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1,200 NASA Layoffs, Shuttle Fuel Tank Plant Shuts Down
As the space shuttle program winds down, 1,200 NASA workers were laid off today, and thousands more will lose their jobs in the months ahead. "Many shuttle workers held out hope that they could find new jobs in the Constellation program, which would have included two new rocket systems and a new crew module to transport astronauts into space. From the beginning, Constellation was plagued by underfunding. This year, Obama killed the program's future funding because of budget overruns and because it was behind schedule. That could affect more than 20,000 workers along Florida's space coast, according to Rice." This comes alongside news that Lockheed Martin has stopped work at the production plant that supplied 136 external fuel tanks for the space shuttles since 1973.
Wanted: Job where I never have to actually produce anything, except for empty promises and cheesy animation. Experience includes 20 years of sitting on my ass in programs that never delivered, playing foosball in the office breakroom, and hanging out at the watercooler. Skills include dazzling the press with hollow hyperbole, covering my ass, waiting out the current administration, milking the naive dreams of baby-boomers, and building mock-ups. Expect union, high pension, and ridiculous benefits package. If interested, don't call me, I'll call you.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
the alien technology granted to us does not require conventional fuel tanks
Last Post.
Can't stop the Beta? Time to evacuate to ##altslashdot at webchat.freenode.net - Slashcott in effect.
I didn't know Microsoft was hiring.
I wonder how a certain political faction that starts with a 'R' will spin this one? "The Gov'ment" just got smaller yet a thousand folks lost their _jobs_ in a vicious recession. It's funny how it's never considered that all those government employees actually _spend_ the money they make.
It feels like one of the most inspiring facets of the military industrial complex is trimmed, while the war machine parts seem to have as much power and influence as ever.
If you're willing to relocate 60 miles to the west, Mission:SPACE might be hiring over at Epcot.
Change is often painful. These layoffs and the others that are coming from the discontinuation of the Shuttle program are nothing compared to the layoffs that would be necessary to get defense spending in line with the DoD's actual needs. The military-industrial complex is a huge jobs program, with branches in every Congressional district in the country.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Things become obsolete, out of date, the skills become less relevant, the technology passes by.
We also aren't making P-51's, B-52 or Missouri-class Battleships.
Somehow the world hasn't ended.
Do we have a plan for how to proceed from here? Perhaps, perhaps, but with the way Congress works, they'll go two steps in one direction, reverse course, go back three, take four to the left, five to the right, dig a hole, fill it back up, then water some iron to make it rust.
Maybe we should just invest in more X-prizes, maybe NASA should be given a fixed budget, maybe the whole thing should be put up to a national referendum. I dunno.
But I can't cry tears for folks with 20-30 years of government work.
That's going to hurt. 2 billion dollars. Perhaps more.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The aerospace industry is suffering from a lack of manpower right now. Both Boeing and EADS are failing to deliver. Sane competitors use times like those to their advantage. Foolish competitors sack their workforce instead.
Sure, these workers may not have ideal skills for other programs, but that's a matter of training. They already have skills in technologies that required far higher precision and far higher quality than most other projects would require - those are skills that would take a LONG time to teach. Moving workers onto new projects is efficient, sacking them and training new employees in all the stuff the old ones already knew is inefficient.
Anticipate, keep several steps ahead of the market, never over-specialize your employees, always exploit transferable skills, never waste a single resource, never give your competitor the chance to regain lost ground through ditched employees, a redundant employee is a wasted opportunity.
I'd make a lousy businessman.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Reading the article, Bush actually ended the shuttle program back in 2004. The article further says that if Obama signs a NASA budget bill that authorizes another shuttle mission, those workers could stay employed for one mission longer.
What Obama is ending is Bush's proposed "shuttle replacement" program, the Constellation. Much as I'd like to see space exploration continue, if the Constellation is already behind schedule and over budget I can understand it. Especially in this current climate.
It's definitely going to hurt Democrats in Florida though.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
I bet if you want to buy a house in Melbourne FL you can get a great deal now as well.
Well sure, but that has nothing to do with NASA. Good deals all over the country.
The Constellation is the official Shuttle replacement. Wasn't there an unofficial replacement being designed (and maybe developed) by ex-NASA guys? That was cheaper, on-schedule and likely to actually work?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It always sucks to lose your job. But government layoffs like this are the inevitable result of the long overdue move to getting out of the way of commercial spaceflight.
Plus, when a highly skilled workforce gets furloughed that is an opportunity for new companies in the area to improve their human capital. Necessity is the mother of invention.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Do this whole operation 3,000-fold, and then increase taxes by a like amount ($3000 per U.S. resident each year), and at that point you've got basically a balanced federal budget. i.e., The $13 trillion national debt holds steady instead of growing more.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
The article says October 1 is coincidence. Well, the layoffs are *because* October 1 is the beginning of the new fiscal year for NASA. I (working for a contractor) had my last day yesterday along with a lot of other folks because the goddamn budget still hasn't gone through for the contracts. It's okay for me--I'm a kid, I'm taking a vacation until the money comes back--but for the real talent who still got screwed, who have families, they'll need to find other jobs. The brain drain on the contractors could be a bad thing.
From what I've seen, we'll get a good NASA back when we fix the problems with its masters. There are lots of good people who are doing lots of good work that then gets mercilessly thrown away by the folks on top. There are other problems, lord knows--endless, useless conferences, useless hangers-on, and an institutional memory that's inching towards 100% Powerpoint--but being able to fund a project to completion goes a long damn way.
As a Brit, I follow the US space programme with intereset, because it's the best hope the human race has for getting off this rock.
It seems to me that buying routine human access to LEO from commercial companies is a good idea nowadays that the technology is sufficiently advanced and well understood, and it seems silly to waste public money on that which can be accomplished quicker, cheaper and safer by the private sector. Ares I looked like a disaster waiting to happen both financially and in terms of crew safety.
The space shuttle was a remarkable piece of over-engineering, but 14 people lost their lives in it.
I feel really sorry for these people being layed off. The transition from Shuttle to whatever the successor may be has been very poorly handled. Minds keep changing and there is no plan. Tens of thousands of people will suffer and a great deal of technical skills will be squandered.
I'd like to see NASA developing a new heavy-lift booster for going beyond LEO, something that can lift huge payloads (100 tonnes?) and people if necessary. I'd like to see big space telescopes, a long-term human outpost on the moon, the manned asteroid missions and a space dock and construction facility for building a real space ship for going to Mars.
Where is the vision? My country doesn't have any, alas. We cancelled our rocket programme back in the 1970s because the politicians couldn't see a future in satellite launching...
China is coming along, I suppose, so there might be some home there, maybe even a new space race?
One thing's for sure, we (the human race) will never get anywhere unless someone sets some goals. We need to learn to live on other planets and the only way we'll do that is by trying.
So, is NASA going to build a DIRECT launcher now or will there be yet another politically-driven paper study of an over-engineered, under-performing white elephant?
Stick Men
and those fryers need some rocket fuel types if only for the safety training they may have had !!
Burger King is hiring !! And we need about 1200 here in Joliet alone !!
OTH...
Apparently, KSC has layoffs pretty regularly. I once talked to this young man with a young family who was laid off in a round a couple years ago. He blew through his saving and was supporting his family with credit cards until he was "recalled". I didn't talk to him that long so I didn't get to understand the hiring layoff cycles down there - I got the impression it was similar to the way some of the rust-belt industries used to operate before they went completely out of business.
Anyway, this layoff is going to decimate the local economy. We'll be seeing a HUGE surge in foreclosures in that area as well as other defaults.
The economists love to point to "creative destruction" and point out people just need to get "retrained" and other trite economist expressions but it's always easier said that done. The thought of skilled workers, engineers and scientists having to work at Walmart - if they're lucky enough to get a job there - is pretty disheartening.
Economists love to point out that we just need more training - that seems to be their catch all solution for workers who are put out of work. But where does a rocket scientist go from there; especially a middle aged one?
And even then, just pick out any hot job area and can that area support all people getting into it?
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Mmmmm. Smaller government. I think I'll throw a Tea Party.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Hey, former NASA employees, I have some thoughts for you. I just graduated with a degree in aero engineering myself a couple years back. I've been paying attention to the space industry since well before then so I have some advice if you are looking for new jobs.
1) Frankly, we don't know if there will be a government funded replacement for the shuttle ever. As such, start thinking about where your skills could apply elsewhere. Right now SpaceX, Bigelow, Boeing, the ESA, JAXA, Energia, IOS, and numerous other startup space companies are working on manned space programs. These include everything from space station building to capsule development. Most of your decades worth of skills and experience are directly transferable to these companies so start checking them out and applying.
2) There are other tech. industries where your skills could come in handy. If you worked on automation, data processing, signal filtering, or control dynamics, start looking into the robotics industry. All of those skills apply well there. If you worked in antennae theory, try checking out all of the new research going into wireless technology development (wi fi, 3g, 4g, etc.). If you worked in human-habitat development, I read about a few companies trying to design underwater habitats for humans. That's pretty analogous to habitat development in space. Also, most skills that go into designing spacecraft are directly transferable to designing boats and/or submarines. Those are also some industries you can look into.
3) Don't neglect to mention the qualities that made you a good employee for NASA in the first place on your resume. You worked on a project the likes of which had never been done before. You are obviously intelligent and a good general problem solver. You are not a pidgeon-holed employee. When the shuttle program started, you had to figure out how to design and build a space plane. There was almost no research in that area before. Likewise, those same problem-solving skills need to be emphasized on your resume now. Don't just talk about that one bracket that you designed. Talk about how that bracket solved a problem that was unique without any prior art. It will make you very appealing to start-up companies.
You guys worked hard on a great project. But you have to admit that an ~30 year long engineering project is a very long project lifecycle in this industry. Few, if any employees at other organizations can brag about working on a single project that long. That said, thanks for all the hard work, but you, as well as the rest of us, know that the shuttle was past its prime and needed to be put to bed. So please, don't become angry old fogies reminiscing about the good old days. Use those uniquely awesome and genius skills that you have to help lead my generation into a new era of space infrastructure development the likes of which has never been seen before. We have new technologies. We have new mission architectures. We have unprecedented levels of access to enormous amounts of information. We need your wisdom. We need mentors like you as we find our own way in this industry. Seize those resources along side the rest of us in this industry and let's show the solar system just what our silly little species is capable of!
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
One problem with this is that space research drives a lot of innovation that affects the mainstream market. I know that this round of layoffs does not mean an end to NASA, but it does take a bite out of the creative resources it had.
I don't think cutting funding for space-related research and development is a good thing.
This sig is offered AS-IS, with no warranty express or implied. Risk of using this sig rests entirely with the user.
That's what happens when you elect someone whose middle name is "Hussein".
Thanks for voting him into office, retards. Thanks for helping fuck up our nation.
There are B-52s still being built. Admittedly, not using the original design and the only similarity with the original is the name, but they are there.
NASA should be funded in a similar way to the way the BBC is funded in the UK - given a fixed amount for a fixed length of time and a charter for that period of time, with zero interference permitted outside of the GAO verifying that the charter is being complied with to the limits possible given the funding. This hybrid state should have the right to make additional money and should have some of the rights granted to private organizations but not granted to public organizations, but also have some of the protections granted to the civil service.
This is the only way to give it the funding necessary without the political ties that corrupted the Space Shuttle program, leading to an overweight monstrosity.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I haven't heard about that. Love to see some info it.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
It's working great. The shuttle program is a waste of money. A lot of these jobs were wasteful government spending. Private enterprise can do space travel better.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
bush set up the constellation program, but didnt fund it its funny, all the conservatives deriding the democrats for not funding constellation. Dont like it when the govt handouts stop coming to florida, georgia, and texas huh? Welfare indeed.
I am talking detroit type deals here. As in close to free.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"This year, Obama killed the program's future funding because of budget overruns and because it was behind schedule."
Two things:
1) The shuttle program was killed years ago by a previous President. It's been a long time winding down the program, but its fate was sealed well before the 2008 election.
2) The Ares 1, even if completed, would have had serious operational deficiencies. It may be worth paying a lot for a launcher that works well for the mission at hand, but it's been clear for a long time that Ares was never going to be that launcher.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
We can't afford waste in this poor economy. So NASA's XXbillion dollar budget will have to go! How else are we going to pay down the trillions in debt we gained in the last 10 years trying to shove democracy down the throats of a bunch of savages.
Yeah progress!
Not that it really matters. Obama should be jailed for his presidency. He can share a cell with GWB, and the last 5 leaders of the House/Senate.
Why are there so many people trying to blame the end of the shuttle on the Democrats. The space shuttle has been operational for 30 years across both Republican and Democratic administrations. It was mostly developed during the Ford and Carter administrations. The timing of the space shuttle retirement has nothing to do with the party in power. I get the feeling if there's an earthquake in China Republicans will blame it on Mr. Obama. Maybe its payback for all the flattering films Michael Moore made about Mr. Bush. Can't we all just get along? Both parties are equally inept and corrupt. I feel bad for the engineers who stayed on with the shuttle until the very end. Many probably could have left earlier for a more secure job. But they stayed on in order to ensure the safety of the final flight. I hope NASA and the government take care of these people and ease their transitions into other jobs. Call me a softie. I have been sacked from a job and I have a family, so I know what it's like. It could happen to anyone.
is with Energia.
Yours In Baikonur,
Kilgore Trout
Well, another thing they could have done was use an existing EELV with appropriate safety modifications rather than try to design a brand-new rocket from parts. But that doesn't keep favored political districts happy.
The whole "you're behind on schedule and over budget" thing reminds me of the phrase "don't piss on my back and tell me it's raining". A big reason the program is behind schedule and over budget is because it was never properly funded in the first place. They're whacking their star athlete in the kneecaps with a lead pipe and then complaining because he's not running very fast.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
The shuttle program was a huge waste of money, for almost no science benefit. See http://www.idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm
A random quote: "And of course, there was John Glenn, monitored inside and out, blood tested, urine sampled, entire organism analyzed for signs of accelerated aging. Close observation of the Senator suggested that there might not be any medical obstacles to launching the entire legislative branch into space, possibly the most encouraging scientific result of the mission."
Check out the DIRECT Program. That might be what you are referring to. There are also a lot of other possible shuttle replacements that rely on various degrees of existing vs. nonexisting technology. A little Googling can reveal a lot of them, but I will leave that as an exercise to the reader.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
I haven't heard about that. Love to see some info it.
Check out more here.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Private enterprise can do space travel better.
Cite? So far, private enterprise has lobbed a few people up to the edge of space. It certainly hasn't put anyone in even LEO, much less sent them to the moon. Certainly private enterprise has built the components and hardware, but funding and operating the programs...?
Am I the only one looking at those numbers and saying "Damn what the hell did all those people do". Maybe privatization is good. 1200 people to produce a fuel tank every few months. There is a light bulb joke in there somewhere.
sad being we dump billion into a useless war everyday.
Space X used private funding to develop all of their space launch vehicles (of course, their largest paying customer is the Government, but they are paying by the launch like everyone else) . They are significantly cheaper than the alternative rockets which had been developed by defense contractors with government funds and cost-plus contracts. They are developing a system for launching people into space (again, using private funds but assuming the government will eventually pay by the launch to get astronauts into space). So you are wrong.
It would've been my guess that the Constellation program was a rather hastily thrown together afterthought, that the Bush administration wouldn't actually have to deal with implementing. Just kick the can down the road...
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
That's not necessarily true. From an accounting perspective, you are correct. But when you move a lot of money around like that, the ultimate economic effect is uncertain because the people you move the money to won't spend it the same way the people you took it from were spending it. The money will be used to balance the budget (not lower taxes). That means it will ultimately end up going to support Social Security obligations (which have been growing at an alarming rate). Likely, that means the economy will shrink, because paying living expenses does not cause growth.
Thats not good enough. We actually have to pay down the debt at some point.
My proposal:
Eliminate the IRS, change the federal income tax to (at first) a flat, fixed 17% for everybody. Doesn't matter if you're a person or a corporation, every income earner no matter whether you make $100 billion per year or $100 per year, you pay 17% right off the top.
Of that 17%, the government gets to operate off of 10/17ths, and the remaining 7/17ths goes to paying down the national debt.
The government is then forbidden to spend beyond their 10% slice of our collective incomes, any member of govt who attempts to do so gets a federal prison term and permanent banishment from ever holding any form of government office or position for the remainder of their lives after they get out of prison.
Govt is forbidden from ever going into debt ever again for the rest of the existence of the nation.
Of course that means that many expensive govt programs will simply have to be cut drastically or flat out eliminated, period.
When the day comes that the national debt is finally paid in full, the national income tax drops from 17% down to 10% and can never rise again.
NASA's had a head start.
Great going President Obama, I didn't think in my lifetime I'd see our space program squelched. Now we have to count on Russia if we want to go into space. How can the President tell kids to learn math and science and kill the Constellation program that would keep our best scientists employed. Now I guess they'll go work for Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and make millions of dollars. Obama wants to go to Mars instead??? Is he for real??? Goodbye low earths orbit space program and hello space terrorism. America ranks 20 something in math and science and you might as well add space technology onto the list.
It's not like finding another job is rocket science.
Yes, it will only hurt Democrats in Florida because we all know that only Democrats in Florida work in the space program and, as such, only Democrats in Florida will be losing jobs.
As a government funded entity paid for by my tax dollars, I really don't like the fact that every plan, down to each measurement, calculation, and manufacturing spec for all of NASA's projects are not available to me. Federal funding should allow for any American to be able to use the research to their own aim. I don't like the fact that we do not know how to build a Saturn V, and that technology is lost every year. I don't care if China got ahold of the plans and used them to make a dozen Saturn V rockets to quickly beat America to Mars, or lift a new station into orbit, et all. The beuaty of it all is we would be one step closer to getting off this rock.
They won't fund space exploration, so many educated and talented people are now out of a job. Yet the government will pay illiterate, unemployable, cockroaches money to breed and produce a non-stop supply of willing voters for the Democrats. GENIUS!
There's always plenty of work in third-world rockets with suborbital payloads.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
it's not college that makes people progressive, it's college republicans
Look at those year numbers you're throwing out. When is this manned spaceflight effort going to happen? How likely is it that control of government will shift from one party to the other more than once in that span? How likely is it that the project will be on time and under budget and not get axed just for overruns and schedule?
The budget numbers for 2014 are looking pretty grim. Other nations are already starting to balk at supporting our deficit spending, and by then our debt will more than double. It's over $87,000 per taxpayer now. Support for a manned space program is weak now. What's it going to be like to be a polititian supporting that spending when we're also capitulating on our commitments to federal retirement, social security, medicare?
The current spend is a sop to fiends like us who still wish something could be done. But it can't. US manned spaceflight is over. After the next shuttle lands a manned American spacecraft will never again light the sky. We'll pay for flights from other countries for a while... but as their space industries become self-sufficient other nations will be less and less inclined to let us influence their spaceflight missions. Eventually they won't even want us aboard as passengers - and we won't have the hard money to pay the fare anyway.
Others will go. They'll lead the way to the asteriods, the moons of Mars. They'll establish the first durable colonies, tap the sun's energy. We may be the ones to discover usable fusion energy, but they'll be the ones to take it to space and build the foundries and factories that let Men live between the planets and take the next step to the stars. If we're nice they may let us see the neat things they bring back.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Have China built the space vessel.
Man it with illegals.
Offshore the tech support to India. That way you con focus on what really matters, maximizing the potential of the brand. NASA has had poor brand management to date, it's time to refocus.
It's the American way.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Paper spacecraft are *always* cheaper, on-schedule, and likely to actually work. It's when you start bending metal and have to start keeping those promises that start to go downhill.
What bugs me about this, is that NASA laid off NOBODY. Absolutely NOBODY.
It was United Space Alliance that did the layoff. They have known since 2004 that the jobs would be going away. What did U.S.A. do about it? Nothing.
Yet, without reading the postings here, I will put money down that many have blamed Obama, Dems, etc. Basically, EVERYBODY except those that deserved the blame: THE EXECUTIVES OF United Space A.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The shuttle is obsolete technology; it is time to move on.
I feel bad for those who are losing their jobs, but the only true job security is in keeping your skills current, and not becoming too specialized. If you don't have the opportunity to pick up new skills on the job, then you need to do it on your own time. If you just assume that your employer will provide you with a job for life, you're probably gonna get a rude awakening at some point...
I didn't mean it would hurt the Democrats for any LOGICAL reasons. :) Just that *ANY* job losses in Florida will be blamed on the Democrats, because a) they're in control of the White House and Congress, and b) Florida has an especially rabid right-wing presence. Probably the worst of any US swing state.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
If the DoD budget was trimmed even by half (which is still too bloody much spending) and the monies redirected toward, infrastructure, education, health, technology research, etc.. Inside of a very few short years we'd be looking at realizing a Utopian society.
First of all, no, we wouldn't. Because Utopias don't... can't... exist. This is why Sir Thomas More chose Utopia as the name of his impossible society. In Greek, it means "nowhere".
Second, whether or not you realize it, you just laid out exactly why Utopia is impossible. You say we should cut defense spending (and even being a lifelong hawk I agree with that), but then you proceed to lay out all the wonderful things the government should do with that money. And that's the problem. That's YOUR vision. Never once did you think "just let people keep the money they earned, and find their own happiness". Utopias fail because they're always someone else's vision of what's good for us... and the "rest of us" have different ideas, thanks.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Not after November, when all of Florida's problems will belong to republicans. You will have to feel sorry for Rubio. Right out of the box he will have to start bucking other republicans to get any federal spending at all in his state.
"the human race will never get anywhere unless someone sets some goals"
First goal might be saving what is left of the biodiversity on this planet so that our ecosystems can sustain us long enough to support the time it will take us to develop a credible space program able to send humans in any kind of numbers to other parts of the solar system, much less other solar systems, or other galaxies. We need more space science focused on biology rather than simply technology.
The biggest challenges to space travel will be in 1) retaining a base planet earth that is still able to sustain life in about 100-300 years time given current trends, and 2) overcoming human frailty in the gravity free high energy environment of space. Propulsion systems and space vehicles are just ways to get political clout of contractors lined up, but they do nothing to resolve the real challenges to man living beyond the nurturing of earth's ecosystems for anything but brief moments in time.
I hope so. But, no matter what happens they will continue blaming Democrats. It depends if the Florida electorate will fall for it. I guess I'll think and hope they won't. If I can't do anything about it and it won't directly affect me, I might as well hope for the best, eh?
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.