My wife and I work with an average of about 80 teenagers every friday night in a street outreach program. We attract some of the roughest kids in our neighborhood. This past month I have been asking kids about space, and would they ever want to be an astronaut. Time and Time again I get a puzzled am I smoking crack look on their faces. I ask myself why? These kids are from single parent, low income homes. They live in a world where their parents work two jobs, speak english as a second language, and don’t even hold a high school diploma.
I think the reason Nasa feels out of their reach is because Nasa is out of their reach. They don’t know anybody from their community that has actually made it. Wouldn’t it be wonderfull if Jose the cop from down the block made the cut. Or their uncle Kevin the construction worker took an entry level exam to be a astronaut and passed it with flying colors. If you wan’t to bring up the next generation of explorers I believe you have to inspire the world around them. And for most of them the world around them doesn’t reach out to space camps, an audience with special speaker, and a full ride to college. For most of them the world around them is a couple of blocks long. Its filled with gangs, drugs, and dreams that are dreamt small. I propose a entry level pilot program. One that takes a chance on everday Americans. No degree needed. Put them through every test a regualar astronaut would go through and see who comes out shining. What would stir up the next generation of space exploration more than a shot to actually do it.
Who knows maybe Jose the cop or Kevin the construction worker have more influence on the next generation than we think.

Also, it seems to me that we can’t become overly focused on younger workers, or we will merely create another wave of workers of similar age, and the agency will face the same problem again when they all begin to retire.

I would also be interested in seeing the demographics on smaller projects. I expect that smaller projects would have more balanced demographics than NASA as a whole. If that is true, then if 1% of NASA’s budget is to be used to address workforce issues, it would be essential that the funding is used for small exciting projects, regardless of whether the work is done by NASA or contractors. Perhaps if that was the case, NASA wouldn’t need to set arbitrary quotas (like 50% new hires are out of school) – the demographic issues would take care of themselves.

Why does it matter whether you are inside or outside of the government–because of the policies. Just as a goverment person could not come and sit in a contractor’s area and learn all of the contractor’s business, neither is it allowed for the contractor to sit in the government employee’s area and learn all about his/her business. Why is that? Is the hording of information more important than the sharing and acquiring the intended goals? It is because of the money….money for the company….don’t get side tracked that it is about the money for the individual. The big aerospace companies hire the NASA retirees to help them get the next big contracts. Sometimes we get so lost in who can decide what, when, and where we lose sight of it is all about the money. Government and industry cut the same corners around safety of equipment and life because of what…..bad publicity which then affects the stock market or GAO decisions.

NASA needs young people, contractors need young people…we need development plans that let young people become leaders early in their careers and move up to the top leadership positions when they are ready. Both government and contractor agencies need to put into place programs that expose the young scientist and engineers to the role of leadership, team management, budgetary controls, contract policies, polictical impacts and decision making. An engineer can know the technical requirements, the leader can know the interpersonal interaction and management requirements but it takes both to make a successful event.

I believe we should not taut that one is better than the other because divided we fall….haven’t you heard that before? Haven’t you witnessed that yet? Create “partnerships” with each other an quit tauting the CS is better than the contractor of the contractor is better than the CS. They are both great and bad! I have been both and know this too be a fact.

Check out the crew menus posted for the upcoming Shuttle mission to the Hubble!

http://is.gd/pqPF

Compare the menu links for crew members.

The Pilot (Gregory C. Johnson) is a 55 year old grandfather, with a hip replacement, going into Space for the first time. Check out the last item for breakfast every day…….”Metamucil Wafers”

As a engineering services contractor at NASA, the problem is, I can only take on a certain level of responsibility before the job must belong to a civil servant or be shared with a civil servant. An engineering services contractor sitting on center, regardless of their experience and skill, is fundamentally limited in technical leadership.

Is this current process really the best way to hire on folks – regardless of them being Gen Y or from any other Gen?

If you want to really bring on the best and the brightest, why don’t you announce all job reqs in plain language on NASA.gov? Get rid of your word recognition software and put some real people behind the decision making process. Get rid of your system of rating the word-smithed resume and only interviewing the top 3 candidates.

It is time for a change. Change your hiring practices and change your process.

Here at JSC we might be hit one week with “take the badges off – we’re all the same here”. Then the next week it’s we can’t turn X over to the contractor because “they don’t have experience” or “they don’t care about safety” Well which is it? After 22 years of civil service, I’m convinced NASA should hire fewer civil servants. The few that do get hired should have much more experience. Why?

Let’s dissolve that whole “integrity towards safety” BS right away. Brewster Shaw? Eileen Collins? Ken Reightler? Gene Cernan? Would you stand before one of these icons, all in top positions with contractors, and tell them they don’t care about crew safety? Can we agree their performance integrity is without question? If you haven’t had the honor to meet any of them, you are probably a very young inexperienced civil servant. I have yet to meet the contractor who is not as dedicated (if not twice as much) to performing their job as any civil servant.

The examples above (I could have provided a very long list) mostly left NASA in the middle of their career toward salaries far, far, beyond what they could hope for as a civil servant. Greedy? Is anyone greedy who wants a promotion? Then I imagine that, in addtion, they believed they had contributed what they could as civil servant and advance the space program better from wherethey are today.

You may try to argue “Ah, but that’s the point. They obtained all of that wonderful experience as a civil servant.” Hmm. Let’s go back to Brewster (Boeing VP, Space Exploration). I challenge you to ask him: if he needs a structural analyst or materials scientist, does he first try to lure one from NASA? (No.) Would Ken Reightler (Lockheed VP, Program Integration) tell a young engineer that he probably won’t obtain beneficial space development experience as a Lockheed designer of the ORION vehicle? (No.)

In fact, who do we expect will be getting the most hands-on spacecraft design experience over the next ten years, the young contractor or the young civil servant? When we’re ready to hire someone to oversee that work and vet issues, do we want the new hire, or the engineer that got the most hands on experience—the contractor?

Let’s review:
1) There’s no reason to believe contractor integrity or safety posture is lower than the civil servants.
2) There’s no reason to believe that mid-career civil servant engineers have obtained such high spaceflight skill levels that they are in high demand by aerospace contractors.
3) There’s no reason to believe that a young engineer is likely to obtain better space development experience by starting out as a civil servant (probably the opposite).

Need I bring up more negative arguments? That the firstline CS manager in charge of groundskeeping earns more than most astronauts and scientists? That the head of the CS IT department earns as much as the International Space Station Program Manager? That every CS office has a significant proportion of RIP (retired in place) 13s, 14, and 15s?

Help me understand why we need more, and younger, civil servants again?

Charles