XCOR needs one.

And once again, ITAR rears its ugly head.

There are plenty of aerodynamicists in the US, but no decent one would want to work for XCOR.

But its ok, just blame it on the government.

Do you have any intelligent comments, "Unreality"?

The snarkiness of his comment aside, the troll may have a point.

We do not know how much money XCOR is offering for the position, nor do we know what kind of arrangements they have in mind. They're asking for fairly specialized knowledge (transonic and supersonic flow, IIRC) and probably a move to the middle of the desert.

Sure, the opportunity to work on a spaceship is awesome stuff (I'd love to do it if I had the required knowledge). It doesn't however, pay the mortgage, or the kids' braces. If they really need an aerodynamist, XCOR will have to offer better work conditions than Boeing or Lockheed. Do/can they?

XCOR's whingeing about ITAR doesn't have anything to do with the aerodynamicist request.

And I have to say, from looking at the request it seems that they're trying to have their cake and eat it too. They want someone who has recent and extensive experience with supersonic aerodynamics...but is also a fresh-out. Wow, gee, I can't think why that would be a tough billet to fill...

If they really need an aerodynamist, XCOR will have to offer better work conditions than Boeing or Lockheed. Do/can they?

The people who work there seem to think they do.

The Mojave location is a major challenge for hiring. I've worked with (civilian) folks based at Edwards AFB who have hard time getting good people to come to that god forsaken place, let alone to stay there. Heck, I've been offered a job down there and though I like the work environment you'd have to pay me Alex Rodriguez type money to get me to move there.

They have had an ad for a Senior Aerodynamicist for some time on Space Transport News. There is a second ad now for an entry level aerodynamicist. It seems to me that the confusion Density Duck has is over this. Since the entry level ad is new, I suspect what has happened is that, after not finding an experienced engineer, they lowered their standards to a new grad just to get started, and they are finding that difficult as well.

And I think ITAR is a big factor. After I read the appeal yesterday, I googled around out of curiosity. I found several possible candidates, but not one US citizen. Couple Chinese, a German, a Yugoslav, and others, but no Americans. I'm convinced it would be a lot easier without ITAR.

The reason you found those resumes is that nobody else that needs Aerodynamicist specialist can hire foreign nationals either. Most people have lives that they don't want to give up to pursue start-ups that don't have the potential to make them a lot of money.

As Jerry Pournelle wrote, the XCOR people are "all infected with the dream." They could be living much more comfortably in Sunnyvale or Seattle.

I have a disturbing thought: Maybe few people qualified for the aerodynamics position share the dream in these days of STS and ISS.

To state my question more clearly: How many engineers would rather be payed $n for sitting in a cubicle running CFD on vaporware for 25 years than be payed half as much for building things that go "bang" and "zoom"?

Sounds like this situation ought to be called "The Aging Engineer's Dilemma": the job is what you always dreamed of, but doesn't pay too well and is in a lousy location. When you have a couple of kids who will be in college in a few years and a mortgage you'd like to pay off before you retire, it's a lot harder to make that leap to the fun job. And if the new company fails, you could end up in that highly coveted fifty-ish unemployed tech guy demographic. Not surprising that XCOR is having a tough time finding a senior body.

FC: I'm not sure that it is about dreams that go beyond having cash in the bank at the end of the month, the mortgage paid, and other expenses covered with a healthy retirement fund.

The challenge I can see them having is that the people who really are excited about the dream won't have the experience, while the people who might have shared the dream 25 years ago are now all middle aged cynics.

To all who wonder what we pay and what our benefits are, please ask. Pay is based on experience, among other things, and is highly negotiable.

One thing to keep in mind, for anyone who actually thinks they may be good enough to help us succeed at this: What'll our stock be worth in a few years if we do? There are no sure things in this life, of course, but it'd be an interesting gamble for someone who could be the last missing piece of the puzzle for us.

>>>>>The reason you found those resumes is that nobody else that needs Aerodynamicist specialist can hire foreign nationals either.

Exactly. ITAR is a factor.

The right question is: "Would you work for Apple Computer, with stock options in 1980, or IBM?

The right question is: "Would you work for Apple Computer, with stock options in 1980, or IBM?

If you have the right stuff, give them a call. You can't lose. You get to work on the coolest technology, and you may get to be rich, too.

I waited to post until I'd satisfied my own personal curiosity/assumptions. From the perspective of a Canadian aerospace engineer, I can name 10 persons after a few hours of conversation who can immediately satisfy the requirements of that position. They're all foreign nationals.

This deeply concerns me, as it does many of you. And I fear that, sooner or later, it will become a more personal problem.

I read a book on the subject once, do I qualify?

If they had known a couple of years ago how difficult it would be to fill this position, could they have rolled their own?

It seems to me that there would be large numbers of people with the educational background to qualify with two years of focused study. Wouldn't help the experience problem though.

This is an example of our country shooting itself in the foot with ITAR. American companies having trouble developing new products that might well go elsewhere with less resrictions. And people from here won't even be allowed to move over there due to the same set of laws.

Roll your own is not a bad idea. They could find a Ph.D. student desperate for a dissertation topic and fund their research. Actually that is how Kelly Johnson first got involved with Lockheed.

Actually if they had made that offer in their letters to the faculty, instead of just letting them know they have an opening, they would have likely gotten a response. Most likely the letters they sent were just pasted on to the office assistant to post on the jobs board next to the standard announcements from Boeing, Lockheed, Northrup, etc.

A second option is to do a search of papers on supersonic flow (and related topics) and contact the authors directly about working with XCor, perhaps on a consulting basis if they don't want to gamble their future being an employee of the firm.

Of course there is one explanation here that no one seems to want to discuss and that is that the aerodynamists with that level of knowledge and experinece simply doesn't buy into the New Space rhetoric and so want nothing to do with them.

Aleta, I think I know someone who fits the bill for your senior aerodynamicist position who actually does have his green card. He's 77 years old, but he's been working in aerospace since the mid-40's starting with Rolls Royce; his first patent was for the afterburner, and he was one of the test pilots for the Concorde. I'll try to get a hold of him today and see if he is interested.

OK, I got a hold of his wife, and she's going to pass the message on to him; we'll see what happens.