What would it like to be working in

abednegoyulo · Post by **abednegoyulo** » 2009/07/03 02:01:08

What would it like to be working in NASA. Hmmmm... I know every body has read the life in googleplex but how about life in NASA.

Post by **toracat** » 2009/07/03 02:16:23

Is this a question for NASA Phil ? :-D

abednegoyulo · Post by **abednegoyulo** » 2009/07/03 02:24:55

Well for everyone :-D Speculations are also welcome ;-) I don't know why but I remembered my college professor saying "I would give up teaching for a janitorial position, but only if I will be a janitor in NASA."

pschaff · Post by **pschaff** » 2009/07/04 12:53:42

Unless Obama decides to give NASA some real attention and resources, stick with the googlplex. The Bush "vision" (unfunded mandate) to get to Mars via the dubious route of the Moon has crippled the science and aeronautics parts of the agency's mission. The steady trend for a number of years has been to use NASA as a pipeline to send money to space contractors and other external organizations, to the detriment of maintaining a technically competent workforce. Our janitorial staff is very nice, but seriously underpaid due to the low-bidder approach to contracting. Just my personal and rather jaded $0.02 worth, from one who has spent a career mostly on the first "A" in NASA and not very much on "S".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_424YskAfew

abednegoyulo · Post by **abednegoyulo** » 2009/07/06 06:27:16

Are all projects handled by contractors? It looks like it is being treated like the way every government agencies here in my country, relying on contractors. I hope that its not really like the government agencies here in my country. The way bidders are picked here is not how cheap the price tag is but how big is the cut to the government officials who are holding the bidding. Meaning if you are the highest bidder, which offers the biggest cut, you will certainly win the bidding. The picking is done in the background. The actual bidding that will take place is just a stage play. When someone do an expose on such bidding, he/she will be on trial and not the officials who held the bidding. He/she will be asked if she ever lied in his/her entire life. If found out that he/she is guilty on lying about anything, then his/her statements is not acceptable to the court. So it means Saint Peter is out of list of the persons who can testify government officials because he denied Jesus three times. If found not guilty on lying about anything, then bank accounts will be investigated, relations to any bad person will be forcibly establish, any possible means is done so just the witness can be tainted and branded as not acceptable for the court. For example, if a witness of a crime is a petty thief and the criminal is a government official then he/she has no right to testify.

Wow! Did I wrote that all!? Well sorry for my rumbling on the system here :D

pschaff · Post by **pschaff** » 2009/07/06 14:00:26

The trend has been toward more "outsourcing", which may be effective for some functions, but IMHO does not work well to maintain a strong research organization. Although our contracting system is not without corruption, that is not generally the problem. Corrupt procurement officials tend to be caught and prosecuted. It's more a matter of political philosophy driving decisions that might better be made on technical merit.

CentOS