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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."
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?
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.
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.
Well stated.
Full disclosure. I'm a low level NASA manager. I also have been a recipient of the award in question (it's called the Space Flight Awareness, or SFA). I won it years ago when I was a line engineer for a contractor (managers usually cannot get these awards).
The article is unfairly one sided. NASA overall has very little "morale money", which is used to reward outstanding employees or significant contributions - things that are commonplace in the private sector. When we have an office party, or I bring in dinner for my guys that have to work on Christmas, it's out of my pocket. All my colleagues do the same. I can assure you that the sum total of this across the agency is a lot more than what the SFAs cost.
They also made it out like some extravagant party - it really isn't. They pay for the flight (you have to cover your spouse, though), get you a hotel at the Day's Inn Cocoa Beach (or similar) for a few days, they drive you around on a tour, and feed you a few nice meals and let you meet some astronauts and agency officials.
The reason why most of the recipients are contractors is that most of NASA employees are contractors. The way most contracts are billed with NASA is cost plus, and employee expenses (including the small awards that are given out) are billed back to the government. The contractors also do spend on some other awards out of their profits (which are relatively small on NASA contracts, in all fairness).
While you may have some negative opinions about how well NASA is doing as an agency, we've got a lot of really outstanding line employees who do great work, and in any enterprise you need to reward that. When I got my SFA, I was 28 years old and had spent a year of 60+ hour weeks getting an avionics package on the Space Station working. I didn't get paid overtime for that...the SFA was a nice token from my management. Another guy on the trip won his for finding a problem that saved the government $12 million dollars. As a percentage of the overall workforce, very few people ever win this award (where I work, maybe 1 out of 50 has gotten this in the last 10 years, you have to do something exceptional). It's definitely worth the tax dollars that are spent on it - and I hope other federal agencies are using my tax dollars in similar ways.
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