
It's official: NASA is a jobs program.  - nebula
http://www.fourmilab.ch/fourmilog/archives/2009-08/001174.html
======
pmorici
I'd be interested to know if there has ever been a period in history where the
size of the federal government has gotten smaller in terms of total employees.

Anyone who has ever listened to a government manager talk at any level for any
length of time will here them say something to the effect of "we just don't
have enough people and resources". Case and point, after hurricane katrina,
<http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0806/081896cdpm1.htm> FEMA claims they are
under staffed.

There really is no incentive for anyone in any corner of government to be
efficient. If they start doing the same work with less money and less
employees it reduces the clout of their department because they have less
money and less employees and consequently less power and standing within the
system. In business doing something for less increases profit in government
there is no such incentive and likely an incentive to the other extreme.

~~~
ajscherer
I with you that it is a problem of incentives, but I disagree that it has much
to do with managers desiring more employees to increase their clout. Simpler
explanations exist. If a government manager fires an employee, what does she
gain? She doesn't get any of that employee's salary (the tax savings won't
move the needle at all on a personal level), and won't appear to be doing a
better job, since there is no profit with which to measure performance.

On the other hand this manager has a lot to lose. First, most people find
putting others out of a job unpleasant. Second, that manager and her co-
workers will now have to absorb the duties of the fired employee. So more work
for her. Third, the department would probably be exposed to litigation by the
fired employee. In my experience government agencies don't fare very well in
court, and the government is scrutinized much more closely for things like
nepotism and racism than the private sector.

There is another issue at work here, which is that legislators have much
stronger incentives to add parts to the government than to remove them. Sure,
there are plenty of voters who favor making the government smaller in general,
but for any particular program the number of people who care deeply about
preserving that program is always greater than the number of people who care
deeply about removing it. People simply don't have the time to study all parts
of the government and advocate against the existence of unnecessary but small
programs. The people who are served by those programs (or sell things to the
government in support of them) have all the reason in the world to care.
Actual reform of the system (instead of general pouting at the size of
government) would require removing a large number of small programs, and this
is unlikely to happen for the reason I just mentioned.

~~~
dasil003
_but for any particular program the number of people who care deeply about
preserving that program is always greater than the number of people who care
deeply about removing it._

This strikes me as the most significant factor at work in the constant
inflation of the government, and it's a really tricky problem.

------
designtofly
This slide is taken out of context to support the author's own ideology. First
off, this slide describes only one of 13 criteria used when deciding on
alternatives. This is certainly not the focus of the presentation. This
presentation is showing the multitude of objectives that NASA decision makers
must take into account when deciding on the future of their program. This is
strictly an exercise in Multi Attribute Decision Making [1]. In general, with
MADM techniques, you frame the objective as a weighted combination of criteria
that you meet with appropriate weightings. We have no idea what "weights"
(i.e. importance) were put to this criterion of maintaining workforce.

What is wrong with framing _this particular issue_ in this way? Why would any
organization, especially one heavily based on knowledge gathering, prioritize
a reduction in workforce. Anyone who understands the issues of the aerospace
workforce knows that knowledge retention is one of the most important issues
facing the industry right now. All of the smart people that got us to the moon
and created all of the other aerospace accomplishments of the last 50 years
are either retired or very close to retiring. Y'all should understand that
people are assets.

As an aside, the reason that NASA is so expensive is because it is risk
averse. It is risk averse because the public (and Congress) cannot tolerate
any failures. They are reacting to public sentiments any time something goes
wrong. They have some of the best risk and reliability assessments of any
industry (even though they are not perfect). The ONLY way private companies
can do better is if they accept more risk. As soon as NASA tried to accept
more risk, they were blamed incessantly for having a "management driven
culture." What do you think a private company is going to do?

[1]
[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=multi+attribute+dec...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=multi+attribute+decision+making)

~~~
solutionyogi
Yes, you are right, this is just one criteria out of 13 but it still boggles
my mind that this criteria is even present in the list. Can you imagine a for
profit corporation evaluating project based on such a criteria?

Even if I were to accept your point that it's important to retain existing
people for the knowledge they have, it still doesn't explain why your project
would get 2 points if you increase the workforce by more than 10%.

~~~
gjm11
Why yes, I can imagine that. Companies generally don't much like firing
people. They quite reasonably prefer making better use of the people they've
got.

Now, I doubt that any commercial enterprise would use the exact same criterion
as (if we take this one out-of-context slide at face value) NASA is using
here. So what we have is some evidence that _one thing NASA tries to do is to
provide jobs_. Which is not remotely the same thing as "NASA is a jobs
program", which is the idiotic claim being made by the originally cited blog
entry.

~~~
solutionyogi
Why should NASA try to provide jobs? They are funded by taxpayer money (i.e.
our money) and we have given them money to do research not to provide jobs.

Even if I were to believe that providing jobs is a worthy goal , there are
cheaper ways for government to provide jobs than for NASA to create these jobs
out of thin air.

And could you care to explain why you take offense about the 'out of context
slide'? What's the missing context which will justify this slide's contents?

~~~
gloob
_Why should NASA try to provide jobs? They are funded by taxpayer money (i.e.
our money) and we have given them money to do research not to provide jobs._

They try to provide jobs _because_ they are funded by taxpayer money. Their
primary stakeholder is the American public; it is their job to benefit their
stakeholders. Employment is a benefit, in the eyes of the great majority of
people.

Secondly, this is hardly "out of thin air." Assessing the manpower needs of a
project proposal and selecting for the ones that rank higher on the scale is
very different than the government going "Break some rocks, collect a paycheck
lol."

~~~
solutionyogi
_They try to provide jobs because they are funded by taxpayer money. Their
primary stakeholder is the American public; it is their job to benefit their
stakeholders_

Let me get this straight. You want government to take money from people (by
taxing them), creating organizations like NASA and give money to people (by
providing jobs). My questions to you is, why go through all the trouble? Why
not reduce taxes and let people keep their money thereby _eliminating waste_.

~~~
gloob
I didn't comment on whether or not I approved of the reasoning, I just stated
that I wouldn't be surprised if that is part of the reasoning. Whether I want
it to be that way or not is immaterial.

------
altano
Can everyone please leave their populist "oh my god everything the government
does is so god damn innefficient and if only we dismantle it and let 6 smart
people run it instead it would be SO great" yammmering at home for a few
decades because the thought of a world without NASA makes me very depressed.

It takes thousands of people BECAUSE of all the advances in technology and
automation and robotics and computers and so on.

I'm just a casual observer and fan, so I don't know if this is actually true,
but the Mars rover mission seemed 10x more complicated than the Moon landings.
And that's the last one... not the upcoming one that looks even more awesome.

NASA is a poorly run, oversized govt agency, but give them credit for
accomplishing some of the most amazing feats humanity has ever seen _in recent
years._ And you know what... maybe _that's_ what it takes.

~~~
gaius
That is not the point that the article is making. The evaluation criteria for
the potential missions favours missions that increase NASA's headcount over
missions that, y'know, actually _do stuff in space_.

NASA _has done_ some very impressive stuff it's true. But if you consider that
it went from a standing start in 1958 to moon landing 11 years later, it ought
to have done a lot more in the _40 years_ since then.

~~~
kingkawn
The moon landing was pushed by Cold War politics (and funding). Those projects
take huge amounts of money, and NASA had them. After that, the interest
tapered off.

~~~
gaius
I don't think that's true. Well, it is true that there is less funding now.
But it's also true that in nearly every industry, the overwhelming trend is to
do more in absolute terms with less in relative terms. E.g. what percentage of
the average person's annual income would it cost for a transatlantic flight in
1969 compared to 2009, and how many people do it? (That will have to be
rhetorical for now as I can't find the numbers with a quick Google). Yet in
1969 (50 years after the first non-stop transatlantic flight) transatlantic
travel, while expensive, was unremarkable. By now shuttle flights ought not to
be an "event" but routine... And the first 747 flew in 1969, now you can buy
'em off the shelf.

~~~
kingkawn
There needs to be political will too. There are huge risks involved in taking
on monumental projects. What if NASA spent billions of dollars developing a
major project that fizzled? If there's no political power behind it, NASA
risks losing all of the funding they get in the first place, and definitely
not being able to get more to finish what they started. As an organization, it
is safer to survive doing lots of small, achievable things, and wait for the
day that the world-changing missions are an important political tool again.

------
Maciek416
This reminds me of the talk Robert Bussard gave at Google a while back,
mentioning the relative efficacy and nimbleness of fusion research programs:
his own small-scale, Navy-funded, evolutionary on-the-cheap effort versus the
absolutely massive, multi-billion dollar ITER project. He describes the ITER
project as a gigantic "rice bowl", whose primary goal is not to _discover
anything_ but rather to give a large number of people jobs.

~~~
mnemonicsloth
For contrast with ITER, see: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=737074> ("A
Fusion Startup")

~~~
Maciek416
Thanks for that link. Relative to the story, this would also bring up examples
of companies like Armadillo Aerospace and the other small-scale space
startups. One thing that you might argue the space startups are not
necessarily doing that NASA _is_ doing is scientific research outside of
spaceflight-related topics. General Fusion (the company in mnemonicsloth's
link) would seem to be a sort of hybrid of these two extremes.. though
extremely risky business-wise.

------
arfrank
I view the NASA spaceflight program nowadays as a monolithic company with so
much bureaucracy that its impossible to make substantial changes without huge
efforts. Going along with this analogy, back when they first started they were
a startup, albeit one with a huge amount of funding, but one that could try
and fail a lot cause the technology was new.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I like this analogy because it points out the critical factor that _the people
and the programs at NASA are overall fairly excellent_. It's scope creep,
being responsible to politics, and the inefficiencies of old, big
organizations that's causing all of their problems.

People act like that there is some sort of big populist movement to hate all
big government. That's true, but you can be a big fan of NASA, the people who
work there, and the stuff they do and still understand they need to shut the
doors and turn the lights off. NASA is simply trying to be too much to too
many people with too little money. Hell, manned spaceflight is lucky if they
have the same mission for ten years in a row. The situation has just spun
completely out of control.

------
kurtosis
Okay let's fantasize that the staff of NASA was willing to work for $1 / year
- and that the cost per kg of sending stuff in to space converges to the
energy cost of the chemical rocket fuel. I suspect that space flight is still
pretty damn expensive. What happens in space to spacefaring humans that makes
them cover the cost of going there plus a profit? Even something as obviously
useful as launching communication sattelites is still very costly.

~~~
randallsquared
From <http://everything2.com/title/Costs+of+launching+to+orbit>

_Therefore if we can get to the point where the fuel is the only thing we need
to use up, a 140 lb (70kg) person can get launched for just a few tens of
thousand of dollars- hardly any more than the cost of an airflight; a little
bit more than a supersonic airflight._

------
anamax
Did you ever wonder why NASA has facilities in Huntsville Alabama? How about
the strange split of mission control between Texas and Florida?

It's "odd" how NASA facilities are so often located in states that had
politically powerful senators at the relevant time.

The "Robert Byrd" effect is not new. I'm waiting for them to rename West
Virginia after him.

~~~
otto
There is a little bit more to it than that. NASA is not just a space agency,
National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

NASA also does a lot of aviation and other research besides just shooting
people into space and playing golf on the moon.

The reason for launching in Florida is because if something goes wrong they
can initiate the termination system and anything that falls out of the sky
will be in the ocean, opposed to a populated area. Other NASA centers in other
states are useful for shuttle returns. Often when bad weather is occurring
they send the shuttle to land at NASA Dryden.

~~~
anamax
Yes, Florida is a natural place to do launches. However, the question was why
mission control is split between Florida and Texas.

This split predates the shuttle by quite a while.

Was Huntsville a hot-bed of technical expertise before NASA or its
predecessors?

------
mhb
The single-payer model for space flight hasn't yielded cost savings, higher
productivity and more innovation? Hmm.

~~~
anigbrowl
I think it has resulted in a great deal of innovation; just in the last couple
of decades, there's been the space shuttle - a rather inefficient, expensive
system but one which has nevertheless taught us a great deal (and there have
been >130 shuttle launches - despite two catastrophes, it's the mark of a
successful system that shuttle launches have become commonplace); the Hubble
Space telescope, which has operated for far longer than expected; The Earth
Observing Missions; we've successfully sent two robots on Mars which have kept
functioning for 5 years; we've gathered samples from comets (subject of
another HN thread today)...for a list of missions:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NASA_missions>

For context, here's a brief history of NASA budgets: it's really quite good
value in my opinion. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget>

Now, I don't think NASA is beyond criticism...but to say they haven't
innovated or done a lot with the resources available is just BS. NASA is the
most successful space agency in the world, by a very long way.

------
maurycy
On the side note about most of the goverenment's programs:

If there is no demand for your work, you do not do what do you do for love but
money and you do not enrich the society in the long term, you are a parasite.

~~~
gjm11
Probably true. What's the relevance here? (Clearly there is a demand for what
NASA's employees do, since someone gives them money to do it. I would guess
that the love:money ratio is higher at NASA than at most companies. The most
visible things NASA does are science and space exploration, and both seem to
me like paradigmatic examples of things that enrich society (unless by
"enrich" you mean "provide money to", I guess).

Perhaps there are lots of people employed by other bits of the government who
are parasites according to your criteria, but you've not exactly been specific
about who. What exactly is your point?

------
dasfsfd
Why's this crap even on HN ? Take your politics to digg.

~~~
bct
I was just thinking to myself today, the internet needs more places for
American right-libertarians to talk about politics. Good to see that Hacker
News is stepping up to fill that gap.

------
biohacker42
1\. Which government program isn't?

2\. Is NASA really your #1 concern?

~~~
marze
To those who feel that human exploration of the solar system is something
they'd like to see near term, if a govt. agency tasked with the job is doing
an incompetent job of it while spending billions to develop capability that
already exists in the private sector (read: Atlas V), I could understand why
they might focus on this particular "govt. jobs program".

~~~
jfoutz
I could be misunderstanding, but it looks to me like an Atlas V HLV has about
1/5 the lift capacity of a Saturn V. I know materials are better now, but I'm
not convinced they are 500% better. Furthermore, the air, water, food and crew
is a fixed mass. I doubt an atlas could take a person to the moon and back
even if the structure and fuel are massless.

~~~
jfoutz
Oh, i am dumb. yeah, I guess an atlas would be fine. It would take a lot more
trips to get the vehicle built but the reuse of existing tech is probably far
cheaper that building something new.

not enough coffee this morning i guess.

------
zeynel1
The same is happening in scientific research, although, it is not as obvious:
a standing army of PhD's are making progress very difficult by making research
expensive.

