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Yet Another NASA Reorganization Study

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
June 21, 2018
Yet Another NASA Reorganization Study

NASA Assessment of Mission Flexibility and Agility, NASA
“As you know, the President’s National Space Strategy and Space Policy Directives have set NASA on an ambitious path of discovery and exploration that will require us to be more agile and flexible than ever. To that end, as NASA’s part of an Administration plan for reorganizing the Executive Branch, the agency has been asked to assess over the next few months whether expanding the Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) model beyond JPL is the best approach for increasing agility and flexibility in support of the mission.”
Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century (NASA Excerpt)
Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century
Page 17: “Establish an accelerated process for determining whether one or more of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Centers should be converted to, or host, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC). FFRDCs can potentially allow the agency to be more agile in rapidly responding to changing needs and in recruiting and retaining scientific and technical expertise.”
Page 83: “Process to Determine Best Role for FFRDCs
This proposal lays a process to determine if one or more of NASA’s other Centers should be converted to, or host, an FFRDC. NASA would oversee this process and provide an analysis, including recommendations, to the White House by the end of August 2018 so that the outcome can be reflected in future budget and policy plans and proposals. NASA’s analysis would draw from prior studies of this topic and evaluate the potential of an FFRDC to further the Administration’s policy goals more effectively. In addition to studying whether one or more Centers could potentially be converted to an FFRDC in whole or in part, NASA would also establish whether it may be effective to perform new programs and projects using an FFRDC structure.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

61 responses to “Yet Another NASA Reorganization Study”

  1. Donald Barker says:
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    This is exceedingly depressing if not one of many other expletives. Worse yet this exemplifies this nations culture of violence and ongoing and growing rejection of science and knowledge. NASA will get $20 billion in 2018 and the military gets $1.3 trillion (https://www.military.com/da…. Add this disparaging difference up over the past 50 years and it is truly sad. Bureaucracy comments aside, what could NASA do with just 1/4 that amount of money? Probably win more “hearts and minds” all around this planet than the military or military action has or could ever accomplish. And I have stories from the Apollo era that corroborate such inspiration.
    No one really cares about all this anyway, as actions and history speak louder than words.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      You need to read a bit beyond the headlines. That $1.3 Trillion is for 2 years. As the chart on the bottom shows the 2019 budget is just under $700 billion (3.5% of GDP).

      https://www.defense.gov/New

      What could NASA do with one quarter of $700 billion, say $175 billion (.8 of one percent of the GDP)? Probably launch the SLS/Orion 2-3 times a year to the Moon as it did when its budget was about 75% (.6 of one percent of the GDP) that much in the 1960’s.

      • Donald Barker says:
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        There is no 2 year total on the link I gave (“$1.3 trillion omnibus spending package for fiscal 2018, including nearly $700 billion for the military and $591 billion for non-defense funding.”).
        Comparing spending to GDP as opposed to Federal Budget totals only makes NASA look worse and is misleading, like adding some value of your work time and pay together instead of just your salary and what you spend.
        And if NASA was on a better path, $175 billion could accomplish many, many things. NASA does not only do human space flight. Oh, and would inspire and motivate children (maybe adults) all over the world to study and learn (especially STEM). The military can never do this.

        • ThomasLMatula says:
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          Unlike NASA, the military is one of the few options low income high school graduates have to learn STEM stills. It will teach then the latest technology and provide them with the funding to get advanced college degrees. The USAF Space Command has over 38,000 personnel trained in the lastest technology, and unlike NASA, most are in their 20’s and early 30’s. The average age is about 28 compared to 48 at NASA.

          Sure, NASA will inspire them, inspire them to be burden with huge student loans to study STEM fields than find there are very few
          jobs for astronomers, planetary geologists, etc., so they end up running a motel or, if they are lucky and have enough to go back to school for creditials, teaching in some K-12 school system. That is what happened to my two friends who started with me at NMT. Both earned their Ph.Ds but never found work in the field. Only about half of those with Ph.Ds in Astronomy do.

          • Ted says:
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            First, you’re totally right to give the military credit for both developing STEM skills and for inspiring people. There’s far more engineers and scientists working for the military, even just within the aerospace field, than NASA. The USAF and USN in particularly are always present at STEM events in the community and they sometimes do a far better job at communicating what they do to the public than NASA.

            That said, I dont blame NASA for anyone who takes out loans to get a degree in Astronomy. It’s STEM, sure, but that’s a big risk to take when there aren’t a ton of applied astronomy jobs out there. Im not sure why you focus on Astronomy or planetary geology; how about engineering? Go get an engineering PHD and you’ll have a great shot at NASA or an unlimited job list in the private sector as a backup.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Yes, because private industry is always in need of engineers. But where does NASA put the focus? On planetary science, astronomy, searching for ET. Very few jobs for those fields in private industry. Also will someone who was dreaming of building lunar settlements really be happy designing a new refrigerator?

            Yes, it is always the choice of the individual, but colleges need to be more up front with students on the prospects for employment afterward.

          • Michael Kaplan says:
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            NASA Astrophysics annual budget is ~$1B. Your claim implies that the money goes to astronomers and that it’s a poor investment. That’s totally absurd. The reality is that the vast majority of the budget goes to engineers and tecnicains designing, buidling and operating space missions, much of which involves pushing the boundaries of scinece and technology. A relatively small fraction goes to supporting and training professional astronomers because there are so few, about 5,000 if memory serves me correctly.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            No, that is NOT what I am saying. You need to read it over. What I am saying is that it is wrong to inspire students to pursue a career in STEM fields like astronomy when there are so few jobs available. Here is a recent paper discussing it, and how a program is needed to re-educate those astronomers who are not able to find jobs in astronomy for jobs outside of astronomy in industry.

            https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv

            The same is true for similar fields like planetary science, astrobiology, etc. that have little demand outside of NASA or universities. And its not limited to NASA, its just as bad in other non-space fields like Paleontology and Archeology.

          • Michael Kaplan says:
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            Sooooo…having professional astronomers, astrobiologists, etc. are bad for the vitality of the US? It’s pretty naive thinking to believe that people who undertake a career path in astronomy do so expecting a career is guaranteed. Many end up in engineering because there are so few jobs and it’s so competitive to get the ones available. So we’re only to pursue careers driven by the marketplace? What an odd way of looking at the world? Why not reeducate artists and musicians as well because there aren’t many jobs in those fields either?

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Having astronomers, astrobiologists, etc. who are working as desk clerks in motels or security guards is a sad waste of brain power. But that seems to be what you are advocating as you seem fine with over producing them. But then you are not paying off their student loans…

          • sunman42 says:
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            I had this discussion, arguing that overproduction of PH.D.s in my field was a bad thing, early in my career with a senior person who has been a PI on many NASA missions. His attitude was that anyone with a Ph.D. in our part of physics could do pretty much any kind of physics, and many kinds of instrumenatation-related engineering, and so would have to work hard not to be employable. He was right — 34 years ago. I honestly don’t know if it’s still true.

            My own feeling _maybe just a prejudice) is that this study is motivated by the Administration’s stated goal to make it easier to fire civil servants. How much easier could it get than decided to reduce funding for a (maybe the only) contract at an FFRDC?

          • fcrary says:
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            I think that logic is a little shaky. It assumes that other branches of physics and “instrumentation-related engineering” are not producing PhDs. Or at least, not producing fewer than are needed to fill the available jobs. What if, for example, the high energy particle physicists are thinking the same way? Then there wouldn’t be room for the sort of lateral transfers you describe.

          • sunman42 says:
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            Some high-energy particle physicists are experimentalists and handy with hardware. Some do machine learning. And a lot are theoreticians, who are good for nothing else. 😉

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            And then you have the cowboy singer Woody Paul, comic relief for the group, Riders in the Sky, who has a Ph.D. in Physics from MIT 🙂

            https://www.technologyrevie

            “I knew I’d make more money playing rock and roll,” he says. “But I’ve never stopped studying thermodynamics. I’m fascinated with entropy—how it’s present in every reaction on the planet, yet no one can truly describe it.”

          • sunman42 says:
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            And Brian May of Queen, who after thirty-three years as the lead guitarist for Queen, finished his Ph.D. thesis in astrophysics at Imperial College London in 2007.

          • fcrary says:
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            “It’s pretty naive thinking to believe that people who undertake a career path in astronomy do so expecting a career is guaranteed.”

            I worry about that. When an undergraduate decided to major in astronomy, does he really know how poor the job prospects in the field are? People who are very concerned with that tend to major in subjects with clear, good job prospects. I think the physical sciences tend to attract students that are more interested in subjects they’re interested in and are good at, and less those who are thinking ahead four years to the how they are going to earn a living.

            It also isn’t clear to me how many astronomy majors realize that they’ll need to go all the way to a PhD. The jobs a BA astronomy major can get are largely taken by PhD astronomers who haven’t managed to get funding for research.

          • Michael Kaplan says:
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            I had great advisors in my undergraduate years that I heavily relied on for advice. I had two career path choices: astrophysics and aerospace engineering. I chose the latter because it was obvious to me how hard it would be to make it with a PhD in astrophysics, even coming from a place like Princeton. (BTW, I have classmates who “made it” as astronomers, too.) So I believe it’s up to students to get the best possible advice and guidance from their schools to help them to make wise choices. Blaming NASA for “inspiring potential future astonomers” is mid-guided. NASA is a science & technology agency. Press conferences are a major way for scientific results to reach the public. STEM is an important, too, but it’s a secondary objective.

          • fcrary says:
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            Yes, but… Not everyone has great advisors, especially not at the undergraduate level. And, to be honest, at the graduate level, there are a few professors who want students for the cheap labor and don’t want to discourage them by being honest about career prospects. (And that doesn’t necessarily mean offering false hopes, just avoiding the subject is enough.) I’ve also seen people who discourage students from studying “extraneous” things like software engineering (it’s something some students want, to have back-up career options, but which some professors see as a distraction from the student’s “real” work.)

            But, as you point out, that is a STEM issue in general, and not something we can expect NASA to solve. But media relations for NASA projects, and how it plays for K-12 students, is something NASA can consider.

            I’ve noticed the occasional press release out of JPL about the people behind the scenes. For example, they had a nice one about multi-layer insulation blankets, how they are installed on spacecraft, and how someone shifted careers from dressmaking to spacecraft assembly. More of that and less of the trying to promote every measurement as a major discovery by a lab scientist might not be a bad idea. At least it promotes the fact that their are people working behind the scenes.

            It might also be nice to hear more about the team involved in a major discovery and hear the PI’s name less often. I know that is hard to sell to the press, but if the problem is over-promoting the “famous” scientist and under-promoting all of the other people and professions that went into the results, that’s something NASA could at least try to do.

          • rktsci says:
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            BTW, aside from a few niches, there is no shortage of STEM graduates in the US. The IEEE has been on this issue for years.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            I sometimes wonder if that is one of the sources for gender differences in STEM fields. I know the women students I advise in business seem to ask a lot more questions about career options and employment than the males students. It may just be the history of discrimination that is driving such inquiries or it might just be that women are more focused on economic security then men. In any case it is probably something worth studying when studies are done on women in STEM.

          • fcrary says:
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            I can’t say if this is an issue for gender inclusiveness, but it is or possibly was an issue for ethnic inclusiveness. Specifically, around 1990, UC Berkeley was trying to increase ethnic diversity and the engineering departments were having an easier time doing so than the physical sciences departments. This was interpererted to be an unfortunate correlation between race and income.

            If a student’s family had always been poor, and the student was one of the first (or the first) person in his family to go to college, that student would face some peer pressure about his major. Family and friends back home discouraged those students from wasting the opportunity a college degree offered. Don’t major in something that doesn’t offer the prospects of a good, well-paying and secure job. Engineering degrees offer that while physical science degrees generally don’t.

            That’s reasonable and understandable and does not seem to have much to do with ethnic diversity. But, due to a long history of ethnic discrimination, there is a correlation between historical poor families and the color of their skin or the language spoken in their home.

            I really hope things have improved since this was noted around 1990. But when it comes to the fraction of students I see, I’m not sure. When it comes to gender, I see a dramatic difference from the time I was an undergraduate. But when it comes to ethnic groups, I just see an occasional blip here or there. I’m not comfortable with that.

          • rktsci says:
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            I got a BA in astronomy and got caught in the post-Apollo budget cuts for graduate education. Fortunately, I had good programming skills and was able to get a series of good jobs, got an MSEE along the way, and had a great career.

          • fcrary says:
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            He’s talking more about what NASA press releases and media relations focus on. That’s really a big part of encouraging kids to go into STEM fields. It’s what many of the “when I grow up I want to be…” ideas come from. But who are the people featured in those press releases? With some exceptions, it’s the scientists who made a discovery, possibly a mission’s project scientist or manager, or sometimes other scientists in the field (for the “I’m not involved in the study but it’s a real big deal” quotes.) It isn’t the engineers and technicians who built the instruments and spacecraft, and it isn’t the people operate them. So, it terms of providing role models for K-12 students, NASA is providing scientists and astronauts.

          • tutiger87 says:
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            “NASA puts the focus on…”. Wrong again. The overwhelming vast majority of folks are your everyday engineer.

            Mars will need refrigerators too.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            That is not how the kids see it. They see it as astronomy, astrobiology etc. They are not thinking of the techs who work behind the scenes.

            FYI

            https://solarsystem.nasa.go

            Note – its scientist for a day, not engineer for a day.

            https://solarsystem.nasa.go

            Yes, most of the folks at NASA may be engineers and techs, but it is hard to see that from the focus of the education websites. They discuss what science is to be learned from the pictures from (fill in the object), not the tech of how the cameras were built, the pictures taken, sent to Earth, etc. In short the focus is on the data the scientists have to work with, not how engineers/techs get the data for them.

            Of course part of it is liability. For example in the old days a kid could have a chemistry set and have real fun. Sure they burn holes in tables, started a fire or two, scare folks with an explosion, but it was all part of the learning. Now they are a lot less fun.

            https://www.bbc.com/news/ma

            Whatever happened to kids’ chemistry sets?
            By Alex Hudson BBC News

          • sunman42 says:
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            And space janitors, er, mechanical systems engineers:

            https://www.imdb.com/title/

          • fcrary says:
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            That’s a misunderstanding about job requirements. You can get a good job in your field with a BS in engineering, and PhD engineers are fairly rare (outside of faculty at universities.) In contrast, a BS (or in my case, a BA) in astronomy doesn’t open any doors. A job in the field virtually requires a PhD. But I don’t think many undergraduates who decide to major in astronomy are thinking about that (or aware of it.)

            That is also true of a BA in history, philosophy, etc., but I don’t think that’s comparable. Most history majors don’t have an expectation of working in the field, and most potential employers don’t hire someone with a BA in history because they need a good historians.

          • sunman42 says:
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            Well, there have been people with astronomy BAs that served in OPM as NASA’s financial overlords. Others have gone on to do well on Wall Street or the Chicago mercantile exchange. I guess some people would see those as a good jobs.

          • fcrary says:
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            I specifically said, “A job in the field…” I didn’t say a good job outside the field. We can argue about what staying in the field of astronomy means, but it’s pretty clear working on Wall Street doesn’t count. (And the seeing is terrible in Manhattan…)

          • sunman42 says:
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            I understand what you’re saying, but it was physicists, including a colleague, who pretty much invented derivatives trading, and at least one of them went back into the field afterward. It’s not a hard and fast situation.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            But don’t forget, it was those derivatives that really helped to crash the market in 2008 and destroyed some famous banks. Markets are very difficult to model relative to the physical universe. Iron atoms don’t have opinions and don’t panic like investors do which tends to mess up your models 🙂

          • sunman42 says:
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            Wikipedia lists 12 causes for the financial crash of 2007 – 2008. “Financial innovation and complexity” was only one, and about halfway down the list. I think we all know that it was widespread granting of liars’ loans to homebuyers, those loans’ being layered into securities (not very complexly) based on tranches of good, bad, and horrendous loans, and the ratings firms’ abandoning of all fiduciary responsibility to rate those securities honestly that provided the starter’s pistol for the race to the bottom.

          • tutiger87 says:
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            Where do you get this stuff from? I got a top quality STEM education at a public school with NO debt.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            If so you are the exception to the rule, or it was decades ago. I graduated New Mexico Tech in 1983 with no debt, but that is rare today.

          • tutiger87 says:
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            Not necessarily. One thing that is not discussed in the college financial debate is how schools and employers buy into the school reputation myth. For example, kids in NY take out massive debt to got to private schools like Clarkson or RPI, when CCNY and some SUNY schools can provide a darn good engineering education.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Yes, state schools are good and cheaper, I know, I teach at one and earned all four of my degrees from state schools. But even here there is a gap between what the states used to pay for and what they pay for now. That is why student loans are over a Trillion dollars nationwide.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            I’m glad I paid in state tuition at Purdue University back in the 80s-90s. Some people don’t even know it’s a state university in Indiana since out of state students pay tuition rates rivaling private schools.

            At any rate, tuition at Purdue today has gone up much more than inflation over that same time period. I don’t even recognize half the buildings when I visit because of all the (expensive) construction which has happened since I graduated. Insert cranky old man voice: When I was there…

          • rktsci says:
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            Most of the students with high loan balances are in grad school programs or professional schools such as law. The distribution is very skewed.

          • Donald Barker says:
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            I dont think you quite understand human motivation and learning especially at the youngest and most formative years. It is highly unlikely that the military inspires many children to follow any specific life path, and if so, it is most likely a path based on war machines and tools and not something to do with helping the human race. Military video games dont have characters helping other humans.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            You are really anti-military aren’t you? The military inspires lots of kids. Just look at the enrollment in Junior ROTC and other programs that lead to careers serving America. As for helping the human race, I would count protecting America and the West from terrorists and evil empires as helping. Maybe you should talk to some folks who didn’t have a strong military with a proud tradition of public service to protect them to learn about how they protect you.

          • Donald Barker says:
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            Not necessarily. It has its purpose. My problem is that most people purport high moral standards and keep acting as base as humans ever have. Nothing learned. And the mindset of America first (ego) and keeping western culture as paramount (greed) is an example of that bias. And if we did not meddle so much in nation building historically, maybe we would not be despised by so many. We could learn from this, but odds are we wont (especially when money is involved).

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            True, but that has been true for all human societies not just the West. I agree about nation building, but it is an step forward from the European model from pre-WWII of just turning failed nations into colonies. Sadly nation building seems to be one of things the US is burden with as the world’s leading economy. When we ignored it, as in Afghanistan pre-911 and Somalia it seems to come to bite us. That is why I sometimes wonder if it will be turn out better if China starts sharing that burden. The Soviets did keep a good lid on their clients states in the Mideast when they were active in taking over failed nations. At least refuges were leaving in droves for Europe to escape failed nations as they are doing now.

            Turing this back to the topic of space, that is one reason I am against the International (Moon Agreement) model for space development and settlement. Space settlements will have enough challenges and the internal conflicts from such an approach will just make the chances of failure higher.

          • sunman42 says:
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            It’s pretty obvious that people volunteer for an all-volunteer military for. variety of reasons: commitment to the country and protecting its citizens, bored with life in their hometown, perceived economic opportunities of service, and undoubtedly, for some, action and adventure.

          • fcrary says:
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            It’s been quite a while since I played any video games, but don’t some of the more military-oriented ones include rescuing people?

          • fcrary says:
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            There was a recent survey by or for the AAS/DPS a few year ago on careers in astronomy and planetary science. (I’m fairly sure it was the DPS.) It showed only about 20% of all PhD’s remaining in the field. There are some questions about the methodology and the definition of “remaining in the field.” (If someone shifts from astronomy to media relations for the observatory, are they still “in the field”? What about someone promoted into management and no longer doing any research?)

          • sunman42 says:
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            You be referring to people who got jobs in academia; there are itself other jobs for astrophysicists and people with related degrees in FFRDCs, and even in private industry. And the many of the skills are certainly transferrable to other disciplines in physics, as well as engineering.

            The 2016 American Physical Society study “Physics Doctorate: Skills Used & Satisfaction with Employment” showed that 72% of US citizens getting physics PH.D.s in 2013 (about half of all such degree recipients in the US in those years) said they would get their Ph.D. again, at the same institution, and 13% at a different institution, so overall, it cannot be that bad a job choice. I don’t know of a similar survey of only Astrophysics/Heliophysics/Planetary PH.D.s

          • fcrary says:
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            I said there were some questions about the methodology and the definition of staying “in the field.” But no, academia was not the definition. I’d have to go back and look at the details, but there was a muddle about things like teaching at a community college and doing unfunded research in the summer months, soft-money academic research positions, etc.

            I was largely using this to say the story is probably worse than 50%, not that it was actually 20%. The more reliable result, in my opinion, is that astronomers are good at surveying things like stars and asteroids, but you probably don’t want them surveying people. People involve some vagueness and subjectivity, and good surveyors should know how to deal with that.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          NASA doesn’t need more money. It needs better leadership and wiser policies.

  2. fcrary says:
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    I’ve got to wonder what the point is. I’m the last person to say NASA’s current organization is perfect, but are more Federally Funded Research and Development Centers really a step in the right direction? As someone who works on NASA contracts and grants, and with people who do the same, I’ve heard as many complaints about JPL as a about GSFC. The Department of Energy’s management of LANL is similar (although the legal details may be different) and they aren’t all that different either. I just don’t see anything which makes this approach significantly better, or even significantly different.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      I agree. It’s sounds good, but they need to learn if they actually work, and why, before expanding it.

    • rb1957 says:
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      A logic I can see to these FFRDCs is if they have access to more budget (or does their funding come from NASA’s budget ?).

      • spacegaucho says:
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        These ideas have been floated before
        FFRDCs are supposed to be about saving money by ultimately reducing civil servant head count.The problem is how to incentivize CS to move to the FFRDC. Under current law they can’t be RIFed because the work at the FFRDC is similar or the same
        This is usually directed at the Research centers The thinking being that if we could just get rid of the Research centers thrrt would be more money to waste on SLS

      • fcrary says:
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        JPL is almost entirely funded by NASA, either directly through the contract to CalTech to manage the lab, or through other NASA contracts and grants. They get some money from industry contracts (e.g. to use JPL facilities to test commercial spacecraft) and they do leverage some research funding from CalTech (some people are both JPL and CalTech faculty.) But mostly, that’s all things “normal” NASA center also do. The tie to a major university is stronger, but there are similar relations between, for example, GSFC and University of Maryland.

        I believe the situation with the Department of Energy labs is similar; they are managed by a consortium led by the Universities of California, but the money comes from DoE.

        • sunman42 says:
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          What JPL doesn’t do — and why they, and APL, have NASA management onsite — is financial and technical management. Basically, the fiduciary responsibility a government outfit has to the taxpayers, which is what contractors such as Caltech/JPL and JHU APL don’t have.

          • fcrary says:
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            That’s a good point, and something I’d forgotten. I wouldn’t use the term “technical management” since I believe it implies some things you don’t mean, but that’s a detail.

            In any case, I still don’t see the point of this study. It’s supposed to see if creating more JPL-like organizations would be “the best approach for increasing agility and flexibility…” The NASA oversight you mention is added management, which isn’t going to increase agility or flexibility. There are differences between JPL and a NASA center, but I don’t see any which are significantly relevant to agility, flexibility or efficiency. Unless you want to study everything, it’s a good idea to have some reason to think you are studying is relevant to the problem you want to solve. In this case, I just don’t see it.

            Coopting JHU/APL and turning it into JPL-East, by the way, is not an option. Their Civil Space “Mission Area” (to use the term on their web page) is very much like JPL. But APL as a whole has lots of other contracts with other government agencies. Organizationally, I can’t see any way to produce a FFRDC without also producing an organizational and administrative nightmare.

          • sunman42 says:
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            I meant it in the sense of managing technical projects, which is how JHU for instance, uses it: https://ep.jhu.edu/programs… . Since management includes resources, there has to be a civil servant in charge.

            If I recall correctly, the study of university-affiliated FFRDC/FFRDC/current NASA Centers + JPL does ~ 18 years ago determined that to reproduce what’s done at the larger NASA Centers, you’d need so many civil servants (project managers, project scientists, resource analysts, QA people, and so on, ad nauseam), that any such FFRDC would be a NASA Center in all but name, just more expensive. Nowadays, NASA has contractor resource analysts (reporting to NASA supervisors) but to maintain a fiduciary relationship to the work, they’d have to be from a different contractor than the one doing the work.

          • fcrary says:
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            I know what you meant. But to someone unfamiliar with the jargon, I think it’s unclear. This sort of management is focused on managing the process of running a technical project. It isn’t about how engineers should build or test things. (E.g. how and what sort of meetings are required to decide on spacecraft requirements, not what those requirements should be.) I just think most people think of the later, not the former, when they hear “technical management.”

          • jimlux says:
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            The NMO (Nasa Management Office) presence at JPL is fairly small. There’s plenty of contracts and finance people at JPL to do financial management of the work. And there’s plenty of technical managers.

          • fcrary says:
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            That’s the terminology and jargon thing I was worried about. The NASA involvement in finance isn’t to manage the contracts and the budget. JPL does that. NASA, however, has people looking over their shoulders to make sure the JPL contracts and finance people are doing everything according to government policy and rules. Similarly, NASA doesn’t have anyone there managing the technical work; they have people making sure the way the technical work is managed follows NASA policies.

  3. Neal Aldin says:
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    “FFRDC” implies someone is doing research and development. Then someone used Orion and SLS as examples of what might be done with higher FFRDC budgets. Neither Orion nor SLS seem to be research or development. It is an illustration of the problem in human space flight. No one within NASA appears to be trying to improve upon systems or services. In fact right up until recently NASA personnel at the human space centers referred to themselves as “operations”. Its apparently operations in the slow mode, with no more than a handful of people flying or training for flight at any time. Surely it cannot require $6 billion a year for so little effort?