Shift to moon-Mars focus affects 2,680 NASA jobs

[The Straight Story]

Shift to moon-Mars focus affects 2,680 NASA jobs

By Beth Dickey
[e-mail]
About 15 percent of NASA's civil service workforce will be transferred or paid to leave by the end of fiscal 2006 as the agency focuses on President Bush's vision for exploring the moon and Mars.

More than 2,680 jobs will be affected as NASA transforms its labor force to support U.S. goals in space.

Officials delivered the news to NASA employees across the country in a closed-circuit broadcast Thursday. "This is about reshaping the workforce, more so than downsizing the workforce like we did in the 1990s," Associate Administrator James Jennings told reporters later.

On Friday, the agency's largest union, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, attacked the plan as reckless and misguided. "It threatens the future viability of NASA, in our opinion," IFPTE legislative director Matthew Biggs told Government Executive. The union represents more than 8,000 NASA employees at five of the agency's 10 field installations.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0305/031105b1.htm

[whistle]

1. Wow, the budget for NASA has been slashed so current...

...sound programs are being axed while costly future manned missions to the moon will reap billions for aerospace corporations and show little or no results. The Hubble telescope project is being scrapped. The Voyager missions (two) to explore the outer boundaries of the solar system are being turned off while the satellites pass right by without any data retrieval. Totally stupid priorities by the administration!

[johncoby2]

2. To infinity and Beyond!!!

We are truly a bunch of dopes.