NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory To Lay Off 8% of Workforce (spacenews.com) 43
Citing congressional budget gridlock, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announced that it will lay off 530 employees, or about 8% of its workforce. SpaceNews reports: In a statement, JPL said it would lay off about 530 employees, as well as 40 contractors, after exhausting other efforts to reduce costs given potential spending reductions for NASA and specifically for Mars Sample Return (MSR), a major program for the Pasadena, California-based center. "After exhausting all other measures to adjust to a lower budget from NASA, and in the absence of a [fiscal year 2024] appropriation from Congress, we have had to make the difficult decision to reduce the JPL workforce through layoffs," JPL stated.
"While we still do not have an FY24 appropriation or the final word from Congress on our Mars Sample Return (MSR) budget allocation, we are now in a position where we must take further significant action to reduce our spending," JPL Director Laurie Leshin wrote in a memo. "In the absence of an appropriation, and as much as we wish we didn't need to take this action, we must now move forward to protect against even deeper cuts later were we to wait."
"While we still do not have an FY24 appropriation or the final word from Congress on our Mars Sample Return (MSR) budget allocation, we are now in a position where we must take further significant action to reduce our spending," JPL Director Laurie Leshin wrote in a memo. "In the absence of an appropriation, and as much as we wish we didn't need to take this action, we must now move forward to protect against even deeper cuts later were we to wait."
Stroke the right egos & paranoias (Score:5, Insightful)
Just plant a fake story that China is planning on getting Mars soil first. Funds will rush in from both parties.
Since many think scientists rig everything, might as well fulfill their perceptions.
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Just plant a fake story that China is planning on getting Mars soil first. Funds will rush in from both parties.
With a Military Industrial Complex and all those war mouths to feed? Fat fucking chance of that. Last guy who tried to take ALL the war funds for space programs was JFK. And we know how that shit worked out.
Re: Stroke the right egos & paranoias (Score:2)
It worked out with a moon landing? Seems like a success to me. Your tone implies this was a failure?
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The GP is referring to the events in Dealey Plaza.
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Ah. Thank you. I hadn't seen the connection.
Re: Stroke the right egos & paranoias (Score:1, Troll)
Maybe when we hadn't printed $10T of monopoly money in a matter of a few short years and gotten ourselves $30T in debt, it was possible to shake the money tree that way.
Leaner years ahead, lads. Even for useful people, unfortunately.
Re: Stroke the right egos & paranoias (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe when we hadn't printed $10T of monopoly money in a matter of a few short years and gotten ourselves $30T in debt, it was possible to shake the money tree that way.
Leaner years ahead, lads. Even for useful people, unfortunately.
Government management of the national economy is a tricky thing. There was this thing called the pandemic. The US government could have avoided printing money and flooding the nation with stimulus, but that likely would have resulted in a deep recession and a huge drop in tax collections.
Of course, there's also the $1.5 trillion that the Trump tax cuts pulled from government collections. That plus the promised resultant economic expansion that was supposed to offset the reduced collections that unsurprisingly never happened because tax cuts during a time of already existing economic expansion usually don't lead to further economic expansion. But at least the rich people were happy. The NASA cuts have more to do with the tax cuts than the increasing debt.
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The R's and D's have been cutting taxes since Reagan. It is no surprise that the tax base is eroded. They can always agree on tax cuts it seems. But even when the R's have Congress, they cannot find it within themselves to cut spending. The only spending cuts they support are ones that would cut D sponsored programs except for SS and Medicare. It seems the Blue Haired vote.
And then there is the environment. The R's don't believe in it. They figure it is always out there and if we screw it up badly enough, J
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The only spending cuts they support are ones that would cut D sponsored programs except for SS and Medicare. It seems the Blue Haired vote.
I don't get what they think is going to happen if they cut SNAP and AFDC. The funding from those programs goes into primarily conservative pockets after feeding and housing people respectively. And if those people aren't fed and housed, they're going to still have those needs, and still looking to fulfill them. And they're certainly not going to vote for the people who took away their funding.
Something like half of supermarkets would go out of business without SNAP, for example.
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It always amazes me how many of the poorest states, the ones who get the most from the various social welfare programs, seem to always vote R.
And at the same time will rail on (without the slightest hint of irony) about the evils of "soshulizm" as they collect their assistance checks and/or Social Security. My experience has been that they get all kinds of pissed off when you point that hypocrisy out to them.
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Of course, you'll need to define 'hypocrisy' for them first, which will already have 'em pretty pissed off.
The fantasy the 'right' has seems to be that "Commiefornia" is the state sucking up the most social welfare checks whilst at the same time, providing the least back to the Federal Government in the way of taxes.
Re: Stroke the right egos & paranoias (Score:2)
What's bananas is that California is only aiding about half of the people eligible to e.g. food stamps.
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The R's and D's have been cutting taxes since Reagan. It is no surprise that the tax base is eroded. They can always agree on tax cuts it seems. But even when the R's have Congress, they cannot find it within themselves to cut spending. The only spending cuts they support are ones that would cut D sponsored programs except for SS and Medicare. It seems the Blue Haired vote.
And then there is the environment. The R's don't believe in it. They figure it is always out there and if we screw it up badly enough, Jesus will be a'coming around the corner to save us. So they have no interest in preserving it for their grandkids. Every several generations, the Christians start proclaiming the End-O-World is nigh. After that lot gets their book royalties, they drift away and the world continues as before, except for the people who they scammed out of their money.
Reagan told us the world would end in our lifetimes. The Republicans have been working to make it happen ever since.
The Democrats love to hand money to the rich almost as much as the Republicans, but they do it while complaining about the Republicans enough that their supporters somehow believe it's all the Republican party's fault. Meanwhile the Republicans simply believe ALL THINGS are the Democratic party's fault. ALL THINGS.
The one thing the two major parties absolutely agree on? Handing money to the ri
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And then there is the environment. The R's don't believe in it. They figure it is always out there and if we screw it up badly enough, Jesus will be a'coming around the corner to save us.
And when Jesus does come around, he may repeat himself:
"And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and dri
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There was this thing called the pandemic
Still is. The pandemic hasn't ended.
Re: Stroke the right egos & paranoias (Score:2)
Not paying them means we still do not get a budget since many (especially in the House) would need to go home â" a large percent of them need the stipend to afford DC. Better is if they do not get a budget on time, they cannot run for reelection.
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Not paying them means we still do not get a budget since many (especially in the House) would need to go home â" a large percent of them need the stipend to afford DC. Better is if they do not get a budget on time, they cannot run for reelection.
No, sending them home would actually be a huge win. Too much of why Washington doesn't work revolves around being all together in one place, where toxic people (lobbyists, other congresspeople) have easy access to them and the citizens who elected them do not.
Nothing prevents them from voting while in their districts. Both houses of Congress voted to allow themselves to do so during the pandemic. There's no reason they can't make that permanent.
Re: Stroke the right egos & paranoias (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)ve interviewed a couple senators and a rep on this topic. All three said that not knowing each other was making it harder to understand the needs of other parts of the country and therefore to find compromise. They all laid the problem at the fact that so many members do leave Washington every weekend to be in their districts more. Thatâ(TM)s a major problem, according to the ones I talked with, because it limits how much they see themselves as working for the whole country compared to worki
Re: Stroke the right egos & paranoias (Score:2)
Note: until 20 years ago, it was fairly rare to leave DC during session, so Congress folks got to know each other a lot more.
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I've interviewed a couple senators and a rep on this topic. All three said that not knowing each other was making it harder to understand the needs of other parts of the country and therefore to find compromise. They all laid the problem at the fact that so many members do leave Washington every weekend to be in their districts more.
Unless they're on the committee that is proposing a law, it isn't their job to understand the needs of other parts of the country. It's their job to represent the needs of their part of the country by pointing out problems with proposed laws in a timely manner.
What I'm seeing, at least from the outside looking in, is that everybody talks to the people in their party, but nobody talks to the people in the other party, so nothing gets done in a bipartisan way, and the bills succeed or fail along party lines
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> everybody talks to the people in their party, but nobody talks to the people in the other party,
EXACTLY THIS! Historically it was very common to have acquaintances and even friends across the aisle. Those links formed because the congress folks were often roommates with each other or at least socialized with each other in the evenings. But about 20 years ago, I don't know exactly what changed, but it became financially much more feasible to go home every weekend, except for Hawaii and Alaska. The House
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That is, they're doing things that they think will get them elected. Which is fine and all, it's what we expected given history. The problem is that good governing does not get one elected, doing the right thing does not get one elected, acting justly, fairly, and morally does not get one elected. We like to blame legislators but really the voters who continue to elect charlatans and idiots should be to blame.
For many of these who are derailing congress, it was very clear in their election compaigns that
Hindsight is brilliant, but only afterwards (Score:2)
Yes, why didn't NASA used their Magic Hindsight Crystal Ball to help guide the economy.
Nobody could accurately predict when the pandemic would mellow enough to stop draining and taxing our medical resources (not just Covid-related). New variants kept appearing one after the other, and nobody knew how big its kick would be until several months away, or even if it were the last mean variant.
Re:Stroke the right egos & paranoias (Score:4, Funny)
Just plant a fake story that China is planning on getting Mars soil first. Funds will rush in from both parties.
Since many think scientists rig everything, might as well fulfill their perceptions.
That's ridiculous, the GOP would never fall for that.
Though I did hear a rumour that Hunter Biden had smuggled an envelope full of dick pics onto a previous Mars lander mission... so someone really probably send an unmanned craft to go check that out.
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Impossible, Margarie Taylor Greene has the full collection of dick pics and she would know if there were others out there to collect.
Its getting bad (Score:5, Informative)
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And JPL doesn't work just on NASA stuff. Their fingers are in a whole bunch of other government programs so depending on which area these people were let go from, there will be a trickle down effect.*
* One of the few times trickle down works.
Re:Its getting bad (Score:4, Interesting)
Trickle down *can* work... it just has to be paired with a shit-ton of regulation and tariffs and enforcement of those to keep the wealthy re-investing it in their domestic businesses and employees rather than spending it in places with cheap labor, low worker and human rights standards, and adversarial forms of government to our own, or just sticking it in their pockets. (And it still won't be as efficient at stimulating the economy as putting money into the hands of people on the lower end who will spend it pretty much immediately because they need to.)
But for "some reason" trickle down is always promoted by people who ALSO push DEregulation and weakening of enforcement. Can't imagine why.
"The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didnâ(TM)t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellows hands." - Will Rogers, 1932
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It is also amazing that politics really has changed so little, such that a quote over 90 years old is so accurate to today's politics.
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"We don't have the necessary votes for the working trickle-down project, but we do have enough votes to cut taxes for the rich which is step one. All in favor?"
Re: Its getting bad (Score:1)
It is not the Dems that are holding up the budget. GOP-controlled House has to start the budget process, but has not.
Re:Its getting bad (Score:5, Insightful)
...scientists are not easy to get and once they have specialized knowledge they can be damn near irreplaceable.
For a similar scientific loss [npr.org], may I refer you to the Research Department of the USDA, (as if climate change has no effect upon farmers). The Trump administration did this.
If Trump wins again, that will have been just a harbinger of things to come [theatlantic.com].
Don't worry (Score:2)
North Korea is hiring.
I have a long time family friend that works at JPL (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: I have a long time family friend that works at (Score:5, Insightful)
HR department executes decisions. It does not make decisions. Your friend may be correct that someone is doing this, but your friend is placing blame in wrong place.