You can all thank the US Congress and a non-existent space policy of the white house.
random-andros on
Lol, this is a story that has existed since the beginning of NACA. Brain drain and a lack of intergenerational knowledge-sharing, plus a lack of interest in the previous generations’ knowledge base, has made this an ongoing issue in most tech sectors that go back further than a couple of decades. The repeated failures to appreciate the folks that came before in your chosen field is a never-ending challenge.
Unfortunately, the fallout tends to lie not simply in languishing projects, but launch failures and high-velocity impacts on extraterrestrial surfaces.
Edit: to provide some context, this was a refrain that I consistently heard, both through direct and indirect experience, in companies involved in NASA and other aerospace projects, ranging from: IBM, Honeywell, North American, Northrup-Grumman, Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, General Dynamics, and Kodak.
failSafePotato on
Got downvoted for saying this here last time but don’t really care.
Take from the military budget and fund nasa. It literally pays for itself to have a well funded NASA.
[deleted] on
[deleted]
B-a-c-h-a-t-a on
Aging and underfunded are probably directly related. Maybe get the droves of highly ambitious, qualified young candidates into roles and they might even be willing to do the work for cheaper since they’re earlier in their careers?
cherryfree2 on
Why would a qualified engineer work for NASA over SpaceX and Blue Origin?
Appropriate_Win_6276 on
i would imagine every budget based government entity is underfunded since prices have doubled.
its ok. yesterday i was reading on reddit that elon musk is mean and the government can just take over space x as punishment.
YNot1989 on
SpaceX is kindof a blackhole on the Aerospace Industry’s workforce. The best of the best all want to work there, and in doing so they become sought after workers for any other company when they burn out after two years. NASA simply can’t offer wages competitive enough to attract those workers. Further, most people who work in the private sector work with NASA on one project or another… and you will never meet a bigger bunch of old sad sacks than NASA engineers. Everything you actually learn about working for NASA makes you want to run in the opposite direction.
For NASA to solve the labor shortage they’re facing they need to do the following:
1. Bigger budgets to offer competitive wages.
2. Modernize project management and human resources (this is something basically every government agency is struggling with, especially the military).
3. Fundamentally alter the company culture OR subcontract to ever more private companies to shift the burden of the labor shortage.
4. Create university outreach programs to create more aerospace engineering and training courses in more universities, community colleges, and vocational schools.
This last point is something the whole industry needs to do because: Most of the day-to-day jobs in this industry do not require a Masters degree, or even a 4 year degree. There are apprentice plumbers who could work on rocket engines with maybe another few months worth of training on top of their existing program. We’ve made the barrier to entry so high that in many ways the labor shortage is largely artificial, and if NASA, and the industry as a whole wants to survive and grow they need to look to more places for talent, and not just MIT, CalTech, ERAU, FloridaTech, etc.
virtual_human on
That is kind of the point. Kill NASA and then give their budget directly to a private business.
9 Comments
You can all thank the US Congress and a non-existent space policy of the white house.
Lol, this is a story that has existed since the beginning of NACA. Brain drain and a lack of intergenerational knowledge-sharing, plus a lack of interest in the previous generations’ knowledge base, has made this an ongoing issue in most tech sectors that go back further than a couple of decades. The repeated failures to appreciate the folks that came before in your chosen field is a never-ending challenge.
Unfortunately, the fallout tends to lie not simply in languishing projects, but launch failures and high-velocity impacts on extraterrestrial surfaces.
Edit: to provide some context, this was a refrain that I consistently heard, both through direct and indirect experience, in companies involved in NASA and other aerospace projects, ranging from: IBM, Honeywell, North American, Northrup-Grumman, Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, General Dynamics, and Kodak.
Got downvoted for saying this here last time but don’t really care.
Take from the military budget and fund nasa. It literally pays for itself to have a well funded NASA.
[deleted]
Aging and underfunded are probably directly related. Maybe get the droves of highly ambitious, qualified young candidates into roles and they might even be willing to do the work for cheaper since they’re earlier in their careers?
Why would a qualified engineer work for NASA over SpaceX and Blue Origin?
i would imagine every budget based government entity is underfunded since prices have doubled.
its ok. yesterday i was reading on reddit that elon musk is mean and the government can just take over space x as punishment.
SpaceX is kindof a blackhole on the Aerospace Industry’s workforce. The best of the best all want to work there, and in doing so they become sought after workers for any other company when they burn out after two years. NASA simply can’t offer wages competitive enough to attract those workers. Further, most people who work in the private sector work with NASA on one project or another… and you will never meet a bigger bunch of old sad sacks than NASA engineers. Everything you actually learn about working for NASA makes you want to run in the opposite direction.
For NASA to solve the labor shortage they’re facing they need to do the following:
1. Bigger budgets to offer competitive wages.
2. Modernize project management and human resources (this is something basically every government agency is struggling with, especially the military).
3. Fundamentally alter the company culture OR subcontract to ever more private companies to shift the burden of the labor shortage.
4. Create university outreach programs to create more aerospace engineering and training courses in more universities, community colleges, and vocational schools.
This last point is something the whole industry needs to do because: Most of the day-to-day jobs in this industry do not require a Masters degree, or even a 4 year degree. There are apprentice plumbers who could work on rocket engines with maybe another few months worth of training on top of their existing program. We’ve made the barrier to entry so high that in many ways the labor shortage is largely artificial, and if NASA, and the industry as a whole wants to survive and grow they need to look to more places for talent, and not just MIT, CalTech, ERAU, FloridaTech, etc.
That is kind of the point. Kill NASA and then give their budget directly to a private business.