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NASA Knows How To Party
doug141 writes "NASA spends between $400,000 and $1.3 million on a party at every shuttle launch, according to CBS. Select personnel are treated to 5 days at a 4 star hotel. This year alone, they've spent $4 million on parties. NASA asked for, and was given, $1 billion more from the Senate this year. NASA proponents argue it makes more sense to give money to talented, productive people in exchange for scientific knowledge, than spend in on unproductive people in the form of straight welfare."
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Afterall, it might be some of the guests' last night on Earth.
liqbase
News at Eleven! Some people are more valuable than others!
The real problem is, Congress can get more votes by paying Welfare than paying for celebrations for people taking our country forward.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
While expensive, keeping the morale high at NASA means keeping the even more expensive astronauts alive.
The game.
They spend less than one tenth of 1% of their budget celebrating their continued technological successes. That's probably less than ANY private company anywhere. It's not like they're not getting stuff done. Sosetta
~Phil
NASA is committed to quality of service and safety of its employees. If they scan the livers of each personnel with a microscope to detect any liver damage after each party, that's gonna cost a bit.
I don't see the value in doing this for employees of companies like Boeing - and after every launch? And I'd love to see if it is worker bees. Probably what it is, is managers. I don't know that, but it would surprise me if it's not the case.
But in the big picture, it's not that big a deal.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
There are probably no girls at the party
\u262D = \u5350
If they are looking for wastes of money, I'm sure there are far more critical targets than a party at NASA. Take the article the other day, just as a convenient example - how much government money is blown (directly or indirectly) on the textbook rackets for K-12 schools? If you make THAT process more cost effective (how about selecting standard material and sticking with it, rather than updating every few years?) I'm quite sure you'll save a LOT more money than we're talking about here.
Plus, the reality of the situation is that people who can make a shuttle fly are a scarce resource, and private industry is most likely looking for the same set of people to do their hard work (and will probably pay very well too.) If keeping them happy via these means is one way to help keep them at NASA, I think it's a very logical move.
Alternately, we could shut down NASA and anything else in the government that requires smart people, because smart people are too expensive and to keep them you have to do things like give parties. Given the way the current administration works that step wouldn't surprise me one bit...
Have they had their Filboid Studge?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
On the other hand, the TSA hosted a $500K party for its top employees a few years ago. I interact with TSA employees about 100 times per year, and they are generally lazy, sloth like goons. They are a disaster that does nothing to improve air safety.
In the real world, a company run like the TSA wouldn't have a spare $500K to throw a party because they would be out of business, replaced by a more efficient contractor that does a better job. There is no mechanism for rewarding achievement and punishing failure in the government. Nearly all programs (yes, even under Bush) live on and expand despite proven failure.
The problem with NASA throwing parties for its deserving employees is that it justifies throwing parties for the far more typical ineffective government hack that should really be let go.
I add this last bit because if the wisdom of the free market indicates that a little money thrown away is a good investment, how can those low life in government be so arrogant as not follow suite.
I certainly agree that it would be good if everyone would be deny themselves every available luxury. My food would be cheaper if the owner of my local restaurant would not own a hummer, not to mention my tax bill. My city could afford better education if they did not pay for downtown luxury offices and did not subsidize luxury sports arenas. School taxes would be much lower if we did not have luxury classrooms with lights and air conditioning. But everyone of us knows human nature is to do better work when on is appreciated, and when the environment is conformable. And if it takes .1% of the project budget to encourage the people to do a better a job, that might be a good investment. I would sooner see the parasites that leech off the education and military budget cut off than a single nasa party be canceled.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Four million spent on parties in one year and now they want a billion dollars? Why not just force them to not hold pre-launch parties for the next 250 years so they can have the billion they want?
The news media is just hyping this out of proportions; we're spending close to three billion a week in Iraq - most of it wasted on dishonest and inefficient contractors - and we raise eyebrows at a few million spent on rewarding people who work in a difficult and thankless job?
Okay, I just RTFA, and here's the real scoop:
There is an awards banquet for flight safety held, apparently, at each launch, which occurs about three times a year. The awards cover 750 of what is likely tens of thousands of employees working for NASA and the contractors in the shuttle program. We're talking about a 1.5M awards banquet for an $8B/yr operation, or somewhere in the 0.01% range. Now I'm not saying that it's not a waste, though I'm curious where the seating costs of $20,000 for the shuttle launch come from, but the costs are not all that outlandish. Remember that one shuttle launch can really mean 4-16 different payloads, so there are a lot of people involved.
Go figure out what a similar party costs just about anywhere. Flying someone in coach is going to run about $300-500, minimum, if you book in advance and choose non-refundable. 4 nights hotel (we assume you are travelling on day 1 and day 5, day 2 is the banquet, day 3 is the launch, day four is a cape tour and the show), $120/night is bare minimum in a metro area unless you like sleeping with roaches. You get a night banquet at a banquet hall - nice dinner, dessert, a little entertainment. Hell, my high school reunion was $80 a head, and it was pretty basic. $150 is probably more reasonable for the service. One night you get a free show. Wow. Somebody call the fun police. Cirque tickets are $200; a broadway production in an off town is $80. Transportation to/from/between - you aren't going to walk to the cape from Orlando - would you have preferred we rented them a car for $300?
Where am I?...$300 plane + $480 hotel + $150 banquet and awards + nice show $120 + $300/2 for the car (we'll make them share) = $1200. Now, they came up with 400k-500k per banquet with 750 people...that's only $675 a person. I'd say they got a pretty good deal. $675 for 5 days and 4 nights plus a shuttle launch, dinner, and show? That's a freakin' bargain if you ask me.
Anyway...you go find out what the budget is for the awards banquet of any 10,000 person company. Go find out what just the CEO and his/her spouse spend. This really will look like chump change.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
ME as manager at NASA: What do you engineers say about the launch of this mission.
Engineers who know what they are doing because that is what they been trained for AND are required to stand behind if they want those letters after their name: We say X.
ME as manager at NASA: Okay, we do X.
Doesn't sound too hard, can I have my fat salary and golden parachute and parties now?
The two disasters were warned against by NASA owns personel, had the managers listened to their rocket-scientists then those 'accidents' would not have happened.
Do you want to know what I think about especially the first 'accident'? Do the math, cancel the mission and you get some bad press from an audience that doesn't care. If it goes wrong, you get massive public sympathy and can hopefully call it an accident with a straight face.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
And then you divorce the bloodsucking demon, discover girls all over again, on the internet.
Setup a date, and get a heart to heart with Chris Hansen from dateline.
Eh, or so I heard. Say, you ain't an undercover agent are you?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There is nothing new here and somethings never change. A number of years ago I was at a Culligan Water Conditioning store when two men from the Vandenberg NASA Office came in. They started talking to the store manager. It was the end of the fiscal year and they needed to spend remaining money in their budget or lose the funds. A purchase order was cut for 500 gallons of purified drinking water for use in their coffee makers.
While expensive, keeping the morale high at NASA means keeping the even more expensive astronauts alive.
Yah, except if the article is correct, most of the people at this party are NASA contractors. Why NASA is spending money on wining and dining contractors instead of the other way around, I don't really understand.
On the other hand I'm not sure I just immediately accept the truth of this article. It's written in a rather sensationalist tone, and presents NASA's side of the argument as a one sentence reply, no doubt taken out of context. That doesn't mean this isn't accurate of course, it's just a bit suspicious.
AccountKiller
1.3 Million dollars for how many hotel rooms? And what would you prefer: 1.3 million dollars as reward money for advancing science, or 1.3 million dollars in the pockets of these individuals if they successfully launch a rocket or not?
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Sad that Slashdot chooses to be relentlessly negative about NASA, while touting the lilliputian efforts of Russia and China. The STS-120 repair mission on the ISS I saw last week was about the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Russia or China won't be able to build something like that for 50 years! NASA deserves a party.
an ill wind that blows no good
Someone's throwing their own twisted politics into the article summary. Thinly-veiled 'isms, as usual on this Website.
My father has worked on the booster rockets for 30 years as an engineer. This summer he was flown to Florida to watch a launch. They put him up in a hotel, had a receptions (where there were a hundred or so other folks), and in a small way showed their appreciation for the work he and the others had done. As I mentioned, he has worked there 30 years, and this was the first time he has been invited. There are hundreds of thousands of people who work on the shuttle program. I think it's a nice gesture.
How bout instead of flying all those people to a 4 star hotel party, fly them to the FREAKING LAUNCH. I don't care how much money you throw at your party, you aint gonna top the launch. And then it becomes rather more difficult for people to bitch about it.
Where did they film the hoax?
What is a few hundred grand for an office party? Thats like the rest of us spending a few hundred on pitch-in when the boss tosses in free drinks.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
... at NASA are the salaries. Sadly, imho, NASA has become the single biggest impediment to space exploration. I say put NASA's headquarters on the ISS, limit management to former astronauts and let some real engineers and explorers extend our frontiers.
I'm so bloody tired of watching the decline of space exploration!
NASA has the best fireworks.
I've just read the article and I see no mention of that stupid "we should spend it on smart people instead of welfare" claim. Did the submitter just insert that line in at the end, on his own?
... The IRS spend $6 million on cocaine and hookers alone.
God Be Gone
Having worked for a NASA contractor, I would guess that they spend $1 - $2M a year on just promo crap. We were constantly given badges, pins, patches, t-shirts, models, pen sets, plaques, certificates, hats, stickers, you name it. We had 8 - 10 people in our office area and a big box (probably about 10 cubic feet) that we would throw this crap in. It was filled on average about once every 2 months. And that was just our office. For an actual post launch swag party, we would throw out 2 or 3 boxes of crap. To console ourselves, we decided that we would rather them spend their money on this junk than hire more paper-pushing do-nothings...
Because NASA's business is stars, with billions of stars you'd think NASA could manage more than 4 stars in the hotels.
'NASA proponents argue it makes more sense to give money to talented, productive people in exchange for scientific knowledge, than spend in on unproductive people in the form of straight welfare.'
Yes, of course it makes more sense to reward productive people than unproductive ones but that isn't the issue. Those productive people are being given a million dollar party in exchange for nothing, they got their salaries and great benefits in exchange for their knowledge. There are numerous places that money could go that have nothing to do with welfare. It could be left in the hands of the productive people who earned it. It could be used to raise the ridiculous federal poverty level a few dollars so that those who are BOTH productive AND poor in this country can breath a little easier and maybe scrounge together enough to start to make something of themselves and easily repay that debt in taxes later. It could be used to partially fund a federal medical/prescription/vision/dental insurance program that is a fundemental public service, not welfare.
It's fairly routine for key consultants to be treated exactly like the true employees when it comes to celebrations. After all, if Jane shows up to work every day, has a cubicle with everybody else and is a key employee, the detail that her pay has a few extra steps is irrelevant. She is, essentially, just like everybody else.
That said, there's nothing worth discussing here. This is just propaganda.
If the real issue was fiscal responsibility, the reporters would be sorting the budget by largest to smallest amounts, and then examining each line. After all, you don't balance a budget starting with something that is, literally, less than a millionth of the total spending. That'd be like balancing the family budget by eating one less ramen noodle per day.
Why NASA is spending money on wining and dining contractors instead of the other way around, I don't really understand.
Contractors wining and dining federal employees is illegal.
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
Women. Can't live with them, and it's illegal to kill them.
Somehow, though, I thought his viewpoint was a bit jaded...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I'd love to see NASA actually hire (not contract) the best and brightest to create the next generation flight vehicle. Build it all in house, and contract out nothing. If we could just declare a war on moon terrorists and get hold of $100-$150B in funding over the next 6 years, I'm pretty certain we could do a pretty damned good job.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Government handles the development of huge projects via competitive procurements. That means big aerospace/defense contractors doing great work for us. NASA is very mission focused, so NASA needs to keep contractor churn to a minimum until the end of a mission (preferably) while retaining skilled contractors that want to work for their particular aerospace firms.
I'm all for NASA rewarding their hard working contractors and government personnel.
tell that to congress...
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
What we are seeing in the comments above is an emotional response. The gut for many says "NASA good!" and so parties must be good, or harmless, or justified. The thing is, that's the way it works with every constituency in government. Is Social Security good? Maybe they should have a party! Is the Center for Disease Control good? Maybe they should have a million dollar party too! If you want to be rational you've got to rise above this stuff. You have to decide what exactly is good about NASA and praise them for doing that ... and not praise them for falling victim to the classic hubris of a 30 year old governmental institution. NASA is not good when it is being bad.
Then screw you all... party's over once the taxpayers find out.
Contractors wining and dining federal employees is illegal.
Yah, but we all know this kind of thing happens all the time. I'm not saying it's right or even should be tolerated, but why are we trying to impress or reward the contractors we've already given billions of dollars to?
I can't get too upset at this of course. As a waste item this one is a tiny part of the problem.
AccountKiller
When the contractors run your systems, build your parts, and provide vital support, well, how's that different from keeping the employees happy?
It's fairly routine for key consultants to be treated exactly like the true employees when it comes to celebrations.
Maybe. That doesn't mean they should be spending a million bucks on a celebration, airfare, etc.
If the real issue was fiscal responsibility, the reporters would be sorting the budget by largest to smallest amounts, and then examining each line.
I agree completely. This article isn't about fiscal responsibility, it's about "look at those guys that have a great big party and you don't! They used "your" money for it!" That's what all that "coconut fried shrimp, spring rolls, shrimp wrapped with bacon, 5-6 desserts" was all about, even though those big "luxuries" likely only cost a few thousand dollars, if that.
That's kind of a sad attitude, and I'm a bit sick of it. Do I think this is a waste? Sure. Do I think this is something to be really concerned about and start rolling heads and instituting dumb reforms? Hell no. In any organization there's always a certain amount of "waste", i.e. money spent on something that's not easy to justify, and might have been better spent elsewhere. Just keep those percentages low, and I'm happy.
AccountKiller
I'll bet the DoD spends more on dos like this than NASA does, but where's the outrage? FEMA spent millions on toxic trailers though I'm sure they didn't spend anywhere near as much on fake news conferences.
Since I don't see the military-industrial complex going away anytime soon why don't we re-purpose it? Shift it towards a space-industrial complex. We could be spending just as much on space and making those same companies rich while benefiting Americans and the world at the same time. Alas hope doesn't sell. Fear does.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
There are two false premises implied in the original statement. One, that NASA spends (all) its money on exchange for scientific knowledge and two, that all money spent on direct welfare goes to unproductive people. To be coy: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes". But seriously, NASA is too heady to rely on false premises for an argument.
I was raised in a military family, I've been to more parties than I could count. The miltary probably spends a hundred times more per year. And where does the money go?
Caterers bringing the food get paid. They got their food from somewhere, so whoever that is gets paid. That food was trucked in by someone, who gets paid. Farmers supplying the food get paid. And thats just the food.
People seem to think its a total waste of taxpayer money.
Yeah, we could use the same line of reasoning for the war.
In other words, the repugs are using it to further their own greed.
Damn thats one hell of a party. I don't care what anyone says thats freaking excessive.
At our office we're lucky if we get pizza or donuts after a big release.
What is their ROI on that? Perhaps they get back more then they payed for in e.g. goodwill.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
NASA has very few actual employees -- most everybody is a contractor. When I worked at Ames, we had a small handful of NASA employees in the building, with several hundred contractors. I'm not sure why NASA works this way (it seems less efficient to me), but I suppose it is easier to hire and fire and this way they don't have to deal with complicated government employment rules.
The Russians launched a small habitation module and a propulsion module. The US shuttle the other 23 of 28 modules so far. The name ISS was needlessly gratuitous. The old name "Space Station Freedom" should have been retained, and a Russian place on it revoked.
an ill wind that blows no good
then why aren't the many parties that the rest of our government throwing that, more or less, belittle this NASA spending by tenfold under question and the same type of scrutiny?
It has always bugged me about the way the news media loves to point out just how much NASA is spending when ever some thing is launched, repaired, or once in a while, happens to fail. The text usually goes some thing along the lines of "new NASA satellite launched today. total cost $3.5 million taxpayer dollars". Now if every time one of our fine, upstanding, morally proper leaders threw a shin-dig and it was publicized in the same manner, I think we'd have a better understanding that NASA's spending is just a drop in the bucket.
Lay off. It's a dead horse topic. NASA doesn't get nearly as much as what it should for space exploration, long term research growth, and room for stability, yet the Kazillions of dollars we've dropped on this dumb-ass war in Iraq seem to go un-noticed by and large.
hrmph.
I question who is actually footing the bill for these parties. Certainly the contractors will be paying out a large part of the bill so they can get access and info on what NASA is planning to put their research dollars in in the coming years. A drunk scientist can make offhand remarks that will help a contractor get a leg up on the next project. The more prepared the company will be for the next bidding war.
Switching over to Robotic exploration won't stem the money-party cycle. It just means the players will Sony, Fujitsu, Gundam, etc. I for one would be happy to buy NASA surplus mobile suit gundams that really fly.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Contracting can help keep costs down if you can make companies bid against each other and force everyone to stay efficient. You also need to make sure that your bidding process has minimal political interference and that your QA and cost auditing is a separate contract. Having seen the operations of government offices and government manufacturing contractors, I can tell you that the contractors are far more efficient. As long as you prevent the contractor from defrauding the government or cost cutting on quality, you get a relatively good product in the end. You also need to make sure that the legislative branch doesn't get involved too much, or else you will end up with specifications meant to favor a manufacturer in a certain district rather than to improve the final designs. Obviously there are some situations where this does not apply, such as using mercenaries instead of the armed forces.
$100B is an absurd amount of money. Estimates for the "space elevator" are far less than that. I'm sure if you split a lot less than that at private contractors to develop competing designs with a prize for the best winner, you could come up with something amazing. The join strike fighter competition seems to have produced a pretty solid aircraft: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Strike_Fighter_competition
This is just cover for the stargate program
Two things:
1. How do you know it's not happening the other way around?
2. News articles have a history of horribly inflating costs. They probably counted the fraction of the rent of the building used for the party that NASA already owns, the potential for lost working time for the attendees (even though it probably happened after normal working hours), the lost productivity of NASA employees who talked about the party while at work (even though they'd otherwise just be surfing Slashdot), etc. Most companies do this, what's wrong here? I was at Google for a summer and they spent a whole lot of money hosting a party for the people that spend their time primarily trying to scam Google, er, I mean enable their customers to make the most of out Google indexing. Relations with people in the business are important...let's just hope NASA is smart enough to capitalize on those relationships.
Sounds a whole lot better than the $900 4 day cruise I was going to take. Who do I make the check out to?
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
this is certainly a contestable claim. esp. since i'm sure most of the party attendees are upper management and thus haven't contributed scientific knowledge in years.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
The point of welfare is to give people an opportunity. To help them maintain their human dignity. They may not use the opportunity ( like all worth while opportunity, this one is disguised in some serious hard work), but we as a society have done our job, if we do our best to give them that opportunity.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I'd hope that there are investigations if there are many parties going on. I mean, the average family pays $7,300 in federal taxes (business week, April 2007). You need 1M/7.3K = 137 families working all year to pay for this. Is this party worth the sweat of 137 families? How many more parties are there?
CBS, like all news organizations, spends lots of money on dinners and meals to make their sources feel good about spilling their guts. Then they send their reporters to gala events, or throw them themselves, to pat themselves on the backs for all of that reporting. How much does that cost? Did this reporter think for just one second what it costs for the CBS holiday parties or for what they do when someone wins the Pulitzer?
The first link I found when I googled "cost to launch the space shuttle" said
$1 million is less than a quarter of a percent of the cost of the launch. Anybody do compensation at your company? Relative to the cost of a major project, what percentage is employee compensation? Does a quarter of one percent of the project cost seem to be an excessive amount to add to the total employee compensation budget? Once again, how does that compare to GM or CBS?
I don't know the answer to all of these questions, but that reporter is doing a massive hatchet job on NASA, and presumably to the congress as well, without putting these things in perspective.
Rant over.
damn what a waste, this is why private companies will out grow NASA in the future, you can launch a shutle in Kazzakstan/Russian border for 1/10 the price, ??? I think NASA has an important job but sometimes I think the whole program should just be cut because it's just SO wasteful, this is a perfect example. What has NASA done that is SO important with let's say, their last 100,000,000 dollars sspent? what have they achieved. You could feed a lot of hungrey people with that money or ... ? have parties?
This kind of employee treatment should keep employees that are already filthy rich from retiring. This makes it easier since they won't have to recruit more people, and the existing people gain more experience.
"I'm not sure why NASA works this way (it seems less efficient to me), but I suppose it is easier to hire and fire and this way they don't have to deal with complicated government employment rules."
One reason: Government pay blows.
to add to what the author of the comment to which i reply said:
the percentage of laborers at NASA who are employees is exceedingly small (and usually the lines separate at program/project managers and everyone else).
almost everything is subcontracted...
so a party that excluded contractors would be a fat-cat party...
even the fat-cats at NASA know they can't get work done without the rest of us.
and yes, i have some first-hand knowledge in this area as i suspect invidious might.
Reason two: government benefits are rediculously expensive and relatively poorly managed (from a fiscal perspective)...
Company parties often make stressed and overwhelmed employees feel appreciated and improves the overall attitudes at an organization. I would say chances are your organization has low morale if you don't at least all celebrate now and then in some form or another. That said, what's missing in this article is how many people attend. If it's one of the tiny parties we're normally use to then sure a million seems like too much but if it's for a large organization like NASA then I wouldn't be surprised if that works out to be a resonable amount. Parties arn't cheap if a large number of folks attend.
I personally believe that we should throw a massive party for some of the most intelligent, hard working, well planning individuals on the planet who can successfully deliver delicate instruments into orbit on what amounts to a large bomb, and still get them home safely.
Sounds better than throwing a huge party for a bunch of crappy musicians to give awards to each other for recycled music.
meh
If your total budget is in the billions, and you spend just one percent on entertainment, your entertainment budget is in the tens-of-millions.
People are people, for cryin' out loud. At companies I've been that don't have an entertainment budget, executives understand that and pay out of their own pockets for parties. It boosts morale. It also switches people into a different mode of thought where little nuggets of ideas come from. You might spend 95% of your time there just BS'ing, but then somebody comes up with an idea that they wouldn't have come up with if they had just been sitting in a cube or a regular meeting.
Nevermind that though. Even if you never discuss a single aspect of the business at a party, you are a human being. As such, you have certain needs, like eating and seeing other human beings. It has to be paid for, one way or another.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
...THIS IS NASA!
We need to get back to spending MORE on basic scientific research and development. That is what made our country great. The government should fund research that doesn't have practical commercial applications because those things pay off eventually and drive our society forward.
Everyone needs a party now and then. So long as actual scientists are being invited to these parties and not just bigwigs I think it's very appropiate to spend a little on that kind of thing. Any other company would be spending that much on morale boosting.
How much has NASA boosted our economy and improved our lifestyle over the years? If they were collecting royalties they could pay for their own party.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Sure, you guys waste a ton of money on weapons to kill innocent people around the world and then you put parties in antithesis with welfare: that makes a lot of sense, really! ;-)
What's next? Are you going to make fun of some prominent scientific theory and replace it with some tale for kids? You know, the one with Eve and the snake (well, it looks more like a tale for adults)...
</ troll>
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
OK, I'll buy that. But why do these talented, productive people take their pay in the form of booze and hors d'oeuvers. I'd like mine in my paycheck.
Some years ago, I read an article about executive compensation. Some group did research on pay and benefits for managers of roughly equal responsibility levels. Some people got more cash whereas others got bigger offices, reserved parking, executive dining rooms, etc. instead of all cash. By comparing different compensation types, they were able to put a price on what each of these perks was worth in terms of the amount of cash it replaced. Then, they looked at what these perks cost the companies. It turns out that these non cash forms cost companies a few pennies per dollar value percieved by employees.
I'm guessing that the same principle holds true here. These 'talented' people are being bought cheap by throwing them a few parties.
Have gnu, will travel.
Where did this come from? I'd be surprised to find an actual, sane NASA proponent giving out statements implying the best NASA employees can strive to is to be more useful than people without jobs.
Cost of doing business, nothing new here.
Slashdot = -1 Redundant, Asperger, kdawson FUD, Libertarian, and Linux
If they need a morale booster, they should just hire Steve Ballmer. I hear he gives away a free "developers!" for every 10,000 copies of Windows you buy.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I own a private company. We have continued technical success in our field. We don't spend a penny on parties. People get paid for coming to work and doing a good job. Nobody grumbles about this; it's just called doing your job. You want something extra for that?
No, Hitler, and no, America, the weak have no obligation to reward the strong.
(I'm sure I'll hear shouts of "Godwin!" from those who treat it like a law of physics rather than simple advice against making tenuous connections to Nazi Germany, but when you use the Nazi party's driving motivation for pretty much every atrocity it committed to defend NASA, it's entirely relevant. Also, this post contains no commentary about how the strong treat the weak - so no strawmen, thanks.)
Welfare, as we implement it, is morally wrong. It hurts the very people it pretends to help. In truth this is intentional. The people who call for welfare know that it is a poison pill that will lock those who receive it into their wretched existence, thereby guaranteeing a perpetual underclass that the left can use for propaganda purposes.
You can't fix broken people. Some people are losers and always will be no matter what you say or do. These people are a very small minority. Then you have other people who have the potential to be something other than losers, but only when environmental and cultural factors are sufficiently good. There are a fair number of people like this. Welfare, and the culture of dependency that it creates, locks these people into being losers. People who might otherwise live modest but productive and happy lives are stuck in a syndrome of idleness and dependency from which no good can come. As I said before, this is entirely intentional. Creating losers whose existence can then be blamed on the larger society gives the left a powerful propaganda tool that they then use to attack capitalism and the liberal democracy upon which it is founded.
Of all the things that this nation lacks, opportunity is not one of them. Poverty is a temporary condition for those who are willing to work hard and make wise decisions. Wealth is not assured, but economic security in a safe and sane community is all but guaranteed.
That being said, what NASA is doing needs to be looked at. There are times when it is necessary to schmooze various people. NASA pays private companies for a lot of the things that it needs to function. Being able to schmooze some of the heads of those companies can make a difference when it comes to the terms of contracts. If spending a million entertaining some people saves 30 million on contracts, then that is money well spent.
However, if this money is being wasted, then that needs to stop. Wasting tax money hurts the country twice over. First when the money is taken out of the economy, and second when it is not put to good use.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I do know that at least some of these contractors are just employees that retired and NASA hired back as contractors. My uncle and a group of people he worked with did exactly this.
:(){
Another reason to have a lot of long term contractors is if the company had strict rules about hiring and firing procedures or a complete "hiring freeze" - I worked in such a place but on a renewable one week contract. I could have had my employment terminated on any Friday afternoon without notice, but conversely I was originally offered the job within a week which was several months ahead of their Byzantine hiring practices.
To sum up - a lot of long term contractors can be a symptom of an organization that is out of control of those that are supposed to be running it.
I have an friend that works for NASA as an astronaut and considering all of the training and all of the prep work for just one mission I think some partying is on order here. It takes about three years from inception to completion for each of those launches so all of that hard work needs some form of relief but going overboard is this issue also. For those developers who successfully release a production product knows how much work that can be and some partying is on order. This is a the same for system/network administrators who have done a successful installation or migration we should be able have an beer or some other libation.
Did you ever think of perhaps taking the box down to the local YMCA or Boy's and Girls Club... Maybe mail a shoe box full to a random high school.
Kids love that stuff!
Hell... send a shoebox full of NASA "crap" to the troops!
Let me guess - you didn't get invited to the party?
Seems about right. NASA will give awards and buy lunch for the employee's that do the actual work , i.e. the contractors, but they will not, and I don't think they can give that money to the contractors as bonuses or raises as it may violate certain laws. Trust me, I would greatly prefer NASA give monetary recognition for people that work hard. I just don't think NASA is allowed to, but they should be allowed.
So the only way they can show appreciation is to have a nice dinner. I think this that situation is completely wrong, since most contractors pay significantly below national average to either employees, well all but the managers (pointy hair boss).
Call it well fair if you wish. Call it governmental waist if you wish, in a way it is. But it might be the only way the civil servants can show appreciation to the contractors that actually turn the wrenches.
Imagine if NASA would spend that 1.3 million in bonuses to the people that turned the wrenches, might make production go up not to mention moral.
And if Frank reads this, "No, I'm not excited to be here. You wouldn't be either if you couldn't afford a house."
Let suck the tax payers and spend it on Iraq, space, and what ever pork projects that doesnt seems to make
money. If US government were to sell stock on the stock market, everyone would short the heck out of it.
Heck, that's government!!
"I'd rather my tax money go towards throwing parties for NASA employees than towards food stamps for joe-blow white trash McFatty who uses them to buy cigarettes and alcohol on the way to the unemployment line to pick up his (or her) check for being worthless."
Fuck that, I'd rather my money not go at all! No one says the government has to take it from me.
(A) NASA has a tiny budget relative to the rest of the Federal budget (16Billion out of 2.7Trillion); there are actually significant amounts wasted elsewhere.
(B) The line about NASA getting an extra billion is intentional deception; The senate has indeed added the billion in its budget but the house has not and the congress as a whole has yet to pass a budget even though we are into the second month of the new fiscal year. The billion dollars cited in the article is just vaporware at this time, a fantasy like most of the rest of the CBS "news".
(C) How many billions do we spend every year on illegal aliens, and on people who are bums because of their own drug or alcohol addictions? How many billions do we put into all manner of non-productive people and activities every year? Bridge to nowhere anybody? How many millions on mushroom museums, studies of snail sex, etc? I have no problem at all rewarding a few very skilled people for doing their best to move the country forward. Sure, many of them work for the contractors. Those contractors are typical big impersonal corporations who likely do little to reward these people and probably try to rob them in every contract negotiation and get them to work all sorts of uncompensated overtime. How do these parties compare to a typical Senatorial "conference" in the Bahamas?
I worked for Boeing for a while, and you can't accept gifts or airfare from, well, any of your customers. Not a federal agency, not a contractor, not the military, no one.
It's your TAX if your American go ahead support them, invite yourself !!
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
Taking this report at it's face value, that makes sense to me. Anybody working for NASA could just as easily be working in the private sector and making more money, and getting the parties, etc. My employer is very selective in its hiring; even here in the Silicon Valley area, we find we have to turn away ~90% of applicants as not meeting out standards. We really emphasize skill, talent, and also personality fit. Besides having good pay and benefits, we have a weekly informal catered beer bash every Friday afternoon, and the best official company parties I've ever encountered anywhere. And we give away company T-shirts several times a year.
As a result, we have not only a very skilled work force, but a very dedicated one, and low turnover besides. I'm sure the cost of higher turnover would exceed what we spend on the beer bash and T-shirts, so I can totally understand why NASA would do this. Considering NASA's relatively high level of talent and relatively small waste compared to some parts of the government, I have problem with the parties.
Quite agree. If 1 million is the best that these reporters can come up to spin how Nasa wastes then I'm good with that. And I'd like to hear the rebuttal from Nasa. Besides theres far more problems with tax fraud that I'd rather get cleaned up.
Future taxpayers, that is.
Fiat 'money' borrowed from the future, lent by the FED
and partying like there's no tomorrow.
Literally having a 'high old time', because 'tomorrow never comes'?
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
CHASH!
OOS!
RR
There. BROKE that for ya.
what 15 million?...so let me get this straight - CBS are willing to pay a single entertainer 15 million to appear on TV but complain that we reward 300 rocket scientists for their outstanding contributions who have to divvy up about 1/4 of that between them all? Wow, thats a new low.
Why bother about how much NASA spends on its brilliant minds?? Don't they deserve a party after all the effort that they put in? Its something that is to be appreciated. Many of them are always too cluttered up with work, it suits them well to party hard, even if there might not be girls in the party. And if the government is willing to spend that much over them, it clearly acts as a source of inspiration, a way to keep their spirits up. This is the thing that most governments never care to do. In many countries, great minds have lived their whole lives in destitution. It really hurts to read about them when their sons/daughters decide not to do what their their nerd like parents did all their life just because of the pecuniary injustice.
Greed - excessive desire to acquire or possess more (especially more material wealth) than one needs or deserves
Not to argue the point that welfare doesn't really supply the most efficient path to luxury, I'd just like to argue that it is in fact sometimes abused by people who are trying to get more than they deserve.
It's not exactly a new issue:
Back in my day when we chiseled our bits into stone and sent them by mule train from village to village...
i had a friend who was contracting for a government agency. toward the end of the budget year, they had some dollars left over so they sent him off to a meaningless conference. he stayed at the RITZ FREAKING CARLTON while attending the conference he didn't need to attend. but they did need to spend those tax payer dollars or risk losing them.
they *ALL* know this is how government operates and they don't care as long as they get theirs. my friend was kinda stunned, actually. EVEN HE THOUGHT IT WAS STUPID! he sure did enjoy the ritz carlton, though.
greed will down any form of government given enough time.
america is no different. when we go down due to our inherent greed, the flames will burn bright.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yah, except if the article is correct, most of the people at this party are NASA contractors. Why NASA is spending money on wining and dining contractors instead of the other way around, I don't really understand.
Well mainly it's because contractors wining and dining government agencies is illegal. It's called kickbacks and bribery.
I used to plan conferences and although $400,000 to $600,000 sounds like a lot, isn't really for meetings of a few hundred people (although it's definately first-class). These meetings are called "parties" in the article, but I'm sure there is a lot of technical information being spread around and contractor interaction that would not otherwise take place. That is very valuable for NASA and I don't see any other way to effectively do it than meetings.
What really bothers me though, is the last paragraph of the OP! There was nothing in the article along those lines (a jab comparing useful, productive people to useless, unproductive people who receive government assistance.) That was pure editorial propaganda by the OP.
While only a half million bucks doesn't sound like much, in the grand scheme of things, thats 1,562,500 m16 (lead free, environmentally friendly) rounds at 32 cents each!
I can't find any sources on how many rounds are actually fired per terrorist causality , but I think we could safely say thats at least a few hundred terrorists worth right there, and these guys are not receiving they're allotment of incoming rounds. How is this fair? You would wine and dine these so called "contributors to society" while depriving the needy terrorists?
I wish someone would just stop to think of the terrorists, once in a while. They have needs too.
You mean like the pension plan, which pretty soon nobody will be paying into because everyone is a contractor?
C'mon. Machine designed by engineer breaks and kills people. How can this **not** a design failure.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
How about this reason for spending whatever it takes to build the Osprey: the Iran hostage crisis and the failed rescue mission using helicopters and multiple refuelings. Given that events like pursuing Bin Laden's minion's in Afghanistan and the Iran hostage crisis will be more the norm for fighting wars than a nuclear standoff between superpowers, perhaps there is no upper limit on what we should spend on getting the Osprey to work -- the Osprey being a helicopter with the speed and range of a small turboprop aircraft.
While Mr. Liberal Troll's mention of the mega billion's spent on the Osprey betray a certain ignorance of why there are legitimate national reasons to do that, the suggestion that the kinks in the Osprey will be ironed out in the manner of the M16 rifle perhaps represent the flip side.
Based on what I have read, there is not much good about the M16 and the kinks haven't all been worked out. There have been complaints out of Iraq that the M16 with its lightweight high-velocity bullet just isn't lethal often enough. Yes, the lighweight ammo has all manners of advantages, but a rifle not powerful enough to kill an enemy who is coming at you to kill you is not much of a military rifle. The other thing about the M16 is that it is unlike any other military assault rifle in that it does away with the gas piston and relies on some kind of inertia in the bolt to cycle the next round, and that the M16 is just "a bridge too far" in terms of materials technology and what can be achieved with gun mechanisms. They have tinkered and tinkered with it, but the basic design is fundamentally flawed. Like the Osprey, if you could get it to work, it offers advantages of a more accurate and lighter weight rifle than an AK-47, but it is ever so prone to jam unless the ammo is clean burning and the bolt is kept surgically clean.
Likewise, the Osprey may be fundamentally flawed in that a tilt rotor design has too high a "disk loading" to be safe as a helicopter in the "corners of the flight envelope." Again, maybe the price to pay to "insert commandos" in remote parts of the world without a logistical tail may be lives of such brave soldiers when the Osprey crashes, as it probably will with greater frequency than conventional helicopters, which are also tradeoffs between safety and capability. Like the M16, the Osprey will never get well.
Again, while to Mr. Liberal Troll, such things as the Osprey and even the M16 are examples of the conspiracy of corruption of all of the demonized members of the military industrial complex, forgetting that both of these weapons are crafted to address some important security concerns. Liberal Trolls get all righteously angry, but on the other hand, there can remain serious problems with some of the things they complain about.
Liberal Trolls like to point to Randy Cunningham as one of the "fat cats." What Randy Cunningham did and what happened to Randy Cunningham is a true tragedy, but Randy Cunningham is a true hero for what he did many years prior that protects the freedoms of you, me, and Mr. Liberal Troll to have all these discussions. I don't know what demons drove Randy Cunningham to do what he did, and perhaps warriors are out of place in peacetime civilian society.
NASA received 16.2 billion dollars in 2006. For those who are poor at math, that's 16,200 million dollars. Let's say three parties were thrown that year, each at 1 million dollars. 3/16200 = 0.000185 = 0.0185%, or less than two hundredths of a percent of the budget was spent on parties. Comparatively, the US govt spent $2.6 trillion, or 2,600,000 million dollars. If you evenly divided this amongst every American, then we all (300 million people in 2006), then we each spent an average of $8700 that year. The percentage of this $2.6 trillion spent on NASA parties was 0.0000115%, a fraction too small to even see on a pie chart. Better yet, if you distributed this 3 million dollars back to the public and NASA had none of those parties, every person in America would receive one penny. How many times have you walked past a penny on the street and not picked it up? Would you really not give one penny to throw a party for the fine folks at NASA, who have been responsible for inventing many of the consumer products that we now take for granted?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I've added FOUR updates to my Ares-1 article with some NEW calculations that (clearly) show WHY the new Ares-1 can't fly: http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/012arescantfly.html >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://www.ghostnasa.com/ http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/articles.htm
Wait, half a million for one party, and they're spending $4 million this year? I don't think there's been 8 launches this year. Actually, I don't think there's ever been 8 launches in a single year. I think the record is 6... The credibaility for this article, wihle starting low, has just dropped another notch...