With the Shuttle Program Ending, Fears of Decline at NASA

New York Times ^ | 07/04/2011 | William J. Broad

[SeekAndFind]

As NASA prepares to launch its last space shuttle — ending 30 years in which large teams of creative scientists and engineers sent winged spaceships into orbit — it is facing what may be a bigger challenge: a brain drain that threatens to undermine safety as well as the agency’s plans.

Space experts say the best and brightest often head for the doors when rocket lines get marked for extinction, dampening morale and creating hidden threats. They call it the “Team B” effect.

“The good guys see the end coming and leave,” said Albert D. Wheelon, a former aerospace executive and Central Intelligence Agency official. “You’re left with the B students.”

NASA acknowledges the effect and its attendant dangers. It has taken hundreds of steps, including retention bonuses for skilled employees, new perks like travel benefits and more safety drills. Through cuts and attrition in recent years, the shuttle work force has declined to 7,000 workers from about 17,000.

“The downsizing has been well managed and has achieved an acceptable level of risk,” said Joseph W. Dyer, a retired Navy vice admiral and the chairman of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel. After a slow start, “NASA and its industry partners did a genuinely excellent job” in planning for the shuttle’s retirement, he said. But he conceded, “There’s added risk anytime you downsize.”

Nobody is predicting problems for the coming flight of the Atlantis, the 135th and last launching in the shuttle program. The event is scheduled for Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, before an estimated one million spectators.

[Spirochete]

Please read How The West Wasn't Won, an article that perfectly characterizes the state of NASA, using Conestoga wagons as an analogy.

[Publius6961]

If that’s the only way to get rid of that parasite cockroach James Hansen, I say let NASA go quietly into the night and start over.

[musicman]

Help With The Conservative Battle
On The Road To 2012
For One Time (Or Better Yet)
Monthly Donations To FR
Click Here!!

[clearcarbon]

"Not many of Eric Holder’s people are aeronautical engineers, or engineers of any kind, therefore NASA is of no use to Eric Holder’s people, and must be destroyed."

[sushiman]

You mean like the U.K.’s Virgin Galactic owned by Sir Richard Branson ???