6 thoughts on “Celebrating The Future At KSC”

  1. “It’s as though they only learned a couple months ago that there was going to be a Shuttle shutdown, and gap.”

    A lot of them still haven’t recognized that.

  2. Mr. Larson’s script, for instance, now includes this lawyerly line: “We can’t confirm exactly where humankind’s next steps in space are going to take us.”

    In the video games at the center of Exploration Space, those who joystick their way to a safe landing hear, “As soon as NASA starts a lunar program again, we’ll send you an application.”

    “I don’t know where we’re going to get the inspiration for the children,” Ms. Foster said in a visit last week. “What are we going to do to get them excited to be engineers and pilots?”

    At least they’re taking a defeatist, petty, and passive-aggressive attitude about it. Imagine the cries of “they’re takin’ our JOBS” if Bu$hitler had given them a $6B budget INcrease like Nobama did?

  3. Larson, what a wet noodle.

    “The thirst for knowledge just isn’t there anymore.”

    If I was his boss, he’d get a pink slip for that comment alone.

  4. John B,

    Keep in minds that is $6 billion over 5 years and most is the result of drastically expanding the Earth Observation program, not expanding the HSF program.

    I guess some kids may get excited by remote sensing satellites….

  5. Rand, I suspect you know the answer already at some level but haven’t put the pieces together yet. Let me help.

    The NASA workforce has been well aware of the impending shuttle shutdown. They’ve also been aware that a substantial portion of the shuttle workforce (around half of JSC’s, between a third and a half of KSC’s) was going to be transferred to work Constellation development after shuttle retirement. (I don’t know what the situation was at KSC, but at JSC, a large percentage of the shuttle workforce was *already* working Constellation part-time.)

    Now, one-third to one-half odds ain’t great. But most folks in the workforce who aren’t total f*ups can convince themselves that they’re in the one-third to one-half that gets to make the transition. Especially if they’re already working Constellation part-time.

    Now the administration is proposing to terminate Constellation. And while it may not be much difference in reality between a third-to-a-half chance of keeping your job and a zero chance of keeping it, the *psychological* distance is enormous. And that’s what you’re seeing now in the workforce.

  6. And that’s what you’re seeing now in the workforce.

    Ah, but that’s not what they’re saying. We’re hearing a lot of sudden concern for the ISS, when its future actually looks a lot brighter than it did a year ago. Since these concerns only arise now that more jobs are at risk that suggests the concern for ISS is just a pretext. And no one in the media seems to be calling them on it.

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