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By the end of today, NASA's workforce will be about 10 percent smaller
- josefritzishere 2y agowell... that's not good.
- zimpenfish 2y ago...unless you're in competition with them.
- spirit-sparrow 2y agoMy thoughts exactly. :(
- p_ing 2y agoSpaceX et. al. aren't really in competition with NASA. NASA's job is to discover and explore, not lift Joe's or the NSA's sat to LEO.
- micromacrofoot 2y agodepends where you're looking — they'd definitely be in competition for engineering jobs also NASA definitely does collaborative work with other agencies, including the CIA
- jeffbee 2y agoThis is not the reason that Musk is destroying these agencies. He is a right-wing accelerationist who believes he will rule like a warlord over the ashes of America.
- lazide 2y agoSo far, can you say he’s going to be wrong?
- micromacrofoot 2y agoYes, because they're doing blanket firings rather than audits.
- lazide 2y agoWhy would that matter for the stated goal?
- micromacrofoot 2y agooh not sure, just pointing out that he's lying about the reason he's doing it so we're just guessing
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoTaking the engine out of the car to reduce weight and improve efficiency No biggie... the effects won't be seen until a Democrat is in charge again, business as usual.
- callamdelaney 2y agoBecause Nasa is renowned to be an efficient organisation which has in recent times made good decisions? The space shuttle springs to mind.
- WesleyLivesay 2y agoMany of those leaving Nasa today are probationary employees in their first years of employment. This isn't making up for past mistakes, it is hurting Nasa's future.
- tqi 2y agoCan it not be simultaneously true that NASA has areas of bloat/inefficiency AND haphazard amateurish cuts will cause more harm than good?
- EdwardCoffin 2y agoI like this description of how the space shuttle got this way [1]. I don't think I'd hold NASA responsible for that. Edit: I understand that The Space Shuttle Decision by T. A. Heppenheimer [2] contains a lot of the information that's in the Metafilter post, but in a more sober tone. The PDF is available direct from NASA [2]. It does at least mention that NASA itself wanted to cancel the shuttle program. [1] https://www.metafilter.com/48654/Jan-28-1986#1189388 https://www.metafilter.com/48654/Jan-28-1986#1189388 [2] https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/sp-4221.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/sp-4221.pdf
- ctrlp 2y agoFrom the article itself: "Are cuts needed? It is also clear that, as within other federal agencies, there is significant "bloat" in NASA's budget. In some areas, this is plain to see, with the space agency having spent in excess of $3 billion a year over the last decade "developing" a heavy lift rocket, the Space Launch System, which used components from the Space Shuttle and costs an extraordinary amount of money to fly. In the meantime, the private launch industry has been running circles around NASA. Similarly, consider the Orion spacecraft. This program is now two decades old, at a cost of $1 billion a year, and the vehicle has never flown humans into space. One could go on. Much of the space community has been puzzled as to why NASA has been spending on the order of half a billion dollars to develop a Lunar Gateway in an odd orbit around the Moon. It remains years away from launching, and if it ever does fly, it would increase the energy needed to reach the surface of the Moon. The reason, according to multiple sources at the agency when the Gateway was conceived, is that the lunar space station would offer jobs to the current flight controllers operating the International Space Station, which is due to retire in 2030."
- mempko 2y agoSLS flew around the moon. SpaceX Starship sent a banana to the Indian ocean. I mean come on, let's stop kidding ourselves.
- itishappy 2y agoSLS program has currently flown once to the tune of a cool $26.4 billion. The cost per launch of the final system is expected to be roughly $2 billion. Starship has flown 7 times for roughly $5 billion. The expected cost per launch of the final system is expected to be roughly $10 million. I don't agree this is as cut and dry as you're laying out.
- mempko 2y agoStarship hasn't even reached orbit yet even after 7 launches. When you pay bargain basement prices, you get bargain basement performance. Both have been in development for roughly the same time (12-13 years). SLS already went around the moon, while Starship hasn't reached orbit. Starship is WAY behind schedule.
- avalys 2y ago10% seems pretty innocuous to me.
- ARandomerDude 2y ago[flagged]
- uoaei 2y agoThat's a lot of presumption.
- tw04 2y agoBecause of Boeing… the PRIVATE contractor who seems incapable of delivering an actual flight worthy craft. But don’t worry, we’ve all been told the private sector is the solution to every problem.
- cratermoon 2y agoYou know and I know and everyone reading this knows the administration isn't laying off the bottom 10%. They're laying off people perceived to be insufficiently loyal, or who are working on things the administration would rather not discuss. The "probationary" designation does not mean entry-level, nor does it mean people on some kind of Amazon-like PIP. A probationary employee in the civil service could be someone with years or decades of experience who recently got promoted or transferred. They are firing the folks with the probationary designation because they are the easiest to let go, as career civil servants can't generally be fired.
- micromacrofoot 2y agowe have 0 evidence that's what is actually happening
- apical_dendrite 2y agoIt's not the "bottom 10%". So far it's people who were hired recently and are therefore easier to fire because they're in a probationary period. Performance has nothing to do with it.
- frumper 2y agoEven worse, people promoted by hiring into new positions are also on probation and those are probably positive contributors.
- jauntywundrkind 2y agoLike every other decimation that's happened, it will be whatever is politically expedient and have nothing to do with need, skill, capabilities, or job performance.
- scottcha 2y agoJust an anecdote but my family member does university research and gets grants from NASA (also is ex NASA and left NASA due to too many rest & vest folks). In the last round of reviews there were 20+ NASA employees sent locally to review for a couple 1 hour meetings. Initial take from the outside is it looked like a seriously bloated process.
- biofox 2y agoAny large organisation operates the same way. Once a business reaches a certain size, you can't implicitly trust every individual with critical functions. Statistically, someone will eventually break something in a catastrophic way. To prevent that, organisations introduce policies, processes, and review committees to keep things running smoothly. It’s always possible to cut back bureaucracy, but it’s a constant balancing act between efficiency and security.
- calvinmorrison 2y agoSure but large organizations that operate as for-profit businesses will collapse. Government organizations can last much longer and sometimes never collapse under the weight, they just entirely stop being effective.
- biofox 2y agoSome things can only be achieved by large and inefficient organisations though. E.g. no for-profit enterprise would have been able to get to the moon in the 60s.
- fatbird 2y agoAs someone who worked inside Honeywell for 10 years, I can tell you that "large organizations that operate as for-profit businesses will collapse" is absolutely not a true generalization. Everything the GP said about large organizations is true, and after a decade of seeing HW as one of the worst organizations in practice, their stock price was much higher than when I joined because that's the outcome the C suite pursued. This reliance on the profit motive to enforce a Darwinian culling of private enterprises is a spherical cow.
- doubtfuluser 2y agoNot sure in how many countries it would be ok to slash NASA personnel while having your own space company.
- dmix 2y agoWouldn't an expansion of NASA benefit SpaceX, not the inverse? They don't exactly compete.
- nradov 2y agoThey don't compete, but a cynic might say that cutting NASA personnel expenses frees up money to buy more launch services from vendors like SpaceX.
- ceejayoz 2y agoThey absolutely compete. SLS and Starship, for example.
- aerostable_slug 2y agoBoeing builds SLS, not NASA. NASA is the paying customer.
- ceejayoz 2y agoBoeing builds SLS to NASA's specs. They're a contractor; Boeing has no other use for the rocket. Starship is a very different scenario; SpaceX fully intends for it to serve their own purposes as well.
- pyrale 2y agoRegardless of the decision, a businessman being in control of the government agency that funds his company is as bad as it gets in terms of corruption. Next time there's a tender, how will the NASA employee know whether their decision wrt SpaceX is going to get them fired or not?
- ck2 2y agoIs Space X going to be getting at least 10% less per day? They are at $8 Million a day from governement I think I read? So privatize the profits, socialize the costs? Is this still happening or are they going to write off everything now not exclusively white men as ZOMG DEI https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65165845 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65165845
- hedora 2y agoPlenty of white men are being fired today. I guarantee you the vast majority of them support DEI programs too.
- ck2 2y agoAh yes I certainly didn't mean it that way but rather those return-to-moon missions This is an absolutely insane way to do things. And the worst part is even if the courts finally rule this was an abuse of power weeks from now it may be too late, you can't undelete people like webpages (and then there is the matter if such rulings will be obeyed)
- jeffbee 2y agoThe only bright side here is that the grossly over-subsidized regime of Alabama, where the local economy is 95% government science "overhead", is going to get kicked in the face by DOGE boot, and no state deserves it more.
- p_ing 2y agoTo your point, this may trigger AL Congress Critters. I see that as a good thing, if we're going to have to suffer under President Musk and Princess Trump.
- lazide 2y agoThe propaganda machine has ensure there is no way those AL congress critters can defect without being destroyed.
- p_ing 2y agoRepubs have already complained about the [potential] job losses in other areas. https://apnews.com/article/trump-musk-doge-republicans-mike-johnson-26ba7e32fb2bc1c054bf20d911aa5a8f https://apnews.com/article/trump-musk-doge-republicans-mike-... Things like the SLS exist because of Congress critters on both sides of the aisle keep propping it up, no matter how much NASA doesn't want it. SLS isn't some NASA pet-project.
- lazide 2y agoThey can complain all they want. Fear of the propaganda machine will keep them in line. Actions/votes are what matter, and I’m pretty sure you know what is going to happen there. This isn’t the game they want to think it is, as some folks are starting to realize. And others have been yelling about for years.
- cpursley 2y ago[flagged]
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- bryanlarsen 2y agoIt sounds like they're firing the wrong 10%. From what I've heard, the problem at NASA is it has a lot of lifers who justify their positions through bureaucracy. This reduction gets rid of the people at NASA who actually get stuff done. People who get stuff done can easily find jobs in industry, so are more likely to accept buyouts. It also gets rid of the young probationary employees who are still idealistic and have not yet been corrupted by the system.
- whatshisface 2y agoI imagine that laying off the best would lead to a decline in overall performance that would justify further cuts.
- robertlagrant 2y agoTo me, the question is: if it's true that a bunch of lifers are wasting people's hard-earned tax money by being there, therefore management have not done a good job over a long period of time, also taking salaries to do so, then what do you do about it?
- JohnBooty 2y agoA fair question to ask. But, whatever the solution is, "firing all of the new blood" seems pretty much the opposite of whatever the solution might be.
- robertlagrant 2y agoIs that what's happening? Edit: I didn't see the bit about probation. I think that's probably because you have to start with people on probation if you're making people redundant, right?
- micromacrofoot 2y agoNo, they're doing it to probationary employees because they're aren't protected by the same laws that require cause for firing. Political appointees require 30 days notice, rank-and-file must be given cause.
- robofanatic 2y agoWould be interesting to see if SpaceX headcount grows in near future.
- lenerdenator 2y agoThat's great. Was it done in a way that is in accordance with the law, or are we trying to run government like a business, which it definitely should not be?
- seydor 2y agoBusinesses are ran according to the law, and get punished if they don't. Sometimes that doesn't happen with the govt
- titzer 2y ago> get punished Hard disagree on that one. Businesses calculate risk exposure and feign concern when forced (if ever) to pay fines after a lengthy legal battle in which the government goes up against extremely well-paid private lawyers that are financed from the profits of illegal activity. Compliance with the law is just a cost at this point. And flippin' nobody goes to jail for white collar crime anymore.
- lenerdenator 2y ago> Businesses are ran according to the law, and get punished if they don't. Do you want to spend the rest of your afternoon reading about cases where businesses didn't get punished for not running according to the law? Even in the cases where they are punished, it's often well within the cost of doing business. > Sometimes that doesn't happen with the govt For example: right now. We have a buddy of the President deciding to lay off thousands of employees without any respect for the legal procedures for doing so.
- CrimsonChapulin 2y agoOpenAI and Facebook have been pirating content to train their models. Do you honestly expect them to be punished? The law is not the only thing that matters Many of the largest businesses nowadays are run in the most immoral, cutthroat and corrupt way possible with armies of lawyers who’s job is to stall the process and find loop holes in the existing laws so they can keep operating with impunity.
- whatshisface 2y ago>According to sources, about 750 employees at NASA accepted the "fork in the road" offer to take deferred resignation from the space agency later this year. This sounds like a lot of people, but generally about 1,000 people leave the agency every year, so effectively, many of these people might just be getting paid to leave jobs they were already planning to exit from. The culling of "probationary" employees will be more impactful. As it has done at other federal agencies, the Trump administration is generally firing federal employees who are in the "probationary" period of their employment, which includes new hires within the last one or two years or long-time employees who have moved into or been promoted into a new position. About 1,000 or slightly more employees at NASA were impacted by these cuts. Just in case anyone thinks this could tighten up performance, the layoffs are being targeted at the most mobile and the best.
- BurningFrog 2y agoThey're just firing the people they can legally fire.
- hedora 2y agoThe normal approach is to go through the agency’s programs, look at each one’s performance, and to cancel the things that aren’t working out. Among other things, that gets rid of stuff that’s dominated by low performers. Firing only the people that can find another job or that were recently hired does the opposite, which is why this is both illegal and unprecedentedly stupid.
- apical_dendrite 2y agoThey can lay off people legally - Clinton laid off hundreds of thousands of federal employees over 8 years - it's just that laying off non-probationary employees takes time and effort and they don't want to spend the time. And, unlike probationary employees, if they choose to save time when firing people by breaking the law, the non-probationary employees have legal recourse. They can't legally do what they're doing now, they are just counting on the fact that it's very difficult for probationary employees to appeal the illegal firings. Probationary employees can be terminated for performance, but the government legally has to actually show how it concluded that the employee was underperforming. They are not doing this - they are firing people regardless of whether they had good or bad performance reviews or even if they weren't around long enough to have a performance review at all. However, probationary employees have very limited rights to appeal (they can only appeal to MSPB if they allege they were fired for partisan political reasons or for merit status) and Trump now controls MSPB anyway, so they are just counting on the employees not having a way to actually get legal redress even though the firings were illegal. https://www.mspb.gov/appeals/infosheets/Probationary_Employees.pdf https://www.mspb.gov/appeals/infosheets/Probationary_Employe...
- strangeloops85 2y agoLetting go of all probationary employees (hired in the last year) is precisely the wrong way to do any of this. I suspect we will also be hearing about the long time experts that are the only ones who maintain or know about certain systems being rehired desperately.. DOGE is frankly ruining the reputations of Silicon Valley and software engineers in a way I didn’t think possible.. they’re being very stupid about what they’re doing.
- mlinhares 2y agoI take you haven't seen what SV execs have been doing or saying for the last decade to think this is what is going to ruin their reputations.
- morkalork 2y agoRuining more you mean? Techbros did it to themselves and the rest of us too.
- lubujackson 2y agoYou don't hire 22 year olds to do hard work. You hire them and inflate their ego so they will do things they shouldn't, without question. Maybe not there yet (?) But I fully expect these kids to do some highly illegal shit that will land them in prison or worse. They are effectively a meat shield for Elon who is a meat shield for Trump who ignores the courts anyway.
- lbarron6868 2y agoSilicon Valley and it's executives ruined their own reputations. DOGE is going on a bigger scale and ruining the United States and the federal government. SV execs think they can play god and do whatever they want, that they're the chosen few. Simply firing the probationary workers in every department has to be one of the stupidest things to ever happen to this country.
- hedora 2y agoThe big tech companies seem to mostly be aligning with this stuff. However, historically, SV’s strength has been that startups fly under the radar of the east coast, so they can bypass the corruption holding the rest of the country back. I hope this is one of those times, because every time I check the news, another democratic or capitalist institution has been gutted or defected.
- lukashoff 2y agoSurely it's a conflict of interest when private space man fires government space people?
- usrusr 2y agoLike the conflict between grass and a hungry herd of cows. Is it really a conflict of it's that one-sided?
- soco 2y agoUnless there's nobody to do something about it.
- j_timberlake 2y agoI'm pretty sure voters actively want "conflict of interest" as long as their team is winning the conflict. Though it should be obvious to them that Elon is only pretending to be on their team.
- sciencesama 2y agoSpacex will be 6% larger
- xyst 2y agoAll of this while the idiots are pushing a $4.5T in tax cuts. Neoclassical economics and neoliberalism will be the downfall of capitalism itself.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoNASA will likely find themselves in a position where they have to outsource more work to companies like ... SpaceX. What a coincidence, and a totally unexpected outcome from these cuts to "save taxpayer money". Ultimately the goal is privatization. Ask the British how privatizing their rail network has worked out for the average citizen.
- Steve16384 2y agoPrivatizing the water companies would be an even better comparison: literally a shit-show. Privatization only works if there's competition.
- quacked 2y agoI work for a NASA contractor. This is a very stupid, bad move, since young and recently-called-up civil servant talent are often the people we really want to keep. We will be hurting on the Artemis program if the probationary civil servants all fired. In general, I agree that a thorough house-cleaning of NASA would be great for technical achievement, but this is one of the stupidest ways you could do it.
- bamboozled 2y agoDo you think it was stupid or premeditated ?
- quacked 2y agoBoth.
- hodgesrm 2y ago> In general, I agree that a thorough house-cleaning of NASA would be great for technical achievement, but this is one of the stupidest ways you could do it. Unfortunately it's business as usual for the X-style organization reform model. (Not that Musk was the first to do this, of course.)
- quacked 2y agoI am no fan of Musk, but I have always admired his tactics and insights as a technical executive. His actions in X and the government are bizarre, though. I am starting to wonder if he aims to take control of the government directly within his lifetime.
- metalman 2y agoThe real cuts are comming when the debt ceiling is threatening a goverment shutdown, which will then allow the introduction of "emergency measures" vs it's our budget and we have the legal right to bankrupt the country
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- fencepost 2y agoMusk and Trump are like a new team owner in professional sports who decides to save money by firing their entire minor league system, except with way more pettiness and spite. But hey, Musk gets to keep eliminating everyone who might exercise oversight on his companies or business activities, so it's all good right?
- readthenotes1 2y agoPretty funny all these comments about something that didn't happen.
- amai 2y agoESA is hiring: https://jobs.esa.int/ https://jobs.esa.int/