What Its Really Like to Work at NASA (Update)
Keith’s note: @seanherron posted this somewhere and it has been making the rounds. It is so true it hurts. Sorry if this is getting around, Sean. Its your fault for being accurate. Click on image for larger version.
Keith’s update: Well, someone@nasa has a slightly different take on things. To be honest this resonates better with my experience as an actual NASA employee. The artist said “Thanks for the “Working at NASA” link. I very much enjoyed it, so much so that I made my own – which was surprisingly therapeutic.” Click on image to enlarge.
I am a student, and have been working for NASA through the Cooperative Education program for over two years now. I can say that even though this may be what everyone thinks, it is not entirely true for every NASA employee. NASA still continues to lead the nation in cutting edge research and development. SLS may be nothing but a powerpoint presentation, but there are certainly other programs that people take pride in and put their life into. Don’t forget the little guys, even if what they have done won’t be seen by the entire nation.
Possibly my favorite NASA Watch post ever.
Now that’s not true! “The Office” has a much more developed sense of humor than here!
So true, but the pix in the bottom right should show a room full of folks not paying any attention to the presenter, but fumbling with their iPhones and laptops.
I’d love to work for NASA! There were twice as many people who said the Shuttle would never fly. And it did. The SLS will launch and the Orion will ge BEO. It is not that it will happen, it is happening.
As Sean Herron tweeted, that represents HIS life at NASA. Too bad he
doesn’t work at one of the centers. The title of the poster should have
been, “My Life at NASA”. It has nothing to do with “Working at NASA” and
paints a picture that is completely uncharacteristic of what the real
work is like. It is only accurate for Sean’s life. Unless you’re out
there doing it, you have no idea how great a place to work NASA can be.
I’ve been at NASA Langley for 30 years and it is better than ever.
Sean’s poster is not “What Its Really Like to Work at NASA”. Far from it. Your career is what you make it.
Good one! There is a problem with the picture showing the meeting with only a half dozen people in the room. Typically the meetings I’ve gone to have dozens of people in the room. Typically a handful of presenters, hard to tell if anyone ever makes a decision, and even when it appears a decision is made, its typically reversed not too long after, and dozens of on-lookers who you really have to wonder why they don’t have something more significant to do than come to watch a meeting.
Monroe2020 said that they said Shuttle would never fly but it did. Actually, not quite true. I think we all knew Shuttle would fly, because at that time in the 1970s, we had no choice but to build a new launch vehicle and spacecraft and it happened on a rapid timetable during which progress was shown continuously.
ISS was more like people said it would never happen. I remember 20 years ago that a lot of NASA people were saying they would never get it together. Well, ISS did happen. It took only a quarter century and $100 billion++ from program inception until it was just about all there in orbit. Unfortunately it was so poorly managed that the long gestation meant that the people working it today have just about forgotten everything we had learned in the prior generation. For many of us that was our career and with folks like Griffin calling it a total waste and the wrong direction, and people like Gerstenmier failing to make sure it was going to be used once it was built, we really have to wonder whether it was worthwhile.
Orion-sorry but its not a million pound vehicle and its not the centerpiece of a planetary space vehicle. It is ill-conceived and on a slow roll to flight. Even if it one day flies (I am doubtful) you have to wonder what it leads to and whether the money couldn’t have been better spent on something more useful. It is Apollo re-created and as we’ve seen Apollo was great once but did not lead us to a good place.
Perfectly accurate! The top one more than the Sean Connery one.
There is a similar image on aerospace engineering kicking around on the ‘net. I want to see such a diagram for Roscosmos (to see how the Russians view their space agency).
NASA is a govt. jobs program and therefore inherently wasteful. However, it’s not nearly as wasteful as the DOD and it is true NASA does do a lot of great work. I take that last statement back, NASA does a lot of FANTASTIC work: putting two operational rovers on Mars that lasts for years! Having the guts to fix and fly the shuttle after Challenger and Columbia! Repeatedly fixing the Hubble while in orbit! Completing the ISS!
I won’t even mention being the only people to launch human beings onto another world. Oops, I just did.