Looking Inside A Changing JPL

Anonymous Coward writes "Space.com is running a series called Inside JPL. The first part is called 'Dark times: hope on the heels of failure.' It's an interesting read discussing a little history, and management changes underway to make JPL more efficient. Some of the changes include throwing out the rules." The history is certainly interesting and well worth reading, but the parts about changing management are a bit rah-rah and cliche-ridden for me.

Comments

JPL Needs Shaking Up

[s390]

I know. I worked there as an IT consultant right about the time the Mars Rover made them look good - for a couple of brief months.

But the management incompetence I witnessed at JPL was truly monumental. They are a poster child for how not to manage IT. No one is really responsible for anything (at least, not in their IT support division). It's all management by committee, leavened with lots of capriciousness and internal politics. Their IT "support" staff is doing well to show up for work at all, much less for meetings - they simply overschedule meetings and only go to the ones with the most powerful chairperson. It is a nightmare trying to get anything done at JPL because everyone has their own Machiavellian loyalties and agendas, and these are all hidden. What does is say that JPL actually flew _two_ payloads right into the ground on Mars - at $millions of _your_ taxpayor dollars apiece? JPL is too bloated.

NASA should just fire everyone in "management" at JPL, void all their IT support contracts, then start over hiring "the best and the brightest" again, and rebid the IT support to firms who care. If NASA needs to save money, they should strip down JPL, seriously.