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NASA Is Back To Work, But the Effects of the Government Shutdown Linger (theverge.com)
Following a record 35-day government shutdown, thousands of civil servants and contractors are heading back to work this week at NASA's various centers throughout the country. "These first few days back on the job will be consumed with practical matters, such as figuring out employee backpay and how to dive back into projects," reports The Verge. "The shutdown will undoubtedly result in delays for some of NASA's long-term programs, too, but it'll be a while before the space agency can fully assess the extent of the damage." From the report: To explain how NASA is adjusting in the wake of the shutdown, the space agency's administrator Jim Bridenstine addressed employees during a town hall meeting this afternoon at NASA's headquarters in Washington, DC. "Welcome to 2019," he said during the meeting, which was live-streamed on NASATV. "NASA is now open and we're very thankful for that." The comment was met by applause from those in attendance, while Bridenstine went on to acknowledge that it's been a rough start to the year for the agency. "I want to say thank you for your patience and for your commitment to this agency and to the mission we all believe in so dearly."
Bridenstine told the room that some NASA employees did leave during the shutdown, though it wasn't a substantial amount. "We didn't have a mass exodus," he said. "I think had this gone on longer, we would have. But we did lose people -- onesies and twosies -- across the agency and even here at headquarters. That is absolutely true." Perhaps those hit hardest at NASA were the agency's contractors. [...] Each company funded by NASA has its own contract with the agency, and the provisions of those agreements differ from contract to contract. Some contractors were paid their funding in advance of the shutdown, allowing them to continue working mostly unfazed. However, the employees of contractors who did not receive funding in advance were unable to bill for the hours that they worked during the shutdown. And it's possible they'll never receive compensation for that time. "NASA is in the middle of selecting new planetary missions to pursue, as part of its New Frontiers and Discovery programs -- and the shutdown may have delayed that process, says Casey Dreier, chief advocate and senior space policy adviser at The Planetary Society," reports The Verge. "Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for science, pushed back the date for when the agency would accept applications for new science research proposals. And there's uncertainty surrounding the new giant rocket NASA is working on to take astronauts to the Moon and beyond, called the Space Launch System." Boeing told Politico that the shutdown delayed testing of the rocket's hardware.
Bridenstine told the room that some NASA employees did leave during the shutdown, though it wasn't a substantial amount. "We didn't have a mass exodus," he said. "I think had this gone on longer, we would have. But we did lose people -- onesies and twosies -- across the agency and even here at headquarters. That is absolutely true." Perhaps those hit hardest at NASA were the agency's contractors. [...] Each company funded by NASA has its own contract with the agency, and the provisions of those agreements differ from contract to contract. Some contractors were paid their funding in advance of the shutdown, allowing them to continue working mostly unfazed. However, the employees of contractors who did not receive funding in advance were unable to bill for the hours that they worked during the shutdown. And it's possible they'll never receive compensation for that time. "NASA is in the middle of selecting new planetary missions to pursue, as part of its New Frontiers and Discovery programs -- and the shutdown may have delayed that process, says Casey Dreier, chief advocate and senior space policy adviser at The Planetary Society," reports The Verge. "Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for science, pushed back the date for when the agency would accept applications for new science research proposals. And there's uncertainty surrounding the new giant rocket NASA is working on to take astronauts to the Moon and beyond, called the Space Launch System." Boeing told Politico that the shutdown delayed testing of the rocket's hardware.
Because of the uncertainty. The rumor mill had this head butting continuing for months as both sides dug in their heels. And the uncertainty continues as this is only a three-week reprieve where both sides promise to negotiate constructively. If neither side is willing to compromise on their "core" principals, we can possibly see another furlough on Feb 15.
So some people are looking at other agencies and private sector jobs where their work isn't interrupted as a bargaining chip. A five-week delay in many projects can result in months of lost progress and difficulties in rescheduling resources just to get back to where they were on Dec 22. If your expertise is in demand why not change jobs to get the same pay doing work that will actually result in something important.
So, yes, I understand why some employees changed jobs rather than stay home, uncertain how long they would need to wait for a paycheck, and frustrated about lost work.
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Show us on the doll where the mean orange man hurt you...
Show us on the doll where the mean orange man hurt you...
My brain.
Seriously, I don't understand this big group of his supporters who can't perceive how comically incompetent he is.
Look at Sryia, the Prime Minister of Turkey gets Trump on the phone and convinces Trump to promptly pull out of Syria without any consultation with his military causing his Secretary of Defence to resign!
Then someone finally clues Trump into the fact that the Turkish Prime Minister just wanted the US out so they could take out the Kurds (the US allies in the conflict), which Trump should have known if he spent 2 minutes reading up on the conflict. So then Trump is frantically backtracking and trying to put conditions on his withdraw.
And then the shutdown, he meets with Democratic leaders, "proudly owns the shutdown", gets talked out of it by his advisors who know it's an awful idea, gets talked back into it by right wing pundits riling up their audience, and then shuts down the government with no leverage and no chance of success. His only possible "out" a declaration of emergency. A plan that was just a transparent ploy by his staffers to get him to sign a spending bill and then yell at the courts for blocking him instead.
But this goes on for a month and he says We will not cave!.
And then a day later he caves.
And this is just over the past month and a half with a Christmas break thrown in!
He's just stumbling into self-inflicted disaster after self-inflicted disaster.
I stole this Sig
China had 39 launches (one failed) in 2018, the US had 34. Is five more "far more"? Furthermore, I suspect that the US tonnage to space is actually still higher because of higher payload mass capabilities of US launch vehicles.
Ezekiel 23:20
Show us on the doll where the mean orange man hurt you...
My brain.
Seriously, I don't understand this big group of his supporters who can't perceive how comically incompetent he is.
Sorry for clipping your salient points, but it was to cut down on over-quoting for readability's sake.
In any 2 party democracy (US, UK, Australia and Canada for example), you will have 45% of voters who will always vote party A and 45% of the people who will always vote party B. The remaining 10% who are willing to change their votes are the ones who make the decisions for everyone.
Because of this I'm not worried about trumps popularity, its the 10% who make the decisions and given the midterms, they've voted against him (G.W. bush didn't lose the house until the middle of his second term in comparison).
However there are a large percentage of the 45% who will always vote R who are deliberately cutting themselves of from any information that could contradict what they believe. They cocoon themselves with Fox News and believe anything contrary is a conspiracy. To these people it doesn't matter how bad he is, as long as the other side doesn't win. These delusionals aren't powerful though. They'll talk about revolution, but will give up as soon as they run out of hot pockets.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Actually Congress passed a bill to pay all 800,000 workers regardless of whether they were forced to work or furloughed.
https://www.govexec.com/pay-be...
And contractors who had to come in are also paid as they were working (I was a contractor during the Gingrich shutdown back in the 90's and had to come to work).
The only ones likely not getting paid are the contractors that didn't go to work, which depends on the company as some would pay anyway or have their contractors work on other contracts, go to training, etc, and any of the support industry that depend on money from these workers.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
The US isn't going to build fewer submarines because France increased their quota. The whining about NATO is stupid, it doesn't actually cost us anything.