More than 1,200 NASA workers to lose jobs

ABC Action News ^ | October 1, 2010 | Bill Kallus

[NRG1973]

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla - More than 1,200 NASA contractors will lose their jobs Friday.

It's all a part of massive layoffs as the Space Shuttle program heads toward retirement.

Many of the employees being let go have worked on the historic program since its glory days in the 1980's.

More than 9,000 workers are expected to lose their jobs when the Shuttle program is retired in 2011.

[Willie Green]

These workers can just commute to Orlando to go to work for the brand-spanking new, super-dee-dooper-dee, high speed passenger rail line that will run from Orlando Int'l airport to downtown Tampa.

That's cool!!

The space shuttle boondoggle cost taxpayers over $170 billion.
That comes to about $1.5 billion per flight.
And the damn thing only carried between 5~8 people going around in circles.
Amtrak is a MUCH better deal than THAT.

[Notary Sojac]

the attitude that we’ve been wasting our time for the last 25+ years with the Space Shuttle

There are reasons for that attitude. Off the top of my head....

- NASA way, way, way oversold the shuttle in terms of cost and turnaround time. When you can only launch three or four times a year, you can't replace -any- of the other heavy lift programs.

- The results of the Challenger and Columbia investigations which showed poor decision making at NASA. "My God, Thiokol, when do you want to launch, next April?"

- The endless series of Shuttle replacement programs that never got off the drawing board. I tell folks that all the shuttle replacements are stored in the back of that government warehouse right behind the Ark of the Covenant (last scene of "Raiders") along with all the Middle East peace plans.

- the Ares/Constellation program, which carried with it the strong odor of pork (ensuring many more decades of gravy for United Space and Thiokol)

[Notary Sojac]

Great point Willie, for once I kind of agree with ya.

[FL_Native]

I can agree with some of that, but;
- The Shuttle was oversold but, it was a huge leap in the design of a spacecraft and in the engineering world there are always bugs to be worked out.
- Can't argue with that, I'm not involved in the decision making process.
- Again don't know much about those decisions either. I thought the X-38 was a step in the right direction, so did the Air Force.

[mudblood]

All the things you’re talking about makes perfect sense. They should have followed up with bold progress in space (ie., a moon base, or Zubrin’s Mars ideas). One thing you saw was how they killed the DC-X, which was an SSTO which could land vertically and take off vertically. But they killed it because it allowed for a Moon landing, and politicians have no vision. The same thing goes with the prohibition of cryogenic fuels stored in space or nuclear rockets - cold war, reactionary hairless ape thinking. I appreciate the work you did, but the political force was not there to make you successful - nothing personal I promise.

[FL_Native]

Thank you, I will still be doing that work for a few more months.

But now I am off to laugh and cry and have a cocktail or two with my friends that are leaving.

[mudblood]

I wish you and them well and thank you for your service, and hope that they will be working again soon doing what they love.

[chimera]

Bush made the decision on the STS but also proposed Orion and Constellation to keep us in the game. Obama has trashed it all and replaced it with Muslim Outreach. Somehow, it doesn't seem quite the same.

[Non-Sequitur]

Bush made the decision on the STS but also proposed Orion and Constellation to keep us in the game.

It's 2010. The first Orion flight was optimistically scheduled for 2015 and the moon landing for 2019. Just what were we supposed to do with these people in the 5 year, more likely 10 year, period between the end of the shuttle and the launch of Orion? Their jobs were gone regardless.

[Reeses]

And the damn thing only carried between 5~8 people going around in circles.

The purpose of the ridiculous human diversity on board was to add drama, get the taxpayers attention for funding. Robots do most of the work in space, but when one blows up no one cares but the insurance company.

[chimera]

A lot of them likely would have been working on getting those things designed and built. It takes time to get things like this from the conception stage to flight-ready. For example, the Saturn V was first announced by NASA on January 10, 1962. The first one didn't fly until the Apollo 4 mission on November 9, 1967. So, what was that about a five year period? Sounds about right to me for bringing a new system on line. I'm sure many of the contractor employees now heading for the unemployment office would have been happy to have been working on Orion and Constellation, five year gap or no.

In any case, it beats Muslim Outreach.

[Non-Sequitur]

A lot of them likely would have been working on getting those things designed and built.

Would they? The last space shuttle was designed and built decades ago, and NASA didn't build it. The people being let go are the ones who have been supporting the shuttles and planning and operating the missions. Well, the shuttle is going away. The replacement would have been a decade away. There is absolutely no reason to retain them just for the sake of retaining them in a job if there is nothing for them to do.

[chimera]

That's the point. There would be something for them to do if there were a Constellation/Orion to work on. Contractors would be happy to have those shuttle workers with experience involved in building hardware and operating facilities.

One of my former students called me the other day asking about a job. He's getting the boot with the trashing of the Orion program. With Orion in place there was something for him to do. Now, nothing. So it isn't just shuttle operations people getting the boot.

And no, he isn't going to do Muslim Outreach.