was bloated, this is not a good trajectory for the country.

gammarator• 12 months ago

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, Swift, and many more in planetary and heliophysics. This is a loss of capacity that will set the US back a generation.

The private sector is irrelevant here: SpaceX and friends don’t do scientific research.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/07/trump-administration-m...

jacobolus3• 12 months ago

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.

JumpCrisscross5• 12 months ago

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 ready to pick up the torch [1].

[1] https://www.fdd.org/analysis/policy_briefs/2025/03/19/aiming...

Supermancho• 12 months ago

I think NASA cuts are about giving money to billionaires, so they can build or expand their capitalist version. Obviously, this will be more efficient because it funnels money to the wealthy directly.

potato37328423• 12 months ago

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...

overfeed2• 12 months ago

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.

dehrmann• 12 months ago

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.

godelski17• 12 months ago

  > the world leader in space science.

I also want to add that science is a critical investment area for anyone interested in engineering.

There is this common belief of "I just want to make things work" and that science is really unimportant here and are concerned with things that don't matter. The truth is that science builds the foundation for that other stuff. It is the very ground you stand on. Engineering without science is like trying to run without ground.

In a lot of ways, science is just like engineering (I say this having been both, professionally). Any good engineer knows it is important to find problems. Then you fix those problems. Well... that's really what science does too. When doing science you're just working at the next level of abstraction. It is all about "making things work." Everyone is on the same team here and I'm not sure why we draw these divisions. I mean what would science even be about if it wasn't "making things work?"

So I hear people say that engineering is where we get the real value (especially monetarily), but I'd disagree. It matters, but I think it is framing things weirdly. I'd be willing to wager that the economic impact of Newton and Leibniz's invention of Calculus[0] is larger than the economic impact of any engineering product, ever. I'd make a slightly less confident wager that the economic value of calculus is more valuable than all inventions post 1700. That's just one thing too... even if it was the only Science/Math "investment" then it seems like a pretty good ROI

[0] Yes, math, but I'm throwing under science. Nitpick if you want but you're missing the thesis

eru2• 12 months ago

The truth is that science builds the foundation for that other stuff. It is the very ground you stand on. Engineering without science is like trying to run without ground.

That doesn't mean that government investment in science is necessarily a good idea.

I'd be willing to wager that the economic impact of Newton and Leibniz's invention of Calculus[0] is larger than the economic impact of any engineering product, ever.

Where they financed by the government? Btw, I can also look at winning lottery tickets and say that their return-on-investment was awesome, but that doesn't mean buying lottery tickets is a good idea.

fragmede• 12 months ago

I don't know that this is a good argument for science. We should fund science because we want to discover new things, not because we can draw a dotted line to an ROI. Similarly, we should fund the department of giving poor people money for food. Not because there's an ROI somewhere down the line. There's never gonna be a return on that investment, but we should do that because we're humans and we want to lift our fellow human out of misery.

cyphertruck• 12 months ago

These cuts are absolutely not the ones I would make, but the reality is not as it is being portrayed.

The claim that SpaceX does not do science is false. Not only do they launch most of NASA's science missions, which counts, they also do independent science, including the Polaris Dawn and FRAM 2. Along with Axiom, they put science missions on the ISS, and all the NASA science done on ISS is facilitated by SpaceX putting humans there. Finally, literally everything that SpaceX has done or built is a result of science that SpaceX has had to do, including colder than ever propellants, and life support systems, etc. The Polaris Dawn spacewalk was not a replication of the 1960s spacewalks, as it was based on new suit science, etc.

Somehow, people like to pretend that probes landing on other planets is the only form of science that is done.

And the reality is that new entrants from RKLB, SpaceX, Firefly, and a lot of smaller companies are doing exactly this kind of science as well--- but at vastly lower cost.

The inescapable reality-- and this will always be the case with political organizations like NASA-- is no matter how well meaning they cannot do science as effectively as private organizations. NASA slows science down in large part because they are hamstrung by congress.

Yes, it looks like some way too expensive projects are getting cancelled and that means some waste of money. It's not the choice I would make.

But in the next 10 years, nearly %100 of all science will be done outside of NASA.... because the NASA overhead is too much, makes things too expensive, and less reliable.

For example, it's better to blow up 1 falcon one, and 2 falcon 9s, to get 500 successful falcon 9 launches at 1/100th the cost per kilogram of mass to orbit than to have a completely successful SLS system that launches only 2-3 times a decade.

The former accelerates science, lowers the cost of all science and more science gets done per dollar than the latter.

That transition is happening whether government, the senate and congress is aboard.... or not.

jrflowers• 12 months ago

they launch most of NASA's science missions, which counts

Exactly. Like if I am an uber driver and I bring a surgeon to a hospital, it counts as me doing surgery since the most important part of surgery is the process of driving to the place where it happens

goku123• 12 months ago

but the reality is not as it is being portrayed.

This is exactly how anyone would describe your reply. Your claim is so bizzare and its logic so convoluted that the only reason I can imagine for it is political motivation. But I could be wrong and don't want to get into a flamewar. So let's ignore the reasons and reassess the logic instead. Most of the counter I can come up with are variations of what the other commenter replied, so I will leave that to them. Instead, let's look at why your argument never pans out.

Private companies always look for short to medium term profits, since it affects their balance sheets and ultimately their survival. That constraint isn't favorable for scientific research and science missions, because there is a long lead time for the research results to be converted into a commercially viable products. Some companies with a large product portfolio and steady profits still do some research, as long as it isn't too costly or time consuming. An example is the pharma industry.

But science involving the biosphere, atmosphere, astronomy/astrophysics, space, interplanetary missions etc are on the other end of that spectrum - extremely costly and no commercialization for the foreseeable future. The only way private industries are going to do it is if the government funds them with short term profits - in which case, it's the government's program, not the industry's. Even Musk's Mars dream is dependent on government funding in that manner, though his intent isn't science either. What makes you think the private industry will take it upon themselves to fund and conduct research that makes no economic sense?

quantified2• 12 months ago

SpaceX launches stuff. What scientific instruments do they design, what findings do they obtain? Anything beyond just how to launch stuff?

kamaal• 12 months ago

>This is a loss of capacity that will set the US back a generation.

Many people grossly underestimate restarting a stopped process which took tremendous inertia to get rolling at the first place.

For all practical purposes its almost like you permanently lose the ability.

yieldcrv• 12 months ago

The private space cargo industry is taking off so it’s decent time to do this

But entitlements and defense are the biggest costs to the nation and the consequences of cutting everything else are not worth it until these other things are addressed - or the nations finds a way to collect more revenues

cozzyd• 12 months ago

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?

wnevets2• 12 months ago

but I was told Musk has been one of the major forces in the administration fighting to preserve and fix NASA

protocolture3• 12 months ago

Devils advocate, Musk is no longer part of the administration, and news reports have cited Nasa nonsense as part of why.

wnevets2• 12 months ago

Devils advocate, Musk is no longer part of the administration, and news reports have cited Nasa nonsense as part of why.

Only a devils advocate would believe that with this administration still giving his companies massive government contracts [1] and regulation win falls [2]

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/grok-elon-musk-xai-pentagon-con...

[2] https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-musk-spacex-rocket-...

ACCount367• 12 months ago

Reportedly, Jared Isaacman, the rumored Musk's NASA pick of choice, wanted to cut down SLS/Orion and axe Gateway - and was opposed to science cuts.

Jared Isaacman is out, and what we're seeing actually happen now is the opposite of that. All the pork barrels are getting funded, and the brunt of budget cuts seems to be stated to be born by science missions like Roman Space Telescope.

mensetmanusman• 12 months ago

Collateral damage of Americans thinking academics has gone off the deep end + the replication crisis.

mberning• 12 months ago

I am highly sympathetic to all impacted. It’s devastating.

The rhetoric around cost cutting is something I can’t figure out how to deal with. The media makes it sound like the sky is falling with every cut. But having worked in enormous organizations myself, I also know that teams can and do lose headcount all the time, and somehow manage to carry on.

I guess the issue I wrestle with the most is how we can spend tax dollars on programs, but also have the ability to reduce those programs when needed, without it seeming like the end of the world.

We can’t have government agencies and programs that go on forever, expanding, growing in headcount and budget, for eternity. But the rhetoric around these events would have you believe that is the only path forward.

jaimex2• 12 months ago

If Bill Nye the self appointed 'science guy' is against it then its probably a good thing.

MinimalAction• 12 months ago

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!

ericvolp12• 12 months ago

The article doesn't really do this justice, it's not really "opting to leave" it's that entire divisions inside the Science side of NASA have had their projects defunded and so all the work the people in those labs were doing is now gone. They're being asked to leave voluntarily so they don't have to be "fired" but all their work and resources are gone and they couldn't stay if they wanted to.

A friend of mine had her division's headcount cut by >80% that was all research focused and building instruments for deep space observation. No one is hiring people to do that in the private sector. Dozens of astrophysics PhDs in that division alone are now without work and with no real prospects doing anything related to what they've dedicated their entire lives to (and accepted modest salaries as civil servants to do).

goku123• 12 months ago

Pardon my ignorance. But isn't it better to be laid off or fired than to resign, since the former entitles you to a few months of severance pay? Or is it different somehow under these circumstances?

lgregg• 12 months ago

I’m not sure about this round but I know someone that resigned out of the DOGE wave in Homeland and she got 9 months severance. I would assume something relatively similar.

me-vs-cat2• 12 months ago

In the US, there is no general entitlement to severance beyond a specific employer's policies, a worker's or union's contract (if any) with that employer, or any one-time offer (usually called a voluntary layoff or voluntary resignation) from that employer.

_carbyau_• 12 months ago

The brain drain of losing 20% of people is going to hurt.

The issue is now trust in your funding. Say in a few years NASA suddenly had money to rehire, who would trust that enough to orient your life around it?

jschveibinz• 12 months ago

There are some numbers to consider in this discussion--all of these are from data on the web:

1. Only Israel ($3,400) spends more per capita on R&D than the U.S. ($2,800) on R&D

2. The U.S. spent around $900 billion on R&D, with China estimated at $800 billion and the EU at $381 billion.

3. The per capita spending for other major economies:

- EU $850 per person - China around $700 per person (estimated) - South Korea $2,800 per person - Japan $1600 per person

(all roughly PPP adjusted)

Please check my estimates.

The point is that the U.S. spends a lot on R&D, so a haircut may not be bad for the health of U.S. R&D programs (new priorities) let alone the temporary reduction in expenses. The R&D output is still going to be enormous relative to the rest of the world and probably on par with China.

legacynl• 12 months ago

And another World-leading American institution bites the dust! Pretty impressive how much damage a foreign plant could do in less than a year

Molitor5901• 12 months ago

But haven't people wanted NASA to be more streamlined, and efficient? Not sure if that is reducing staffing, or changing its mission. SpaceX making such leaps and bounds over NASA had to be a shot across the bow.

lawlessone5• 12 months ago

leaps and bounds

repeated explosions?

psunavy03• 12 months ago

You do realize that while Starship mishaps are making headlines, the Falcon platform is in the background printing money with basically zero major issues, right?

marcusverus2• 12 months ago

SpaceX was responsible for ~87% of mass delivered into orbit last year. They are clearly on a whole 'nother level.

The thing that's exploding is Starship, which is still under development. Their production vehicles are among the most reliable in history. Falcon has a 99% mission success rate a 95% landing success rate and Falcon Heavy has a 100% mission success rate.

kacesensitive2• 12 months ago

Sure everyone wants NASA to be efficient but cutting it's funding to the lowest since 1961 isn't doing that. You don't "fix" NASA by shooting it in the head.

https://www.planetary.org/articles/nasa-2026-budget-proposal...

chomp• 12 months ago

SpaceX making such leaps and bounds over NASA

What? These two do two separate things, do you mean ULA?

burkaman• 12 months ago

NASA is a SpaceX funder/customer, not a competitor.

taco_emoji• 12 months ago

But haven't people wanted

Which people?

moolcool2• 12 months ago

NASA and SpaceX aren't competitors.

NASA's mission statement is "explore the unknown in air and space, innovate for the benefit of humanity, and inspire the world through discovery".

SpaceX is a p̶u̶b̶l̶i̶c̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶d̶e̶d̶ privately held company whose mission is to increase shareholder value.

nixass• 12 months ago

SpaceX is not publicly traded

kortilla6• 12 months ago

SpaceX’s mission is very explicitly not shareholder aligned, which is why Musk explicitly said he would never take it public or sell his majority stake.

The mission is mars and the money making endeavors (starlink) are to bring in the cash to do that.

fnordpiglet2• 12 months ago

Specifically NASA is an exploration and science mission while SpaceX is a lift and transit provider for organizations like NASA. Historically NASA did their own lift and transit because no one else could and they seeded and researched the capabilities that SpaceX and other private ventures do today. This is a fine arrangement because commoditizing delta V is not exploration and science, it’s the means to it.

I’d note SpaceX is by far the most successful but by far not the only player in that space.

The brain drain and funding attack is on non military goals of NASA as well as on college and specifically graduate level people in the United States because they don’t ideologically align to the president. It’s a cultural revolution America style.

nilamo• 12 months ago

Streamlined and efficient normally means removing unneeded excess, or removing programs that didn't align with the overall goal. Convincing all your smart people to work somewhere else isn't streamlining, it's eliminating all possibility of future progress.

jotux2• 12 months ago

SpaceX making such leaps and bounds over NASA had to be a shot across the bow.

SpaceX, which has been awarded tens of billions in government contracts from NASA, is making leaps and bounds over NASA? I think in 2022 almost 50% of SpaceX revenue was NASA contracts. All those leaps and bounds over NASA are literally NASA funded.

drtgh• 12 months ago

In addition NASA has transferred knowledge and technology to SpaceX in an attempt to help them achieve success (or due government order, as I am not certain).

lenerdenator2• 12 months ago

Not to speak for the other commenter, but there's a perception that private industry (SpaceX specifically) has been more agile in getting some things done than NASA had been; specifically, getting a purpose-built ISS taxi (the Dragon) built, tested, and launched.

In some ways, this isn't wrong. It's easier to get a private company to do that than to get NASA to do it, because there's not some congresscritter from Alabama or wherever constantly trying to direct aspects of the project into their state, or to make the project serve their patrons' interests.

Of course, you could also say that up until recently, Elon himself was just as much of a patron, but still.

whatevaa• 12 months ago

NASA is handicaped by politics. SLS is a jobs program, nothing else. Did they axe that shit or they kept it even after funding was cut?

p_l• 12 months ago

NASA would have wanted to get rid of SLS itself (but probably stay some of the subordinated parts) because there's a good reason why it's nicknamed "Senate Launch System"

MattGrommes• 12 months ago

This is the same argument people made for DOGE. "Don't we want the government to be more efficient?" Yes, nobody is going to argue the opposite. But there are ways of doing this that are rational, then there is the way this is happening. Using a chainsaw for fine cutting only works when you are an expert at chainsaws. Otherwise you're just chopping chunks off something with a dangerous tool.

Of course this is assuming they actually want these agencies to be more efficient and not just die, which is a big assumption.

JKCalhoun• 12 months ago

Pretty sure DOGE was always an excuse to point fingers (and make cuts) at any program the administration didn't like.

I mean if you were tasked with "government efficiency" don't you think the lowest hanging fruit would be the Pentagon budget? But, sure, go after air traffic control instead.

jmclnx• 12 months ago

Why would people stay employed there with Trump and the GOP treating them the way they do.

They are in demand and moving will get them higher pay and a more stable life.

lawlessone5• 12 months ago

They'll do this now and then act shocked when some of these ex nasa people end up working in Europe or China lol

schmidtleonard• 12 months ago

Even without that factor, making deep cuts to research funding right before Cold War II: Electric Boogaloo seems like a bad move.

dylan6043• 12 months ago

If you were acting on behalf of the other players in the sequel, these would be great moves.

Trasmatta• 12 months ago

We've been in Cold War II for awhile now

bitlax• 12 months ago

I actually want that guy gone yesterday.

bpodgursky• 12 months ago

Eh. I'm not saying it's a great scheme, but these are almost all people taking retirement a couple years early. China is not interested in stealing 1980s NASA tech, and Europe aerospace is a non-player.

coryrc• 12 months ago

The way you say that more supports the idea these people should have been laid off a while ago.

I bet plenty have that useful "unwritten institutional knowledge" that could help newer programs. (F.ex. instructions for a nuclear waste storage said to use kitty litter, but didn't say it was because it was a cheap source of bentonite clay; someone substituted some modern paper variant and caused a small nuclear incident).

gtirloni• 12 months ago

Ageism at its best. Senior folks are stuck in time and only know 80's tech, right ?

catigula2• 12 months ago

That doesn't sound legal.

bilekas• 12 months ago

why wouldn't it be though?

samrus5• 12 months ago

For NASA? I dont see why not. Unless they were doing something related to natsec

nosianu3• 12 months ago

There is worse going on in other areas, for example "China Recruiting Former R.A.F. Pilots to Train Its Army Pilots, U.K. Says"

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/world/europe/china-recrui...

https://asiatimes.com/2024/12/what-uk-fighter-pilots-did-and...

And finally, the official response: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/former-armed-forces-perso...

It comes down to money and private interests dominating Western politics. It has bad but also good sides. Human conflict used to be about extermination a few thousand years ago, that is what I think of when I read such headlines, such things can actually also be seen as progress. We now have priorities other than our tribe or nation, that has good sides too. I like the Napoleonic war story where Napoleon gave a medal to a British scientist, Humphry Davy.

While bad for the nation, I try to see it as a mixed bag that people from the top down are... flexible.

The price we pay is, possibly, worse outcomes in conflicts. What we gain is that after conflicts end we get back to normal life - with one another - very quickly and relatively easily.

fareesh• 12 months ago

don't they all sign a document saying it's all classified tech?

Jtsummers2• 12 months ago

Not necessarily. Not all the work for the government is classified, and over classification is technically, which means it still happens and is mostly ignored, against the law.

And having worked on some classified systems doesn't preclude employment in related fields. It does restrict what you can share, of course.

aqme28• 12 months ago

Sure there are probably NDAs to keep specific tech from moving, but that doesn't mean the talent that invented the tech can't move.

pklausler4• 12 months ago

For obvious reasons, the people who are most able to find a good gig elsewhere are the most likely to elect to go do so; and they tend to be the people that you'll miss more.

kortilla6• 12 months ago

Im not sure this applies. Good people at NASA were already capable of easily finding higher pay in the private sector.

People work at NASA because they believe in the mission. So if they are leaving now they either stopped believing in the future of NASA because of this or they were money motivated and sucked.

dylan6043• 12 months ago

People work at NASA because they believe in the mission.

And what exactly is left of the mission now? Not much to keep working for in that regard

indoordin0saur• 12 months ago

Most of these are just retirees. People who wanted to work at SpaceX over NASA are likely already doing so

BurningFrog2• 12 months ago

True, but it can also be those that dislike the job the most, and they tend to be the people that you'll miss less.

pklausler4• 12 months ago

Why would they still be there?

vpShane2• 12 months ago

SpaceX and friends don’t do scientific research.

They do though. That's the premise of xAI and even on their website is that they have all this 'research' and are feeding it to that 'grok' to establish even more scientific 'discoveries'

I use quotes because I value the human side of things and like to enjoy the excitement and joy of collaboration and people coming up with new stuff.

vpShane2• 12 months ago

The top comment on the main thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44699052

SpaceX and friends don’t do scientific research.

They do though. That's the premise of xAI and even on their website is that they have all this 'research' and are feeding it to that 'grok' to establish even more scientific 'discoveries'

I use quotes because I value the human side of things and like to enjoy the excitement and joy of collaboration and people coming up with new stuff.

ck2• 12 months ago

Meanwhile Pentagon just transferred a BILLION dollars from Nuclear Missile maintenance program to refurbish QatarForceOne

Do we survive this? Are you sure? Because this is just the first six months, imagine by summer 2028 what things are going to be like with every single thing defunded, homeless and car-living exploding, etc.

Tadpole91812• 12 months ago

Trump made an EO demanding the DoJ seek to remove consent requirements and aim to forcibly institutionalize the homeless and mentally ill in asylums (and explicitly denied an exemption for incarceration based on a lack of beds available).

So, uh, the camps will be funded and there will no longer be homeless... Man, sure glad the libs got owned.

t1234s• 12 months ago

Won't these people just wind up at Lockheed, Raytheon etc.. doing the same work for their customer NASA?

crooked-v• 12 months ago

Some will. Others will get hefty signing bonuses from other countries seeing an excellent opportunity to recruit entire already-functional and already-proven teams at once.

lillecarl• 12 months ago

I've heard this is what SpaceX did as well

blindriver• 12 months ago

Or, conversely, it’s opening up opportunities for new grads and for promotion opportunities for existing employees.

backtoyoujim• 12 months ago

I would have titled it that the USA is facing brain drain from thousands exiting NASA.

BurningFrog2• 12 months ago

I expect they'll overwhelmingly stay in the USA.

robotburrito• 12 months ago

Does this matter? Aren’t we like a year from AGI? /s

tempodox• 12 months ago

Trump already wins the golden sledgehammer price, and that's just six months into his term. Even if the sum total will only be eight times that, it will still be the most massive wreck fest the country has ever seen. Any enemy of the U.S. would be proud to wreak that much havoc without firing a single shot.

csours• 12 months ago

There are many ways to explain or understand the US election(s) of 2024.

One way to understand the election is a rejection of complexity - political complexity, social complexity, scientific complexity, economic complexity, moral complexity - these are all out of style. People seem very happy to ditch all of these in favor of kayfabe [0].

Of course, an empty narratives doesn't last; but once people get used to an empty narrative, they sometimes just move on to the next one. Just give them a face and a heel - things are much easier to understand that way.

Anyway, I feel like things might stay this way for a while.

It's definitely a real human experience to say "I know MY job is complicated, but that thing over there ought to be simple"

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe

quantified2• 12 months ago

In order to privatize wealth, it helps to destroy common wealth.

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

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