Future MDA, NASA, and military job loss (Huntsville, York: sales, contractor)

[Charles]

Originally Posted by financelife

Have we ever really been to the moon? I mean, how long has it been now. Technology is so much better, and yet I am to believe that we went in the 60s with those cheap looking space suits.

I haven't; though some people probably have.

It is hard to believe though. It's taken all these years to build a space station (which I worked on for several years - ten years ago) with 2GHz Pentiums/2Gigs RAM on everyone's desk and those guys with slide rules went from flying monkeys to walking on the moon in nine years. And fought a war at the same time. Hard to believe they really did it.

My favorite exclamation at work when we "can't" get something done for routinely pathetic reasons is "We NEVER put a man on the moon. No way."

[clamoore]

Going to the moon was a purely political mission, and it quite possibly permanently derailed our greater mission in space. I truly appreciate the hard work of those involved and the wondrous benefits derived from their toil and imagination, but the moon should have taken a back seat to a permanent orbital station/platform. I formed this opinion after reading the works of others, but I believe we could have achieved far more by building a permanent station in orbit. We could have advanced science and technology on the cheap, when compared to the Apollo program. For our first planetary visit, Mars would have been a logical successor to the orbital station. Spacecraft could have been constructed around the platform, eliminating the need to escape all of Earth's gravity. The moon was another useful front on which to fight the Soviets. That being said, my hat's off to everyone involved in the Moon mission. We truly stand on the shoulders of giants!

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by clamoore

Going to the moon was a purely political mission, and it quite possibly permanently derailed our greater mission in space. I truly appreciate the hard work of those involved and the wondrous benefits derived from their toil and imagination, but the moon should have taken a back seat to a permanent orbital station/platform. I formed this opinion after reading the works of others, but I believe we could have achieved far more by building a permanent station in orbit. We could have advanced science and technology on the cheap, when compared to the Apollo program. For our first planetary visit, Mars would have been a logical successor to the orbital station. Spacecraft could have been constructed around the platform, eliminating the need to escape all of Earth's gravity. The moon was another useful front on which to fight the Soviets. That being said, my hat's off to everyone involved in the Moon mission. We truly stand on the shoulders of giants!

Don't want to get into the Politic of Space here, but just want to point out the technical difficulties of a "... permanent orbital station/platform...". One could argue that we've already done that, it's called the Space Station. But we also recognize that how little utility ISS is when facing a daunting task of self-sustaining Space Station like a small city.

Going to Mars is a nice idea but one must realize how much we're lacking in preparation of sending men & women to Mars. Mars is so far that it takes like a year or more to get there. Now imagine the size of a Space Winnebago needed to accommodate that. First it needs a big enough gas tank to make sure that we get there, be able to stop, send the guys down, bring them back, and then able to come home!! We basically need space-equivalent of a nuclear submarine, all self-sustaining. But this nation does not have the politcal will & the funding to embark that endeavor.

So going back to the Moon is a "warm-up", a preparation to, going to Mars. But comparing to the Apollo days, today's funding is a mere fraction of those days. Appollo had a sense of urgency, beating the Russians to the Moon, and had a "money is no object" mandate. Not today's NASA and its contractors, and chances are it's not getting any more fundings from the Obama administration.

I suspect that, in the final analysis, Obama administration will direct NASA to do something different than what it's been doing now. The reason is simple, it was George Bush's idea of going back to the Moon, so Obama will need to change it. This may involve firing the current administrator but then again, last administrator was fired because he didn't agree with his boss. But I don't think this will result in a massive layoff on the NASA side for simple reason that Obama will need to keep funding the civil space program. So what this means is that NASA and its employees get "redirected" to new projects, new initiatives, and the cycle starts again.

I don't hold as optimistic view on the defense side, however; especially in Missile Defense where Huntsville holds its large presence. New initiatives, such as European Capability (EC) with ground-based missile in Poland and the Czech Republic, is certainly going to face close scrutiny and a change in the U.S. defense policy because of the Obama administration. During his campaign, Obama made clear that he will have dialogues with and will seek to establish relationship with the "axes of evil" nations. Well, these evil nations are the reasons Missile Defense Agency exist!!

Established MDA programs will likely continue, but currently new development programs such as the MKV and KEI will likely get stretched out in the name of technology development, and eventually put the techologies on the shelves but not funding its fielding & operation. Exactly how these will translate to job losses here in Huntsville is anyone's guess.

[Charles]

"On the campaign trail, Obama pledged to increase NASA's roughly $17-billion budget by $2 billion -- but that was before the economic downturn turned into a meltdown."

NASA's spending is under scrutiny - Los Angeles Times

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by Charles

"On the campaign trail, Obama pledged to increase NASA's roughly $17-billion budget by $2 billion -- but that was before the economic downturn turned into a meltdown."

NASA's spending is under scrutiny - Los Angeles Times

Having worked on both NASA & MDA projects myself, and dealt with both program adminstrations, I can honestly say that NASA is no more inefficient, if not more efficient, than the MDA.

[HSVbulldawg]

Huntsville has most certainly gone through times where contractors have lost jobs overall rather than gained jobs (such as early nineties). It is not a given that Huntsville is going to keep unemployment down at the current level over the next four years. Also, budgets can be changed or put on hold. It's also not a given that we (the contractors here) will get all of the money we are currently counting on. Forbes rated Huntsville as top place due to low cost of living and projected job growth. However, that's not really a political comment on whether or not that job growth forecast will be affected by changes under the new administration.

While currently the outlook does seem to be good for contractors (I don't think that layoffs are around the corner), I think that believing all of the good news about job growth in Huntsville without using a bit of caution is a little bit like drinking the kool aid right now.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by HSVbulldawg

I think that believing all of the good news about job growth in Huntsville without using a bit of caution is a little bit like drinking the kool aid right now.

I get the same vibes too. Is there anywhere else that has better prospects (in my case, for engineers), regardless of what administration got elected? Not that I know of.

However, I just read this yesterday:

Jobs go begging at Northrop Grumman in Southern California - Los Angeles Times as Northrop Grumman Job Search (http://careers.northropgrumman.com/ExternalHorizonsWeb/getQuery.do - broken link) returned 600 engineering jobs in California.

[marylee54]

[Charles]

If this is true

Gates Eyes Dissolving MDA

then we might want to think about this:

Laid off engineers sell Amway

Advice For Laid-Off Engineers - Forbes.com

and finally,

"Women should be encouraged to go into certain types of engineering jobs. Last year, of some 40,000 engineering degrees granted, only 77 went to women."

from

Engineer Shortage - TIME (1952)


(image not protected by copyright)
http://www.50mm2m.com/images/20080110171149_nerdsigns.jpg (broken link)

[mm42]

Originally Posted by Charles

If this is true

Gates Eyes Dissolving MDA

It appears to be nothing more than a gaffe by a reporter, who equated terminating the ABL program with terminating MDA.