NASA Limits Travel; No Layoff Plans – yet (update)
Message From The NASA Administrator: New Policies in Response to Sequestration
“This guidance is to be applied to NASA employees and to all contract employees, including JPL employees, to extent permissible. Program managers, project managers, and contracting officers should apply this guidance to all NASA direct-funded contractor travel. You should know that Deputy Administrator Lori Garver and I have already begun to adjust our activities in line with these guidelines. We have both canceled travel and participation in the April National Space Symposium in Colorado and I have also canceled a planned overseas trip. … At this time, there is no change to the Agency’s current hiring policy. Centers may continue to transact hires as planned in their submitted phased hiring plans up to their FY2013 FTE ceilings. This includes hiring in all categories, including new intern hires, intern conversions, and all other early career hires.”
Sequestration Claims its First Victim at NASA, Planetary Society
“Of special note is that this letter defines “foreign” travel as anything outside of the continental United States. Sorry Hawaii and Alaska!”
NASA clamps down on travel spending, FCW
“Event planners hoping to book NASA speakers: You have a problem.”
@elakdawalla: “As others have pointed out to me, sequester doesn’t just limit NASA travel; also USGS, DOE, any federally funded organization or lab.”
Anyone that has followed approaches to cutting deficits around the world knows that cutting spending now is not going to make our fiscal situation any better. The deficit is falling now and have been falling because the economy is recovering. Economic stimulus mostly by the Fed’s flood of liquidity and low interest rates have reinflated asset prices and made consumers more willing to spend as the government has cut spending. Getting the unemployed back to work will generate more demand and more growth that will make the deficit even more irrelevant than it is today.
I am certainly not a financial consultant, but anyone who has studied even basic economics and accounting knows that “printing dollars” is not an answer. Every additional dollar they print decreases the buying power of every single dollar in existence, old and new. So what these “experts” are really saying is “America will pay the debt with pretty paper” and not bothering to mention the fact that the pretty paper in question will have a buying power far below what those who are owed were expecting to be repaid, far below what they “lent” to the US.
And notice that the guy in the video is laughing while explaining that the US can just print money. He’s laughing at the fact that the US can screw its creditors by paying debts with newly printed money and, he thinks, get away with it. I don’t think the people who would get ripped off royally would find it funny. And good luck to the US the next time they need to borrow. The jerk in the video is either an idiot, or he’s deliberately misrepresenting the workings of a fiat economy.
All of this is also completely irrelevant to whether the US government spends more or less; that’s a different issue. As another side note, the economy “improving” is a slippery phrase. If the public is again spending more, but doing it on credit, then the situation is not improving, just getting even messier. This is all just my opinion, of course, but that video makes me understand why some people still believe in lynching.
That’s nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz in the video. The US has always run deficits, when Clinton ran a surplus private sector debt increased. You only run into serious inflation when you have a supply shock (70s oil crisis), or your economy isn’t able to keep up with demand for goods and services. We have too much slack in the economy right now for that to be an issue.
http://www.businessinsider….
“You only run into serious inflation when you have a supply shock (70s
oil crisis), or your economy isn’t able to keep up with demand for goods
and services.”
That’s utter nonsense. You can get serious inflation whenever you print lots of money to pay the bills. Sometimes this is precipitated by something like the oil crisis, sometimes not.
Any government that prints money to pay a large budget deficit is going to eventually get runaway inflation.
And as to Stiglitz having a Nobel in Economics — there are a lot of Nobel prize-winning economists, and in many cases their theories and predictions are in strong disagreement with those of other Nobel prize-winning economists. All the major schools of thought on macroeconomic policy have their own Nobel winners in their corner.
skip to 4:10 for the part about the US deficit.
http://www.youtube.com/watc…
An example of ‘serious inflation whenever you print lots of money”, please? A US example?
‘Any government’ denies the fact that some governments have their own currencies, some do not.
An example please of the ‘many cases’ where Nobel economists are in strong disagreement?
“An example of ‘serious inflation whenever you print lots of money”, please? A US example?“
It doesn’t get any more basic than this. When you print more money, every dollar has less buying power; therefore people demand more dollars in their paychecks just to try to retain the same income (buying power) as they had before; it also causes sellers of goods and services to raise their prices in order to get from buyers the same price (buying power) as before;all of which creates a demand for more dollars, which puts you into the endless inflation loop, because the government inevitably prints even more dollars to meet the increased demand. This is “serious” the moment it starts because — how do you get out of the loop? In the end it comes down the the lower- and middle-income people tightening their belts and going without.This has happened over and over again in the US, even though it is well understood. I’m not going to research when and how often; if you really want to know, look into it. To some extent, it’s going on at a low level all the time. Inflation from printing more money is Economics 101. How many people over the age of 15 don’t know what inflation is?
Creditors — whether yours or the nation’s — see things no differently; if the dollars they’re being repaid have less buying power than the dollars they lent, then either they’re going to take measures to get compensated or they’re going to think twice before lending dollars in the future.
Be aware that a large part of what economists say is theory, not proven fact, and there are many different theories. If you push him to the wall, any economist will admit this (and it’s why most of them aren’t rich). Again, if you really want to know, look into it for yourself instead of reading a post from a stranger who may be wrong.
And I thought this thread was about NASA travel.
I just watched the video you linked to. Do you realize it doesn’t support any of your points in any way?
All Stiglitz and the others say in the video is that the U.S. government won’t default on treasury bonds because it can print money. They all also say that this can result in inflation, but the government won’t default on its bonds.
None of that has anything at all to do with your highly dubious claim that cutting spending won’t make the fiscal situation any better.
While it’s true that deficits are falling somewhat since the economy is expanding, all realistic projections show they won’t fall to sustainable levels unless either taxes are raised by a huge amount or entitlements are cut by a huge amount. And even raising taxes by a huge amount only delays the inevitable. Entitlement spending is on a track to continue to grow at a higher rate than the economy for decades to come. No matter how high taxes are, eventually the lines cross and 100% of the economic output of the country goes into entitlements. Of course, the system collapses sometime before that happens, but it sets an upper limit.
A big part of the reason entitlement spending continues to grow without limit is because medical technology just keeps getting better. That means people live longer and there are more and more things we can do to help keep them alive and well. That sucks up a larger and larger portion of our economy.
Someday, we’ll have to make hard choices. We can’t give everyone the best healthcare money can buy forever.
Spending on NASA is just collateral damage in our collective unwillingness to face hard realities.
With productivity increases and technology innovation we should be able to exceed the the demand side, and in fact we will probably have problems with deflation like they have in japan if we don’t do something about unemployment. As Greenspan correctly stated to Paul Ryan, the constraints going forward are not financial, but real assets. Which is what I’ve been trying say, that as long as your economy can keep up with demand you’re ok in terms of inflation. If your economic output is consumed in something like WWII you can get into a situation where there are shortages domestically and inflation results. If you do get too much inflation because you’re economy is as full utilization, then that is the time for spending cuts, but we currently have a large output gap, wasted economic potential to the tune of 15 billion a day according to the student video.
http://www.youtube.com/watc…
This is just silly: “all realistic projections show they won’t fall to sustainable levels unless either taxes are raised by a huge amount or entitlements are cut by a huge amount”.
Really? Either/or? This is the same nonsense we heard before the Clinton-Gingrich deal, which by the way was cut in a low economic period. Just a little long term perspective shows it to be wrong. And by the way, our Fortress America spending is rarely mentioned in this discussion, mostly because while proponents of cutting domestic spending talk in lofty terms they are really ultra conservatives with an agenda. There are plenty of ways to straighten out the mess but dismantling social services is not going to happen.
It’s a rueful shame that we are in this situation. We are a stunningly exceedingly rich nation that should be covered with shiny new airports, railways, highways, and other public improvements. We should be providing higher education to every citizen, and paying for health care. Our government is capable of regulating the lenders, and Wall Street, but is hamstrung by the silliness that is ‘self-correcting markets’. We have the money, without tax increases. Instead, we are pissing away trillions in wars- started by the right, by the way.
Makes me sick. The issues have nothing to do with taxes or spending. It’s values. You want war, we got it, and now look at the mess we are in. Money in the hands of just a few, getting worse every day as we worship at the Church of the Free Market. It’s wrong and it will bring us to our knees.
Some of us who pay taxes don’t think we should be forced to indefinitely subsidize programs that are BY LAW clearly on an unsustainable trajectory. BTW: The “common defense” is in the Constitution, so are roads & bridges under the commerce clause. Healthcare and education are not…
“Promote the general welfare..”??
Promote, not provide.
So we should be dumb and unhealthy, which in the end, will cost everybody in the end? Really?
Keynesian deficit borrowing and money-printing have never cured an economy of anything.
If we continue down the Krugman-Stiglitz path, there will be a long queue of people for the Tito Mars getaway, just trying to escape the resulting economic mess for a few months.
Anyone who thinks Inspiration Mars is a bit speculative, or nutty, should listen to Nobel (commemorative) prize winning economists for a few minutes. Even if the crew come back raving mad they’ll still be saner than Krugman.
Good luck finding enthusiastic young employees now! NASA was on my shortlist. Instead I started a company 3 months ago and already have ~$5M in private funding…and it has nothing to do with space. NASA’s loss.
I just want to thank you for bringing us BACK TO THE TOPIC.
As I stated in previous posts, I’m not wild about travel restrictions. Also, congrats on the $5M in funding. That’s impressive in this business climate.
However, if simply not being able to go to a conference is enough to drive someone away from NASA, they’re making a good choice. That would have been the least of their disappointments in exploring space.
Space is hard. You’re not going to make a ton of money. There’s never enough funding. There’s never enough schedule. You’re balancing multiple requests from engineers, scientists, and management. If you’re lucky you win a proposal. If you’re even more lucky, after working on a program for 5-10 years, your spacecraft doesn’t fall over in I&T, doesn’t blow up on the pad, doesn’t splash into the Atlantic, doesn’t get hammered by radiation, doesn’t get hit by space junk, and doesn’t crash into a planet.
It’s not for everyone. Personally, I wouldn’t want to do anything else.
Outside of my day job, I work with HS students in a robotics program.
I tell them
in the space business if you do 99 out of 100 things perfectly, but just one
thing is not quite right, you can be a total failure.
In reality, space less forgiving than that.
drbubba,
Good advice. I’ve always stated it as: If you get it right 100 times no one will say a word. Get it wrong once and they’ll never let you forget it.
When “they” is space the odds are always stacked against you, and you can’t forget that for a fraction of a second.
> However, if simply not being able to go to a conference is enough to
drive someone away from NASA, they’re making a good choice. That would
have been the least of their disappointments in exploring space.
It’s not “simply not being able to go to a conference”. By cutting substantially all non-emergency travel and training, NASA continues its slide toward an organization where:
– “Appearances” are secondary to getting the job done. If a site visit was the best way to gain information or reach a decision (which could save thousands or millions in wasted effort), tough, email is cheaper.
– Publishing research is not valued, and actually discouraged. Many conferences require authors of accepted papers to present them in person. No travel, no paper.
– Even if you’re not presenting, conferences are where serious researchers go to build networks, expand their knowledge, make connections, and synthesize new ideas. It’s the loading dock of the idea factory that generates new missions and science.
– High performers can’t keep their edge. Unless you’re going to lose a cert or something, your training is cancelled. Don’t ask for a book or new software, either, because those budgets were nulled, too. Library? Training Center? Son, those were closed two budget crises ago.
In short, an organization that consumes talent, and can’t afford to sustain or build it. We’ll pay you to work, but not to learn or grow or create. If I were fresh out of college, I wouldn’t want to work there, either.
I agree with everything you say.
That said, if I were fresh out of college, knowing what I know now, I would still want to work for NASA. I believe in its mission. My opinion is that if you believe in something, you deal with issues such as these while trying to change them. You don’t quit.
Spacer – thanks, raising the money wasn’t easy. We’ve been toying with pulling an Elon Musk if this goes big and do space right without being at the whims of Congress, the President, and the shovelers of pork.
You’re right that if conference travel is the only thing that drives you away then space isn’t for you. But the thing is that travel is such a small part of the pie that it makes people watching from the outside ask “what else?” I’ve been involved with a NASA flight project as recently as a few weeks ago as I wind down my involvement and hand over to other individuals, and have seen civil servants forced to write justifications for why they needed wire strippers and couldn’t just use scissors.
The thing is, NASA isn’t the only game in space. SpaceX, Blue Origin, and even Loral and Ball are all hungry for fresh energetic talent. If NASA wants to treat its employees badly (yes, it’s still better to be there than a coal mine in China) they’re going to lose out and become even less capable than they are today. If an organization is not constantly bringing in the best talent and cultivating it, they will die. And the engineering difficulties are all still there at the private companies — your systems still need to survive vibe, shock, rad, thermal. But it’s nice to be able to solve technical problems in an environment that’s supportive and doesn’t make you feel like you’re working in some third world country.
You got me there. I think that’s my age showing through about focusing on NASA. You are correct; you make a very good point about SpaceX, Blue Origin, etc. also being viable choices for a new grad. Arguably, they are the ones capturing the excitement of exploration at this point.
Do consider sticking with space, though, if you get the chance.
Don’t worry, NASA managers will find a way to travel in US an overseas. People doing the real work? Sorry, new rules.
Don’t worry, NASA managers will find a way to travel in US an overseas.
But NASA managers NEED to go to Paris or Rome or wherever else in Europe they need to go to present critical conference papers with titles like “How to Motivate Young Engineers to Stay with NASA” or “Why Is Morale Sinking Like a Stone in Water?”
Do you get it now?
Exactly, but of course 85% of NASA is now managers, so …
As was pointed out earlier the whole not traveling thing is a red herring, in other words managers posturing to make it look like they are dealing with a problem. And as for layoffs, new rules for the people doing real work is exactly right; NASA managers are the first into the life boat when the ship shows signs of sinking.
Current rumors are that Bolden himself will not be travelling to the Paris Air Show and I know of another program manager that was told his/her imminent travel to Europe to give a presentation was not going to happen.
Current rumors are that Bolden is not going to the Paris Air Show and that a program manager was told his/her imminent travel to Europe to give a presentation was a no-go. Seems like this policy change has teeth to me.
Consequences to professional organizations like AIAA could be significant as their trend in recent years has been to consolidate smaller conferences into larger meetings. More of these would have a chance to bump against the 50 person criteria requiring higher-level approval.
All-in-all, it’s window dressing. NASA is not really saving that much money (total agency travel is ~$76M out of a ~$17B budget) but the impact on the technical people is substantial.
It may be looked at as some type of perk, but many people I know avoid it if possible but sometimes it really is the best way to disseminate information and collaborate.
NASA is far too much show today. Want to save real money?? Dump the ISS white elephant and SLS and pour money into cool R&D and payloads and hire commercial to do the launches like SpaceX. This is all bait and switch. Look, we are being such good stewards by not traveling overseas while billions get poured down large project holes that will never yield anything. Anyone remember Ares????
Ares…smh….we should’ve just built the big rocket…
Actually, some NASA employees cannot STOP travelling; It would require a good amount of delta-v to stop the ISS.
Some wise words from president Eisenhower’s farewell address…..
___________________________________
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
_______________________________
Do we still have ears to hear this wisdom?
Screw all this travel BS.
Read the next paragraph, the one that cancels a LOT of training for both NASA employees AND contractors. That will have long lasting implications if kept in place for any length of time.
Read the next paragraph, the one that cancels a LOT of training for both NASA employees AND contractors.
Why is NASA paying to train contractors?? Aren’t they paying for a ready-to-go service?
NASA pays either way… training and conferences are often built into the task order money. it’s all a chess game with the $$.
NASA pays either way… training and conferences are often built into the task order money.
Really?
That stuff comes out of my aerospace company’s bottom line. When times are lean, guess what goes first.
http://www.bloomberg.com/ne…
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2…
How do your experts proposed to “spend more not less” when there is no money to do so? Printing more money makes things look better (to some) for a very short period of time and then suddenly you find it’s made things a whole lot worse! That’s always been the pattern and there’s no reason to believe that it will magically change. We’ve already been down this road and beat it to death. Next topic, please.
You are confusing the US department of the the treasury with the Federal Reserve. The Fed reserve creates and destroys money by fiat. The Treasury sells US bonds to the world at discount from the stated value of the bond in order to raise revenue. Accordingly, the dollar is a function of credit of the US banking system headed by the Federal Reserve. It is backed up by US congressional law requiring that all US citizens must accept the dollar as payment of debt. So the value of the dollar has everything to do with the US banking system (which holds US bonds as required by the Fed Reserve) and not the US Treasury. The danger is that the US treasury could possibly issue so many bonds that they could never redeem them with tax revenue. So far, the world demand for US bonds is so huge and the discount from the stated value of the bond is so slight that it is not a problem versus say, the Euro. If the latest sequester stays in effect the level of US bond debt won’t go down, it will still continue to rise but it *should* gradually reduce as a siginifcant percentage of the economy *if* the economy continues to grow. I think the chances are good for this to happen because the US economy has got a lot on the ball. But I could be wrong. I hope not. And Canada better hope not either.
“That’s always been the pattern”
Actually it hasn’t ever been the pattern. It has been the myth, regurgitated ad nauseum, but it bears almost no relation to what actually happens in economies.
I would add that the Euros are seizing banking deposits in Cyprus (of which Russsian Oligarchs are major holders) as as a condtion of bailout and could start a banking panic that might collapse the entire system. So much for the Austrian school of econmists(Ludwig Von Mises) which the Germans are so fond of. Erhard suceeded only because of the US Army was in charge, a fact often overlooked. Yeah, sure, austerity is going to work. You bet. Keynes won the debate decades ago and he still rules from the grave.
Excellent! Finally those of us serving on Boards around the world can escape having to sit through committee meetings wherein the small minded NASA civil servants and too often NASA contractors (yes, those hiding behind the ‘nasa.gov‘ email addresses) inhibit true progress or throw their (often dead, bully) weight around, dragging out meetings. One committee that meets in PARIS! every year has SIX from NASA, mainly HQ (of a total committee of perhaps 25–that’s 25%) that attend each year. Paris. France. Necessary? Vital? Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out. And, over 2 dozen NASA employees were in Italy in Sept. 2012 for that meeting. Could have made due with one or two am sure. Don’t forget NASA has an office in Europe too. But I digress from main point: FINALLY, a reprieve from stymied progress within committees trying to make positive things happen!
Lets not forget their group meeting in Brazil during Carnival and that wasnt ‘ even to discuss foreign partnerships (Brazil doesn’t have an active space program).
My other favorites, Japan, India, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, etc., etc., etc.
Guess who get to keep their frequent flyer miles (they don’t go back to JPL, or NASA for future govt travel)-NO……THEY GO TO THE EMPLOYEE FOR PERSONAL VACATION TRAVEL. They are not salespeople contributing towards the bottom line, nor do they bare the risk of termination when they don’t meet a sales quota.
There is no quantifiable measure of determining the success vs. cost benefit of any of their travel.
Have they heard of video conferencing?
My taxdollars would be betters spent on medical research, social security, elementary education, disaster recovery assistance…..pretty much anywhere else.
It is interesting that so many of the comments about the wisdom or lack thereof on the travel restrictions are attributing the decision to NASA. The same things are happening at my agency and everywhere. NASAs policy memo referenced the OMB memo that was the source. Govexec.com also provides good coverage of what is happening at other agencies, including a lot of furloughs. It may seem trivial, but every dollar saved this way does not have to come out of a program or somebody’s paycheck, and travel adds up. I was kind of surprised to see this part, though:
“1. Criteria – NASA will limit all travel to travel that meets the following criteria:a. The travel is essential and/or necessary (as compared to discretionary or preferable)b. The travel contributes to the agency’s core missionc. The employee travelling is substantively involved with the purpose of the tripd. There are no alternative methods of participating (e.g., phone, video conference, or pre-recorded video message).”
In most of the government, this is and has always been necessary to justify all travel, sequestration or no. The only criterion with possible wiggle room is point a, as some would debate whether interaction with scientific colleagues at a conference is “necessary” or “discretionary,” or similar for traveling to obtain developmental training, etc. The other points are non-negotiable. I have to sign an acknowledgement with each travel authorization that the purposes cannot be achieved through other means, such as video conferencing.