Feedback Solicited on Florida Layoff Impact

" Keith's note: Why is there not a similar flurry of NASA/White House interest in the impact of the Constellation layoffs in Alabama, Texas, and elsewhere?"

Keith. I dont know this for a fact, but have been told this by people who I trust and who are in DC...the reason that NASA/TWW are dealing with this one way in FL and another way in Alabama/Texas is that the Congressional delegation (particularly Nelson and Crist...who is not in Congress to be clear but has some, perhaps increasing ties to Obama) from FL are pushing this as a fallback position. The "save our jobs" people from AL and TX are not.

Robert G. Oler

Florida's Electoral votes are up for grabs unlike Alabama, Texas and Utah.

Keith: THANK YOU!

Keith's note: Why is there not a similar flurry of NASA/White House interest in the impact of the Constellation layoffs in Alabama, Texas, and elsewhere?

There is a job fair taking place at Kennedy today with perhaps 2 dozen employers represented. There are thousands of workers dressed for church, milling around like Zombie ants for this all-day affair. These are indeed the dark ages of the US space program.

Robert, so, in other words, if you are not kissing Obama's backside don't count on your jobs being saved? What happened to just being fair and honest?

Keith-
Good comment. I'm not convinced that it is simply a red state-blue state election day thing.

The reduction in workforce at KSC has been known for a long time. The ADA stuff was a surprise, and happened on fast-forward.

The Alabama media have only been talking to politicians (the mayor, the governor, and some in congress) and it hasn't sunk in. At one point, Jacobs and other contractor layoffs had already started and the local coverage was a week behind, talking about just Boeing.

I think Oler is right. The "Save CxP" approach isn't working. It would have made more sense to focus on "Save NASA Now" from the impact of nearly shutting down for 4 months and then expecting things to pick right back up.

Yes, you hit the nail on the head, egbernat. There's no chance that Texas or Alabama will support Obama, or even vote Democratic, this fall or in 2012. Florida might (although I think it's unlikely if things continue as they are).

I'm not sure how the layoff situation is at MSFC today. Monday was the big blood-letting day but I haven't heard much since then. One of my friends got the ax Monday and he'd been with his company 11 years and on Constellation for 4 years. I'm sure I know others who have been canned but I haven't heard from them.

As a retired politician I tend to see the political in
everything so forgive me if I seem a bit sinicle, but
I cant help but note that The Presidents reelection
may have a chance of getting Florida' electoral votes,
while he has no chance of getting the electoral votes of
any of the other space coast states.

On the other hand he has asked that a hundred million
dollars of NASA' 2011 budget be shifted to pay for
contractor personnel readjustment programs, much of
which will go to states other than Florida.

I hear they are hiring in Qatar.

The Space Coast investment is smart politics, but also justified. Florida's job losses will be larger than those in Alabama and Texas. Plus the Space Coast's unemployment rate for April was 11.4%, while Huntsville's was 7.9% and Houston's was 8.4%.

Meanwhile, Huntsville has plenty of aerospace-oriented BRAC job openings, and the Houston area is much less dependent on space jobs.

Retaining the strategically important skill mix at the Cape will be very difficult during a prolonged gap. It's my hope that the $40M investment will be used to diversify within the aerospace sector, instead of training workers to pursue non-aerospace careers.

Keith,

The Task Force executive order and the revised budget request explicitly contemplate assistance for other areas / regions affected by the transition. It's like the Dept. of Labor grant, instead of complaining that Brevard Workforce won an award, people in the other areas should get off their, um, chairs and fill out the paperwork if the program can help their area.

And while I feel everybody else's pain, the Space Coast is in much more difficult position. The shuttle workforce is largely needed to be in place up to the last day, and has a skill set that is significantly tied to a specific vehicle and program. The regional economy is already suffering due to housing and construction collapse, tourism slowdown and other impacts of the recession.

Further, state and local leaders having been working with KSC and industry, and also been making direct investments in facilities and incentives to work the transition from being primarily an operations location to being able to support commercial and research activity. Florida has funded or financed nearly a half billion in improvements at KSC / CCAFS over the last two decades to support new commercial and technology programs.

I think that the state and local leaders in Alabama, Texas and elsewhere would probably find Commerce, Labor, NASA and others (including OSTP) willing to work with them to develop and fund mitagtion strategies.

The fundamental problem with NASA in general and the CxP approach in particular is that it has been more of a coalition of centers managed by congressional delegations than a real unified agency. This favors predictability of contracts over results for the nation, and needs to change. But if anyone thinks that fighting that fight is a big political winner for the President, they just haven't been paying attention. The politically easiest thing would be to do what President Clinton did with ISS - modify some direction and goals but let business as usual proceed.

Getting to a sustainable and robust exploration program is not going to be easy technically or politically, but it is what we owe future generations. This is policy, not politics. Business as usual is no longer sufficient.

"Robert, so, in other words, if you are not kissing Obama's backside don't count on your jobs being saved? "

those are your words not mine, nor do they reflect my sentiment.

The overriding concept of federalism is to have "local" in some form or fashion politicians to advocate local interest in a national context.

Nelson and a few others (including Crist) see exactly where the national context is going and are advocating the best local interest possible in that context. It strikes me that the folks who represent the good people in Alabama and Texas are instead in denial of the national trend.

In the end the greatest service to ones constituents is advocating the "possible" instead of arbitrarily holding a position that while popular back home, wont actually help the folks back home.

you and I might have a difference of opinion on what constitutes a "good politician" but that is my view.

Robert G. Oler

I hate politics, I just wanted to add that and as far as Keith's note? Just as someone else said its all politics politics politics and that makes me sick.

It used to be No bucks No Buck Rodgers, now? its no votes ,to hell with Buck Rodgers.

PEOPLE NEED JOBS NOT JOB FAIRS!

Damn the Gravity!

Good catch! I imagine that you all can also go see Virgin Galactic's owner, who is/was also looking towards the possibly hosting a spaceport in UAE, which include Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia? Actually, you all can go ask Whitesides, now that he's managing things at Virgin Galactic?

http://business.maktoob.com/20090000002491/UAE_a_possible_location_for_space_flights/Article.htm
Interesting find in this article..
"Vienna-based Space Adventures (who our X Prize founder is involved with), a rival space tourism operator, has said it was no longer actively pursuing a spaceport in Ras al Khaimah."

Is Space Adventures and the Russian space agency still working together, for the development of a fleet of "Explorer" spacecraft? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11393569/

I'm not sure these are "the" dark days of the space program, but they are certainly dark compared to the last few years.

The Apollo wind-down, pre-Shuttle days were probably the worst. In the mid-60s MSFC was the largest NASA Center with about 7,500 civil service employees and several thousand contractors. Now, MSFC has about 2500 civil service and a similar number of contractors. The late 60s-early 70s saw huge layoffs of civil servants and contractors.

So the loss of 800 or so contractors that we're experiencing now is a pretty large percentage of the overall space workforce at Marshall. I wouldn't be surprised to see civil service reductions, depending on what direction we go in and how the funding is.

The other thing to remember, at least about Texas, is that the human space flight money and thus political passion is very concentrated. Outside of a Houston exurb or two, nobody here cares more than the average Oregonian. Which might be a little, but not a lot.

I suspect the same is true of Florida, Alabama and Utah, prorated to the overall state economies.

Every decision this administration makes (it seems) is based blatantly on red or blue. Seemingly moreso than during Clinton's tenure....

According to Andy Pasztor in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, not everyone is suffering as the NASA bureaucracy continues to shovel money to the Contractors, despite Bolden's orders:

"However, midlevel NASA contracting officials in the past few days released more than $160 million to Alliant. Andrew Hunter, a NASA budget official, said Wednesday the action was intended to prevent Alliant from being forced to abruptly stop all Ares work and lay off employees. Lockheed Martin Corp. also got the green light to receive $80 million for other work related to a crew capsule.

Overall, Mr. Hunter said NASA was considering releasing another $630 million in funding for other work related to existing manned-exploration programs. "

"With the issues coming to a head on Capitol Hill—and NASA employees getting apparently contradictory marching orders from lawmakers and headquarters—NASA's bureaucracy seems to be equivocating. Turning off the funding spigot, according to congressional staffers and industry officials, has turned out to be more contentious and difficult than either NASA appointees or senior White House aides expected."

It kind of makes one wonder: Who's In Charge??

Federal Farmer here: Robert I'm beginning to like you. I'm seeing a trend toward respecting others opinions and that is good. Also as you know, expression of your opinion is what I appreciate so long as it is not expressed as some sort of fact. Anyway, I'm not sure exactly which "national trend" you refer too? BTW, I'm well aware those were my words and not your sentiments.

People need to realize that all these task forces are soliciting ideas because they don't have a clue what to do and they have a pocket full of money and by the time all is said a done the poor job seeker with have nothing to show and the tasks forces will have spent all they money on their machine for their own benefit. Lets ship some more jobs overseas President ! What a sham you perpetrating on the American people and taking NASA down to boot.