Budget Cliff: Up To 20,500 NASA Contractor Jobs at Risk
Study Warns of Sequestration Impacts to NASA, NOAA Programs, AIA
“As negotiations to avert the fiscal cliff heat up, little attention has been paid to the impact that mandatory budget cuts would have on the nation’s civil space program and our ability to accurately forecast dangerous storms.”
Study: Thousands would lose jobs from NASA, NOAA budget cuts, Government Executive
“The Aerospace Industries Association, a trade group for government contractors, found in its study that the automatic cuts set to take effect on Jan. 2, 2013, unless there is a deficit reduction deal would cost 20,500 NASA contractors their jobs in 2013 … AIA based its estimates on the Office of Management and Budget’s guidelines that sequestration would slash both agencies’ budgets by 8.2 percent.”
1,300 aerospace jobs said at risk in Huntsville if nation goes over fiscal cliff, Huntsville Times
“More than 1,300 aerospace jobs will be at risk in Huntsville in 2013 if the national budget goes over the so-called “fiscal cliff,” according to an aerospace industry study released Thursday.”
Will NASA fall off the fiscal cliff? Budget cuts to cost Houston more than 5,000 NASA jobs, study says, Houston Business Journal
“A report from the Aerospace Industries Association found that if the 8.2 percent cut to NASA’s budget goes through, 5,610 jobs would be lost at Houston’s Johnson Space Center next year. This would have a direct impact of more than $320 million.”
Civil Servants taking it like a champ.
Contractors taking it in the shorts.
The correction will happen at some point when there is no money left to appropriate.
There was a lot of discussion in the aero community about job growth when the middle east wars got started. And I’m sure the Northrop Grummans and Boeings and Lockmarts in Southern California saw some benefit. But I gotta tell you that in civil space, particularly NASA, I haven’t seen that kind of growth in projects tied to wars that the larger aero industry seems to “enjoy”. For us we don’t get the big spikes but we do seem to be hit when the rest of the industry suffers also. Just my anecdotal take on it.
The trend I’ve noticed is that every single person who had hands-on experience with reusable flight hardware was fired. Since they have no program to “manage”, the agency is having to create tasks. This doesn’t make sense if we are to have a productive agency capable of accomplishing tasks that provide practical benefits to the nation. It accomplishes nothing to assert that civil servants have the “right” to lifetime employment or that this is a good use of tax dollars.
“while all the civil servants, almost none of whom ever performed a task requiring engineering judgement …”
That’s a patently unfair comment.
Sorry, I agree I was being unfair and would ask to retract that part of my comment, but I was speaking from my own observation. I realize that civil servants are in the mission control chain of command and do actual flight direction. And I am not suggesting that CS don’t work, some of them work very hard. But their jobs are overwhelmingly in management, and where most of the rockets are put together the difficult work was and is done, and the tough decisions are made, by contractors. The fact that the Shuttle flew safely 113 out of 115 times despite serious and uncorrectible design flaws is a testament to the skill, experience, judgment, vigilance and dedication of the thousands of USA engineers and technicians that actually put their gloved hands on the flight hardware, not Powerpoint slides. They have almost all lost their jobs, and though some will find new careers in the commercial sector, for the most part we have lost their thousand person-centuries of experience. When a center director announced that the end of Shuttle would be carried out with only voluntary buy-outs and retirements he was obviously referring only to civil service, but it was pretty hurtful to those who had no such choice. I don’t see any reason civil servants should be any harder to fire than contractors. If they are not needed they should be asked to find other jobs.
You just keep digging yourself in deeper.
No one is arguing about the experience, judgment, vigilance and dedication of the thousands of USA engineers and technicians. Of course, no one should be arguing about the experience, judgment, vigilance and dedication of the thousands of civil service managers, engineers, and technicians either. As it turns out, NASA project management at the highest level is done by, yep, civil service people. Why? Because their allegiance is service to the nation, and not to the company. Their bosses are elected officials.
As to why civil service people are harder to fire than contractors, it’s simple. Those civil service people were carefully hired, trained, and exercised for the long haul. They are hired as a long term investment by the nation. They worked hard to get that civil service position, and can be seen as deserving the security of the position. Maybe they are arguably better at what they do than their counterparts in industry. That’s why they have this special class of a job. I believe a federal agency can be well served by that class of jobs, which guarantees some level of knowledge preservation and managerial consistency.
If a civil servant is not needed in the job that they are doing, they most certainly get shunted off to another job in which they will be needed.
I am not a civil servant, by the way. ‘Nuff said.
By law, members of the Civil Service are harder to fire to shield the positions from being used for political patronage.
SLS/Orion is managed by civil servants. SpaceX, Boeing commercial, Sierra Nevada and ULA are contractor managed. Which is spending more money? Which are flying missions?Contractors wanted to hold the 51-L launch, and civil service managers elected to proceed. And that laptop, was it lost by a contractor or a civil servant?
I’ve seen civil servants argue for weeks over a few words in a document that had no real world effect whatsoever.
So if you have objective evidence that civil service employees are more capable or dedicated to the nation than contractors, please feel free to present it.
Carefully hired? Really?
What kind of stupid dumb political leadership, I’m looking at you Congress, would bring us to this situation?
Don’t just look at Congress.
The same thing was true in 1915. The mission of NACA was to create those opportunities by making the US civil aerospace industry more productive and competitive. Maybe its time for NASA to return to its original mission.
Problem is, there has already been cuts by the 1000’s from the demise of the shuttle program. This latest cutback due to sequestration is well, stupid. The cutback should be targeted, not overall. There are many, many wasteful programs in the government from subsidies for grain alchohol gasoline to energy company tax incentives that means billions of profits go untaxed. There are some defense expenditures that could be targeted as well. Instead, we’re getting an overall cut due to sequester. NASA can survive an 8.5% cutback but it sure won’t be pretty.
Worth noting that the vast majority of NASA appropriated funds goes to salaries and jobs. So while jobs were cut because of the demise of the shuttle program, in an agency level budget those jobs would have been replaced somewhere else. I know that doesn’t make shuttle workers feel any better, but it makes some other people feel a lot better. The 1000s of jobs lost working on shuttle became new jobs somewhere else.
Sequestration is going to inflict a cutback on the agency budget, and as such, will inflict a cut on the number of jobs the agency provides. So the demise of shuttle has little to do with anything here.
KSC is down 7,000 jobs. JSC is down at 3,000 if not more. So where did these jobs go? If you have specifics to back up your assertion it would be greatly appreciated if you shared.
Well, it hasn’t been one specific project/program that has filled in all of the money/jobs, but James Webb spending has certainly increased by a few hundred million, Commercial Crew is at a few hundred million a year, etc. All NASA budget documents are available here (http://www.nasa.gov/news/bu… if you want to know the specifics.
The specifics are available to anyone with the NASA appropriations bill at hand. Go look at it. The question is where dollars that used to go to shuttle went. Looks to be largely commercial, space technology, and SLS.
Having said that, I’ll turn your challenge around and ask you to show us the mattress that NASA is stuffing all these dollar bills into. Please do share! Maybe a Swiss bank account? It’s coming out of the taxpayers pocket. Where’s it going, if not paying people in the U.S?
Again, we all feel sorry for the shuttle workers who find themselves without a job, but their job losses are not indicative of net job losses for the agency. It’s pretty simple.
And exactly what are all of these workers doing on SLS?
You said “The 1000s of jobs lost working on shuttle became new jobs somewhere else.” Ralph asked where the jobs went and you replied to check the NASA appropriations bill. That does not say where those that lost their jobs got new jobs.
Actually in reply to John Thomas …
“Ralph asked where the jobs went and you replied to check the NASA appropriations bill.”
That’s right. He asked where the jobs went, and I told him. He didn’t ask where the particular job for a particular worker went. Suffice it to say that many of those jobs disappeared. It’s hardly anything novel when particular jobs disappear and are replaced by jobs that really need to get done. That the particular worker may not be able to do those replacement jobs is unfortunate for that particular worker. But that’s not what this thread is about.
found these stats as of november, 2011. there have more been let go since then IIRC.
http://www.statisticbrain.c…
Assuming we go over the cliff, should NASA:
A. Cut everybody 10%?
or B. Cancel one big program?
If this happens, contractors will suffer and it is a shame. But the good ole boy network at some of these centers is astounding. It’s to the point of crippling anything relevant. A lot of contractor employees at these centers aren’t upbeat and without a good outlook on agency endeavors, and a lot of it has to do with is because their jobs are there just as a means for investors and owners to get finances. A lot of it has to do with congress, but a lot has to do with the micro level allocation of funds at these agencies.
The fact is that there are several corporate/business entities that are only interested in making in much money off NASA as possible irregardless of the larger picture at the agency. MSFC and JSC management lead the charge in supporting them. This will hopefully tie their hands much as possible.
If things were right in the world, all civil servants would be fired and have to reapply for their jobs before any contractor cuts are made. That way the agency deals with budget cuts in the most efficient way possible. It doesn’t work that way and that is the root of this problem.
Commercial crew should have happened much sooner in this country. To this day there are civil servants that grit their teeth at the thought of loss of their exclusive power. Loss of power is what it comes down to.
Andrew Gasser is right when he says, “…correction will happen at some point when there is no money left to appropriate.”
You seriously laugh at the idea of people losing their jobs?
Lofting heads on pikes is the reward given to a political ideology’s adherents with an ax to grind.
So NASA didn’t design SLS and Orion? And Ares I? Did you read the Exploration Systems Architecture Study?