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The Almighty Buck Government Space Politics

NASA Jet Propulsion Lab Lays Off 300 Engineers 318

Posted by Zonk from the people-are-superfluous dept.
Ghost of Von Karmen writes "NASA JPL, the lab that brought us missions such as Voyager, Cassini, and the Mars Exploration Rovers will eliminate about 300 engineering related positions due to Congressional budget cuts, according to various sources. The cuts reflect a change in emphasis away from robotic technology and toward human exploration of space. Prof. Elachi, head of JPL has indicated that the lab may pursue Department of Defense contracts to minimize additional reductions in personnel."
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NASA Jet Propulsion Lab Lays Off 300 Engineers More

NASA Jet Propulsion Lab Lays Off 300 Engineers

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  • Yeah right (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:40PM (#13794521)
    The cuts reflect a change in emphasis away from robotic technology and toward human exploration of space.

    The cuts reflect the tremendous cost of warmongering around the world...
    • Why did this guy get a 'troll' score?? He's got a point!

      • Re:Indeed (Score:3, Interesting)

        by symbolic ( 11752 )

        Thst cost of Dubya's game of GI-JOE will cost us more than we realize- I have a feeling that this is only one of many side-effects we'll be seeing.

      • Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Informative)

        by Dominic_Mazzoni ( 125164 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @07:38PM (#13794870) Homepage
        Why did this guy get a 'troll' score?? He's got a point!

        Actually NASA's budget has not increased or decreased significantly, and while I'm not a fan of warmongering, I don't think that warmongering is getting in the way of NASA's budget, which is tiny in comparison. NASA is getting the same money but is shifting priorities around in order to retire the shuttle earlier. This is a good thing. People are being laid off at some NASA centers, and others are hiring.

        • Re:Yeah right (Score:4, Insightful)

          by cmacb ( 547347 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @09:07PM (#13795271) Homepage Journal
          "This is a good thing. People are being laid off at some NASA centers, and others are hiring."

          Your problem my friend is that you are looking at the big picture instead of just some microscopic Bush-hating sliver of it.

          First of all, the story is mischaracterized here. From one of the articles:

          "McGregor said the cuts would include support staff, engineering and technology positions, though she declined to give specifics. Scientist positions "are a little bit different," she said, because most scientists receive grants for their research."

          The articles also say that a lot of the cuts will be through attrition (for the not-so-literate: that means normal retirements, job changes etc.), and affects mostly "support" positions and contractors, not scientists. Translation: "the cafeteria will no longer be open until 5PM."

          Contrary to popular belief (it would seem), erstwhile rocket scientists are not being deployed to Iraq.

          In fact there have been many people for years that have argued that the manned program, PARTICULARLY the Shuttle program took way too much of the NASA budget away from more pure forms of space research, and now, to rescue and re-invent that effort we are doing it again. But many of us have too short an attention span, and had our vision focused to only what it reported in the sensationalist headlines (including the Slashdot ones). Congratulations on being in the well informed minority.

          I'll now proceed to view some of the wild and crazy popular-media inspired posts to see what joe-armchair thinks about the world.

          • Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 15, 2005 @12:37AM (#13795853)
            affects mostly "support" positions and contractors, not scientists. Translation: "the cafeteria will no longer be open until 5PM."

            First, JPL is primarily an engineering organization, not a science one. About 5% of the technical people are titled as "scientists," though about 30% of the technical people have PhDs, and another ~30% masters degrees. And as much as it would offend many of both the scientists and engineers to hear it, many of the "scientists" do a lot of engineering, and many of the "engineers" do more than a little science. In some areas the people who do R&D (as opposed to routine design work) will get hit because their low level organizations don't value R&D (strange but true), even though the R&D people might have money and support from project offices. And even though they aren't actively laying off scientists, all NASA has to do is be slow about delivering on the grants (not new at all-- sometimes they deliver money a year or more late) and scientists are effectively laid off because they have no money. I know scientists who are just as worried as engineers about the situation. And who do you think designs hardware and cuts metal for most of the science work? Engineers and technicians.

            The cuts include around 200 people in the engineering and science directorate, which is relatively lean on "support staff." Much of the support stuff was outsourced in the "5000 by 2000" under Dan Goldin (reduce the JPL staff to 5000 heads by the year 2000). The cafeteria used to be contractors and is now Caltech Food Service (but not JPL staff). The police force was outsourced. I think the firefighters are still staff. The desktop computing services was outsourced. I think the copy shops have been run by contractors since as far back as I remember.

            About 100 of the 300 will come from outside the Engineering and Science directorate, which includes procurement and subcontracts, QA (people love to hate QA, but they do some pretty useful things, and there are people there who do real engineering, like qualifying electronic parts for space environments), business analysts and schedulers (people who track all the boring stuff for the engineers), proposal support (people who stay up all night to make the engineers' and scientists' proposals look good--a lot of money comes in via proposals), and there are probably more.

            On top of this, something like 100-200 (or more, it's been kind of fuzzy) contractors who are resident on lab will also be dropped (effectively laid off), many of whom are doing engineering work that JPL couldn't otherwise get done (that's why they get brought in). Many of them are quite talented, and there aren't staff people who can do what they're doing, even though the work hasn't been cancelled, just the positions.

            The weird thing is that normally layoffs occur when money is cut or projects are cancelled (and that generally makes sense), but this time people are being laid off while they have work, basically setting up a bunch of tasks for failure. A lot of people got laid off after the two Mars rovers delivered (I bet you didn't hear about that-- there were stacks of awards that didn't get delivered because the people who earned them had been laid off when they delivered and were no longer funded). This one just seems strange, and poorly thought out and poorly communicated-- the public statements don't add up in the context of how money and employment work at JPL.

            Always be skeptical of the PR flaks, whether they're bringing good news or bad.

    • Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Funny)

      by JeffSh ( 71237 ) <jeffslashdot&m0m0,org> on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:52PM (#13794611)
      i think this could be the first +5, Troll i've ever seen on slashdot.

    • Re:Yeah right (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Kickboy12 ( 913888 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:57PM (#13794643) Homepage
      Yeah. It's sad, isn't it? We live in a world where finding more advanced ways of killing people is more important than understanding the universe.

    • Re:Yeah right (Score:2, Insightful)

      by hcob$ ( 766699 )
      The cuts reflect the tremendous cost of warmongering around the world...

      br> Perhaps if you'd take what you call a head out of your ass and see what is going on in the world,you wouldn't be so quick to call it warmongering. Unless you'd LIKE to be beheaded for what theses crazies call Islam. I have too much respect for real Muslims to call what they do fighting for the sake of Islam.
      • Perhaps if you'd take what you call a head out of your ass and see what is going on in the world,you wouldn't be so quick to call it warmongering. Unless you'd LIKE to be beheaded for what theses crazies call Islam. I have too much respect for real Muslims to call what they do fighting for the sake of Islam.

        Why do you hate America?

      • Re:Yeah right (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Jeremi ( 14640 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @07:13PM (#13794738) Homepage
        Interestingly enough, Iraq was a secular state. It looks like it will become an Islamic state in the near future, thanks to our efforts.
        • Interestingly enough, Iraq was a secular state. It looks like it will become an Islamic state in the near future, thanks to our efforts.

          So you have a problem with Islamic democracies, then?

          And here I thought we were trying to allow them to choose their own type of government... Silly me.

      • Re:Yeah right (Score:2, Interesting)

        by cr0sh ( 43134 )
        I hate to break it to ya, but nobody in Iraq did anything to us before we invaded. This undeclared war we are in was sold to the American public via a myriad of lies and deceit, for who knows exactly what purpose (maybe to make Cheney's buddies at Haliburton richer?). At worst, the only thing Iraq was guilty of was not abiding by the provisions set up after the first Gulf War. One could say that by doing so, a declaration of war wasn't necessary - but all that is just interpretation/mangling of the powers o
    • The cuts reflect the tremendous cost of warmongering around the world...

      If they would just start making bombs, maybe they could get some funding.

    • Re:Yeah right (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The cuts reflect the tremendous cost of warmongering around the world...

      No, they just reflect a change of priorities.

      Besides, it's hard to argue that the Iraq war affects NASA's budget when the NASA bugdet has been increasing pretty steadily under Bush [wikipedia.org] and that Bush just passed a 6% funding increase in 2005 [space.com] and a 2.4% funding increase in 2006 [space.com].

      The war budget and the NASA budget have no relationship with each other. Both are paid on deficit spending.
    • Nah, we've been slowly eviscerating the space program over the past three decades -- long before W brought back "cowboy diplomacy." Sure, in part that's because going to the moon is expensive, so it's cheaper to go to near-earth-orbit, but it's also because people have it in their heads that spending money to go into space is equivalent to firing the money itself into space -- forgetting that there are gains in knowledge, advnaces in technology, and you know what, exploration is actually inspiring.

      I don't

    • Re:Yeah right (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Keebler71 ( 520908 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @10:29PM (#13795480) Journal
      What cuts? Look like the budget is increasing 2% each of the next several years or so.

      http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/107493main_FY_06_budget_su mm.pdf [nasa.gov]

      Looking back to the 50's, in real dollars NASA's budget has been increasing pretty much throughout except for from 66-71 or so. I could really throw my karma to the wind and point out that the budget under Bush jr has increased consistently in both then and 1996-constant dollars, and that it appears Clinton and Nixon seem to be the only two presidents who presided over a continuous decrease in NASA budget (constant 1996 dollars).

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget [wikipedia.org]

      Of course, the article is about cuts at JPL and I am talking about NASA's budget... but I feel perfectly comfortable with a slight redirect like that given that the majority of posts (and most space-related threads on slashdot) schitzophrenically vacillate between "we need more money for human space exploration" and "human exploration budget is raiding scientific space research".

  • Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by geomon ( 78680 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:41PM (#13794525) Homepage Journal
    Because humans in space is the most important way to conduct space exploration.

    Okay... I couldn't keep a straight face either.
    • Humans in space inspire. Inspiration drives people into sciences and engineering and forces politicians to fund more space ventures.

      • Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by DA-MAN ( 17442 )
        Humans in space inspire. Inspiration drives people into sciences and engineering and forces politicians to fund more space ventures.

        Can you name the names of any astronoauts that have been into space, aside from the first people to land on the moon? Probably not. . .

        Can you name the last few major projects that came out of JPL? I know I can. Deep Impact, Mars Rovers, Cassini Huygens, etc . . .
        • Being the first man in space was memorable. Landing on the Moon was memorable. Endlessly orbiting our planet, doing "routine" things is very, very unmemorable. The name of the first person to set foot on Mars will be remembered.
      • Robots inspire too. See unmannedspaceflight.com [unmannedspaceflight.com], especially the topics about Mars Exlopation Rovers.

      • Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by drsquare ( 530038 )
        Humans can't explore space. Exploration is finding new things. There's nowhere humans can go that hasn't already been explored by probes or seen by telescopes.

        If we put a human on Mars, they won't be exploring it, because it's already been done by probes. Yeah we could send them to new places, but a probe would do the job a thousand times more effectively.

        Should politicans fund more space ventures? I don't like the thought of my hard-earned wages being spent on getting some blurry pictures of some distant n
    • Because humans in space is the most important way (indeed, the only way) to conduct space settlement and eventual colonization.

  • Shit (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lilmouse ( 310335 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:42PM (#13794529)
    That's a bad sign of the times. Especially the DoD part. Granted, one can make tons of money on DoD work, but still, that's not what space is supposed to be about.

    --LWM

    • Re:Shit (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Martin Blank ( 154261 )
      Pray tell, what is space supposed to be about?

      I'm against weapons in space (weaponizing space will automatically cause me to not vote for someone), but last I checked, space wasn't about anything, really. We can explore it, we can exploit it. DoD is involved in both to some extent. So is NASA.
      • but last I checked, space wasn't about anything, really.

        Exactly, space is... well... space. There's a reason they call it that, because it's a whole lot of nothing.
      • Pray tell, what is space supposed to be about?

        Space is about curiosity, imagination and scientific endevor.
        It's about understanding and interacting with the universe in which we live.

        It's about intellect, exploration, and doing something greater and worthy or remberance.

        200 years from now the moon landing will still be considered a major event. I wasn't alive for that one, but maybe I can be for the Mars landing.

  • -1: Flamebait (Score:4, Informative)

    by Karma_fucker_sucker ( 898393 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:43PM (#13794535)
    At the same time, we feel fortunate that we have the work ahead of us that we do."

    At the same time I feel sad that something as beneficial to science, humanity, technology, economy, and to our lives can be cut so easily. But when it comes to the military or pork projects, a blank check is issued.

  • Write your Congressman TODAY! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Derling Whirvish ( 636322 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:43PM (#13794537) Journal
    This is serious and incredibly stupid. Do not let this pass without contacting you Congressman and telling tham how incredibly stupid and short-sighted this really is.

    http://www.house.gov/writerep/ [house.gov]

    Commenting here will accomplish nothing. You MUST write your Congressional representative. Be civil.

    • No, FAX! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Karma_fucker_sucker ( 898393 )
      If you write your congressman and snail mail it, it has to go through the scanning for bombs, anthrax, etc... which could takes weeks before it gets to him/her.

      Email has a habit of getting deleted or lost in the spam.

      Faxing produces a peice of paper that doesn't go through security and is harder to get deleted.

    • Use my form (Score:3, Interesting)

      by dada21 ( 163177 ) *
      Honorable [name]:

      Thank you for cutting the budget of [department]. It is obvious that you understand our Federast Republic as well as the limits the Constitution sets over your powers.

      I am glad that you also understand that the [number] jobs eliminated will reappear in greater numbers in private businesses that will grow stronger from the money taxpayers won't have to spend supporting unconstitutional programs.

      I appreciate your ability to restrain your powers and offer your constituents the chance to spend
      • obviously you missed what administration we have. you won't be paying more in taxes when they spend more these programs. you'll just keep getting refund checks that represent money the government never had and the money will go towards other equally unconstitional programs(if you feel spending on NASA is unconstitutional).

        but forgetting all that, you shouldn't worry about that money too much. that money will appear in the distant future through economic growth. you know, its that future Keynes was talk
    • This is serious and incredibly stupid.

      Why?

      The article says: ``The cuts reflect a change in emphasis away from robotic technology and toward human exploration of space.'' How is it stupid to lay off the guys doing the robotics work we no longer want? Isn't NASA a big enough boondoggle already, without adding featherbedding to the mess?

      I'm all in favor of space exploration and colonisation, and that's why I think we need to shut down NASA. This does nothing for or against shutting down NASA, but it

      • You posted this to get modded +5 funny right? You can't be serious. This is a joke. What NASA needs to do is drop the human space travel and focus on the robotics. Let the private companies get all the space tourists and let them build space stations and moon bases. NASA should really stop wasting its time with low orbital flight and shoot for the stars. Robitis missions can do science today that humans will most likely not be able to do for the next hundred years. It also takes a technical skill tha

    • Re:Write your Congressman TODAY! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dominic_Mazzoni ( 125164 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @07:36PM (#13794856) Homepage
      This is serious and incredibly stupid.

      I'm a JPL employee. I'm not a manager or anything, but here's how I understand the situation.

      While this is serious and unfortunate for the people being laid off, I don't think that NASA's priorities are necessarily misplaced in this case. Mike Griffin, the new NASA administrator, has made it his top goal to get the replacement for the space shuttle ready as soon as possible - much faster than had been planned previously. This is a very good thing - everyone I know at NASA is applauding this.

      NASA's overall budget has not changed significantly. As a result, Griffin had to make the tough decision to cancel a few programs, including one big robotic mission, in order to put more money into retiring the shuttle. Very importantly, he did not cancel any Earth science programs, and didn't cancel any Mars exploration programs.

      It's unfortunate that this has affected JPL so much (more than all other NASA centers except Ames), and to be totally honest morale is pretty low at the lab right now because this caught everyone by surprise. But the truth is that JPL's director, Charles Elachi, has been very forthcoming and frank about the whole thing, and really seems to be making a serious effort to be fair about the layoffs. And even though I may not agree with every decision they make, I have enormous respect for both Elachi and Griffin. They're both scientists/engineers, not MBAs or something like that (the first NASA administrator Bush appointed was an accountant - he had no clue what he was doing), and they have extremely impressive credentials. They're smart, honest, and very experienced, and they're both trying to do what's best for NASA in the long run.

      • Re:Write your Congressman TODAY! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by fbg111 ( 529550 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @08:48PM (#13795178)
        Thanks for weighing in, always nice to hear from someone with real experience in the topic.

        Quick question - for those of us on the outside it appears that we get much more value out of our robotic missions than the manned ones, from various interplanetary probes to the Mars landers. They're relatively cheap, successful, can be done relatively quickly (compared to 20 years for Mars) and return a wealth of fascinating knowledge. What do people at JPL, and NASA in general think of manned Mars missions? Is there consensus that we should do it, even at the great expense, or is there internal debate about it? Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't devote NASA's resources to producing more efficient propulsion systems for Mars and other manned interplanetary missions, instead of attempting such missions with with current propulsion technology.
    • Stupid and short-sighted? Tell me, does the government work any other way?

      ~X~

  • Checks Calendar ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mpapet ( 761907 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:45PM (#13794558) Homepage
    Gov't employees laid off..

    Is this April 1st?

    Seriously though, remember it's not about the science.

    It's about making it safe for corporations to own things in space. Corporations need people in space, not robots. Right now, the people are cheaper and do more than robots.

    Not researching robots and spending lots of money figuring out how to make them do things is another public policy misstep. Sad.
  • And I'm sure somebody will say that education is still usefull- despite this becoming almost a cliche story. You never hear "Major Labortory/Tech Company to lay off C-level exectutives in an attempt to keep R&D running". Why would any young person go into science or technology if this is the way they treat people?

    • Re:Another reason NOT to go into science/engineeri (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rolfwind ( 528248 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @07:23PM (#13794793)
      Not only this, but it used be that the top executive at Fortune 500 companies 20 years age got something like 20X what a "normal" lay person gets paid (though I'm sure stock options were there aplenty to). These days it's ballooned to ballooned to 50x and up. And when they do get laid off, they have so many parachute clauses and termination pay-offs that being laid-off is the best thing that could have every happened to them - you don't even have to be good at your job - witness Carlo Fiorina at HP. Or Meg Whitman at Ebay - (she's a billionaire from heading ebay! And I was there from the beginning, DESPITE her blunders, it was going up anyway, if anything it was a free ride).

      Sorry if it seems I'm picking on the girls, these just happen to be the companies I follow--.--, there are percentage wise also a lot of crappy guy CEOs - Darl McBride for one.

      The CEO of Costco is one of those people I still look up to in business, most of the rest are ratbags willing to sell out the company in order to grab as much as they can in their short tenors as leaders. The Costco CEO (and co-founder, I believe) only pays himself 250,000 a year and insists on paying his workers a decent wage (something like 15-16 dollars/hour to start with) plus health benefits unlike Walmart.

      http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_22 /b3885011_mz001.htm [businessweek.com]
    • This is a big problem with science and engineering in the US. Careers are too unstable to bank on, or justify the tremendous amount of education (and debt!) required.

      Engineering was once considered a very stable profession -- like medicine, law, accounting, etc. Parents encouraged their children to become engineers, so they wouldn't suffer the ups and downs of blue collar or creative work.

      Well now the tide has turned. Engineers may be subject to the worst ups and downs of all. High tech industry has alw

  • Wish I had a violin... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:47PM (#13794574) Homepage Journal
    One of my main CNC/machining suppliers does 20% of his business with NASA but they account for 95% of his profits.

    I recently saw some of his invoices and NASA is typical government waste. Take your $300 toilet seats and $600 screw drivers and double it.

    I really want the FOIA to open up every invoice for public consumption in PDF real time. NASA is no friend of the taxpayers.

    Is NASA really getting a budget cut or did they just overspend with the cronies again?
    • I have to say, I do somewhat agree with you. Regardless of the money being spent in Iraq right now, NASA is notorious for not knowing where billions of dollars are spent. When large amounts of money go missing, there should be a criminal investigation, because it means that somebody is getting a massive paycheck. The Feds are all over the state and local governments when some crook runs off with some money, but when was the last time you saw anyone in the federal government get cited for embezzlement? I

    • Not a $600 screwdriver problem (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14, 2005 @07:26PM (#13794808)
      I currently work on a JPL project.

      We've been having budget problems for a while now. Two big causes are Hubble and the President's space exploration plan. We got a budget cut when they decided they wanted to investigate repairing Hubble. Then we got more cuts to divert money to the President's plan.

      Working here is nothing like working for industry. We do things as efficiently as we can because we have barely enough money to keep operating. We use free software tools when we can, we only buy computers when they go on sale, etc.

      Keep in mind the highly talented and educated engineers here are working for much less money than they would get in industry because they think it is worthwhile.
      • Bullshit. I worked for JPL for 25 years and retired about two years ago. During my 25 years there I saw JPL go from a relatively lean and mean organization that was actually fun to work at, to a top heavy morass of bureaucracy so burdensome with so many damn rules and regulations that it's a miracle anything at all ever gets done there anymore. Most of the people who knew what they were doing have either retired, died, or otherwise left JPL. Many of the people remaining have no idea how to design a simple c

    • Re:Wish I had a violin... (Score:5, Informative)

      by earthforce_1 ( 454968 ) <earthforce_1@y[ ]o.com ['aho' in gap]> on Friday October 14, 2005 @08:44PM (#13795158) Journal
      I used to work for a company that did military contracts, (your proverbial $500 screwdriver) and I could tell you that in many cases they were selling them at a loss. The $500 screwdriver contract would read as follows:

      You will need a certificate from the foundary certifing that it does not contain substance X or Y, and no more than ### ppm of element Z. This must be signed off by the chief metalurgist. Each screwdriver shall be x-rayed to ensure it contains no manufacturing defects.

      At least one screwdriver from each lot must be tested to destruction, to ensure it has the required strength and does not emit any toxic fumes while being blown up or burned.

      The screwdriver contract shall contain no less than 500 pages, detailing stuff like exactly what angles the fillets shall be on the handle, the minimum torque strength of the shaft, etc. These specification shall be revised no less than 3 times throughout the program, sending the manufacturer back to the drawing board on each occasion.

      Each screwdriver shall be individually serial numbered, and come with a 50 page manual detailing proper screwdriver storage procedures, table listing 14 digit part numbers for all screws that can be adjusted with it, and detailed pictorials showing how the screwdriver shall be used.

      The specifications for military semiconductors were so onerous that most part manufacturers simply gave up on it. I remember stuff like having to manually pull each bonding wire to test its strength, lengthy temerature soaks, etc. This led to the rise of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) manufacturing, which essentially modified commercial grade components for military use.

      • The specifications for military semiconductors were so onerous that most part manufacturers simply gave up on it.

        And this is precisely the reason that the specifications are so onerous.

        Do you really think it makes a difference that a screwdriver meets this rigorous of a specification in 90% of the cases? No. It's just another way for the powers that be to pass big dollar contracts to their buds in industry. Often these contracts are written in such a precise way to make sure that only one or two contrac

        • "It's just another way for the powers that be to pass big dollar contracts to their buds in industry."

          Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Without specifications, you end up with screwdrivers with the tensile strength of peanut brittle, all because the guy who owned the shoddy screwdriver factory was a friend of a friend of a US Senator.
  • Wouldn't the Politically Correct term in this case be... jettisoned?

    Then again, politics always confuses me...

  • Robots are cheaper (Score:4, Insightful)

    by abradsn ( 542213 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:48PM (#13794581) Homepage
    What stupidity is this? Robots are the cheapest way to explore space. The technology advances in robotics actually have real use on Earth. Yep, let's remove the federally funded program that has the most impact at NASA and replace it with a pipe dream of 2 missions. One to the moon, and one to mars. What then. Astronaut: Hmm, hey it would be nice to have some remote control robots out there in the harshest environments ever... or, Astronaut: Let's climb into a plastic bag filled with air and dance around in a low G environment. Oops, don't fall down, or you puncture your suit and quickly die.

  • Priorities (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
    $6BILLION a month to cover for Bush's WMD lies in Iraq would pay for a lot of JPL engineers. Hell, if we sent $6BILLION of JPL engineers a month to Iraq instead of invading, Iraq would have a Moon base by now.
    • Or Saddam and family would have the nicest moon-rock jacuzzis in the mideast! :-D

      --LWM

    • Iraq would have a Moon base by now.

      I'm convincned the only way to get Americans to give 2 shits about space travel is to tell them there might be Muslims on the Moon. But then I realize that'll only get the public interested in bombing space instead of exploring it.

  • the reason why (Score:3, Insightful)

    by myStupidNickName ( 897776 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:49PM (#13794591)
    Listen to Elachi's speeches.
    This is not a permanent shift from robotics to manned exploration in the NASA mindset. This is a painful but hopefully temporary shift to get the CEV up faster so we don't have such a large down time between when the shuttle expires and the CEV comes on line. Robotics is still the acknowledged way to go, just not this year.

    JPL funding for '06 is the same order of magnitude as '03, just much less than '04 and '05.
    • That excuse makes little sense. If objectives need to be achieved in robotics research, what is more economical
      • mothball partially completed projects and try to restart them in a couple of years with new staff
      • or, complete projects using the researchers that have been working on them from the start?

      A hiring freeze combined with postponing new projects might make sense, but breaking up top research teams is stupid.

      Maybe some organisation with some foresight (such as Google or IBM) can use the opportunit

  • I know why (Score:3, Funny)

    by bl00d6789 ( 714958 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:49PM (#13794592)
    The cuts reflect a change in emphasis away from robotic technology and toward human exploration of space.
    Because fake moon landings are so much more compelling than fake Mars rover landings! ;-)
  • This news really saddens me. But I will say this. I read a great book about a year ago about the design and building of Sojourner, the rover that accompanied Pathfinder to Mars, and I recall a part about there not always being enough work for the engineers that they had. It would not be uncommon for a project to end, and for someone to not have a project in which to go.

    Hey, I guess you can have an unjust war based on lies, or you can have science, but not both. Throw a hurricane in and it all really goe

  • Anyone know the real unemployment rate in the US (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CrazyJim1 ( 809850 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:51PM (#13794606) Journal
    The advetised rate of unemployment is 6%, but once people stop collecting their money, they're no longer counted. Anyone know the true percentage of people without work in the US?

    • Re:Anyone know the real unemployment rate in the U (Score:5, Insightful)

      by teutonic_leech ( 596265 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:55PM (#13794635)
      During some news report I actually heard that it was closer to around 8-10% - they're a lot more honest in Europe in how they count people without employment. Basically, in Europe:

      unemployed = No income

      In the U.S.:

      unemployed = Collecting unemployment

  • This is a NASA-wide issue, not just JPL (Score:3, Informative)

    by Manhigh ( 148034 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:54PM (#13794625)
    In addition to a large number of contractor layoffs already occurring thoughout NASA, such as those at JPL, there will likely be a reduction in the civil-servant payroll via layoffs as well.

    While I agree that we need to transition from Shuttle to something else, its not going to be a painless process. Many very skilled scientists and engineers will lose their job because it isnt applicable to the immediate needs of the human exploration program.
  • If one really want to cut costs, one should replace employees (especially astronauts) with robots. Oh wait, they got rid of the engineers who were going to make the robots. Never mind.

  • Stephen Baxter foresaw this (Score:3, Informative)

    by sconeu ( 64226 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:59PM (#13794654) Homepage Journal
    In his novel Voyage [amazon.com], Stephen Baxter postulated an alternate reality where NASA went to Mars after the Moon. There were no landings post-Apollo 13, and much space science was sacrificed on the altar of Mars. No Voyager, no Pioneer, etc... They didn't even believe that a Venus flyby gravity assist trajectory to Mars would work or even be possible.
    • The kid is in town and he gets paid. Every single group that paid got PAID.
      Big oil, big pharma, Halliburton, Religous right, Banks, Real Estate, Developers etc. etc. etc.

      Didn't see JPL on that list.. goodbye.

  • From the article and slashdot post:

    cuts reflect a change in emphasis away from robotic technology and toward human exploration of space

    I know it's way over simplifying, but does anyone sense a certain irony that now as we move to a payload of humans in space travel rather than robotics, the workforce to support that is reduced?

  • I think the current state of space exploration can be seen as "trying to run before learning to walk". We are trying to leap from the Computer Age right into the Space Age. A smoother progress might be going from the Computer Age to a Robotics/Nano-Machines Age to first stablize the these important technologies on Earth before applying them to space.
  • don't worry, this is a good thing... the NASA chief was actually sent from the future to stop advances in robotic technology in order to thwart the rise of terminator robots in the near future. The key space-time point is to stop a lowly intern from sending up some new programming to the Mars rovers early next year that, coupled with a lightening strike on Mars, will give rise to sentient intelligence on the rover which will build an army of invading rovers each equipped with rock drill bits that will kill
  • Google just hired 300 former NASA Jet Propulsion Lab engineers who used to work next door.
    • Google just hired 300 former NASA Jet Propulsion Lab engineers who used to work next door.

      Ummmm, yeah, because Pasadena is right next to Mountain View. (They're both in California, but about 350 miles apart.)

      Also, I know it was a joke, but do you honestly think that most of those fired were among the best and the brightest? Most of the people to go will be the bottom 5-10%...I don't know if Google wants them.
      • Well JPL is in Pasadena, but Ames is hit too and it's of course in Mountain View next to Google...

        If we believe the nasawatch site [nasawatch.com], it seems that this RIF might be structured as a buyout (the carrot), with a later layoff (the stick). Although ususally intended to convince the high-priced old-timers to leave (to avoid the inevitable layoff), this strategy often has the unintended consequence of scaring the good people who can find better situations into taking the money and finding a better situation.

        So yes
  • I wonder if China is going to be at these engineer's doorsteps as soon as they get laid off to snatch em up for their own space program. This could be a big loss for an already low US engineering market.
  • I am angry at NASA. Can someone relly tell me what actually works as intended at NASA?

    NASA should learn to do and achieve/deliver more with less. Heck, how come the Russians can do it?

    For slashdotters' information, giant Russian Antonov-124 cargo aircraft are the ones doing the heavy lifting in Pakistan. We in the US have nothing comparable. Sad!

  • The cuts reflect a change in emphasis away from robotic technology and toward human exploration of space. ... and human exploration of space where we push to new frontiers was of course never aided tremendously by state of the art robotic technology and research. :-p This is the Jet Propulsion Labs. Even to a layman, the generic name should tell a bit of how important it is, even for human exploration of space.

  • New science projects (Score:3, Insightful)

    by msbsod ( 574856 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @07:32PM (#13794834)
    Maybe NASA needs new science projects to be on better terms with the current administration. How about
    • the earth is flat,
    • the earth is the center of the universe,
    • we all were created based on intelligent design,
    • search for the creator,
    • radiation is good for the creation,
    • mercury can be converted into gold,
    • spontaneous combustion of people does happen,
    • ozone holes do not exist and affect only countries,
    • global warming cannot happen?
    Sorry for the exaggeration, but what most people in the US still do not realize is that NASA is not the only research institution facing mass layoffs. There is a broad program running to shut down research labs nationwide. At the same time tens of billions of dollars are shifted to religious extremists. It makes me feel sick when I see what is happening.
    • Sorry for the exaggeration, but what most people in the US still do not realize is that NASA is not the only research institution facing mass layoffs....At the same time tens of billions of dollars are shifted to religious extremists.

      ...and you didn't provide a single source for all of your claims. Don't get mad at the uninformed world when you're uninformed yourself. I posted this as an AC earlier, but it needs repeating.

      The NASA bugdet has been increasing pretty steadily under Bush [wikipedia.org], and Bush just pa

      • Bush's whole Mars project is just a publicity campaign. Decisions about the project are going to be made after the end of his presidency. In the meantime NASA has to cope delayed compensation of inflation, namely those numbers you quote, while my friends at NASA tell me about the projects which are being canceled now. `Crisis' is written on the wall. Read the articles in the section "Research Funding" at http://www.aps.org/public_affairs/index.cfm [aps.org] and see yourself.

  • The worst part of this, in my opinion, is that we don't even need human exploration. Right now the cheap and effective way to find things out about outer space is through robotics. No need for life support, no need to bring it back alive. And robotics will play a huge role in the future. Human exploration may be useful a few hundred years from now, but not yet.

  • Let's call it the Cheap Space Access Subsidy Act. We don't need a space elevator or some new technology to get cheap access to space. Sure, these technologies would be a boon but we don't need to get the government involved in their construction, and if we do we probably end up paying 100x as much for it. The only level of involvement that government needs to play in bootstrapping access to space is a subsidy. Sam Dinkin proposes a ten-year, $150-billion federal subsidy. [thespacereview.com] With upcoming American commerci
  • I didn't read the article, but this is nonsensical. What happened to multitasking?

    Why can't they keep small evolving groups that develop disparate but complementary principles?

    Robotics will clearly accomplish more in the short run because space travel has deleterious effects on humans that we cannot yet counter effectively. Are we acceding that we will be sending astronauts to their deaths on long term missions? Or are we gonna wait another couple of fucking generations for the singularity to solve everythi

  • The Inside Opinion (Score:4, Informative)

    by SkiGuyUSC ( 736400 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @07:56PM (#13794957)
    I'm a software engineer at JPL and I just thought I'd give my two cents worth. Layoffs are never a good thing, but it's not as though this is the first time either. There are always upturns and downturns. There is a lot of talk about congressional budget cuts, which is obviously the source of despair.

    I'm not saying it's the *only* reason, but the president's emphasis on manned missions does certainly have an impact on JPL operations. JPL, as many of you know, specializes in delivering science data to interested parties. The majority of this data comes from unmanned missions (most of which were mentioned previously). The major emphasis from the government is now on retiring the shuttle and advancing to more sophisticated exploration vehicles. Recent snafus certainly haven't helped. I think in the end, however, things will come back around. New manned exploration almost certainly will not come about devoid of casualties. When human life becomes a concern again, I think views will change.

    On the other hand, I've heard that some of the other NASA centers will be hit much harder. Considering JPL has almost 5500 employees (and the number of employees has been on the rise for awhile now), I personally think it could have been much worse.

    Anyway, I don't claim to be the inside expert, just thought I'd share.

  • More on Nasawatch (Score:4, Informative)

    by Dusty ( 10872 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @07:59PM (#13794971) Homepage

    There's more on this in Nasawatch's Personnel News Archive [nasawatch.com].

  • In their upcoming job interview they can say, "Dude, I'm a freakin' rocket scientist!". I always wanted to say that...
  • It's a shame that the group of people responsible for truly ground breaking work, gets the ax first. JPL is a household name for the amazing robots they built. And they're the ones who get canned when there's a shift in priorities. No wonder the space shuttle keeps blowing up with management like this.

    failure -> rewarded with more funding
    success -> punished with being shut down

  • I still don't get this. Reward failure (KSC, JSC) and punish success (JPL). Talk about screwed up.

    That the "reason" for JPL's cuts are two essential, enabling missions for future efforts is beyond the pale. They are cutting the present and forfeiting the future. This is an egregious extension of NASA's behavior in the 1990s and early 00s - cuts across the board to fund overruns in Station/Shuttle. The irony being the lack of performance in those systems.

    The telecom orbiter was important, so were the nuke en

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