Moving NASA Headquarters Will Fix Nothing
Keith’s note: according to a post by AIP “Republican-led States Angle for NASA Headquarters“ “Lawmakers in support of relocation across Texas, Florida, and Ohio all say that moving NASA’s headquarters out of DC would lower agency operating costs, save taxpayers money, improve efficiency, and provide a boost to their local economies. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) claims that relocation would save the agency “about a billion dollars.” When all is said and done in terms of moving costs, hiring new people to replace those who did not want to move, moving contractor support, etc. Costs at every one of the remaining centers that did not get any goodies would simply stay exactly the same. I sincerely doubt a billion dollars would be saved. And now all the coordination that might have happened in one building is spread out across thousands of miles inside the politically protected fortesses of a dozen field centers. In the end all you would do is move inter-center food fights to new zip codes. NASA HQ doesn’t need a new phone book or a new address NASA NEEDS A STRATEGIC PLAN WITH A RELIABLE AND REALISTIC BUDGET. Sorry for yelling.
5 responses to “Moving NASA Headquarters Will Fix Nothing”
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There are a lot of state-centric sales pitches going on, but none of them have NASA’s best interests in mind, and all of them are oblivious to NASA’s history. I have not seen one single pitch that shows an understanding of NASA’s mission or program management structure. No offense to the space centers, but they would be the least logical place to manage the agency portfolio and workforce from. Any of the research centers have a huge advantage on that front.
These state-centric sales pitches are all about money and jobs. The centers are losing programs/money and jobs. So they see an opportunity that will benefit the state/nasa center. I don’t blame them for going after the jobs. I agree they do not have NASA’s best interests in mind because they are in survival mode.
Whatever it takes to keep the people on the deck plates at work is what I support.
Wasting money to save money? I question the math skills if your leaders.
To borrow from a saying of your people, “It’s like intentionally choosing to steer directly into an iceberg, loudly announcing that you’ve found a brilliant shortcut, and then rearranging deckchairs without even acknowledging that the ship is sinking – much less sinking due to direct and intentional choices.”
It’s obvious DC a good place to have HQ as closer to the money stream (congress), there are many opportunities to hob knob with congress members and lobbyists for money.