NASA Unit JPL To Lay Off About 550 Workers, Citing Restructure (cnbc.com) 60
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is laying off around 550 employees, or roughly 11% of its workforce, as part of an effort to "restructure and establish an appropriate size to ensure future success." According to JPL Director Dave Gallagher, the job cuts "are not related to the current government shutdown." CNBC reports: JPL is a research and development lab funded by NASA -- the federal space agency -- and managed by the California Institute of Technology. "While not easy, I believe that taking these actions now will help the Lab transform at the scale and pace necessary to help achieve humanity's boldest ambitions in space," Gallagher wrote in a separate mekor to JPL employees and contractors. Gallagher, in the public announcement, noted that the reorganization of JPL began in July, and "over the past few months, we have communicated openly with employees about the challenges and hard choices ahead."
"This week's action, while not easy, is essential to securing JPL's future by creating a leaner infrastructure, focusing on our core technical capabilities, maintaining fiscal discipline, and positioning us to compete in the evolving space ecosystem -- all while continuing to deliver on our vital work for NASA and the nation," Gallagher wrote. Gallagher said that JPL employees will be notified of their status on Tuesday, and the "new Lab structure ... will become effective Wednesday."
"This week's action, while not easy, is essential to securing JPL's future by creating a leaner infrastructure, focusing on our core technical capabilities, maintaining fiscal discipline, and positioning us to compete in the evolving space ecosystem -- all while continuing to deliver on our vital work for NASA and the nation," Gallagher wrote. Gallagher said that JPL employees will be notified of their status on Tuesday, and the "new Lab structure ... will become effective Wednesday."
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NASA did all the hard work for previous decades. SpaceX benefited from that knowledge and experience.
Re:The discipline of a recession. (Score:4, Insightful)
NASA did all the hard work for previous decades. SpaceX benefited from that knowledge and experience.
As much fun as people have repeating this little factoid, the problem is that NASA stopped innovating and started becoming nothing more than a pork funnel to certain districts. Had NASA continued to innovate, or at least continued to remain relevant, the door wouldn't have been open for SpaceX to step through. True reusability, rather than the Shuttle's "months of rebuilding" routine, and not throwing away boosters and launch stages are innovation simply because NASA, through government mandated handcuffs, were unable to work towards those goals in a realistic fashion. In fact, when SpaceX started, the mentality that it couldn't be done was so entrenched that there were a lot of folks publicly saying they would fail outright in reusability on the scale they proposed. And here we are today with the Falcons making the reusability of the Shuttle program seem like a joke.
Please note: I'm not in any way a fan of Musk the man, but SpaceX has provided innovation in an industry that desperately needed it. If NASA were capable of doing what SpaceX has done, they were prevented from doing so by congressional mandate.
EVERYONE who creates progress does so by standing on the shoulders of those who came before. This self-evident statement seems redundantly silly to have to repeat every time some dares commit the offense of being impressed with the progress SpaceX has actually managed to create.
Re:The discipline of a recession. (Score:5, Informative)
NASA still produces plenty of new knowledge for humanity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] . I'm not sure why anyone who knows anything about NASA's work these last couple decades would think otherwise.
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NASA still produces plenty of new knowledge for humanity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] . I'm not sure why anyone who knows anything about NASA's work these last couple decades would think otherwise.
I suppose I should have clarified I was speaking specifically of launch vehicles.
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I suppose I should have clarified I was speaking specifically of launch vehicles.
I suppose since this article is about NASA's jet propulsion laboratory I could have figured that out myself :) . SpaceX does seem miles ahead of anyone else on launch vehicles.
I do think the fact that SpaceX couldn't be doing what it does without prior NASA work does point to the importance of maintaining it's work in this area though. Hopefully these layoffs really are about putting them back on track.
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Thing is we are reducing NASA to to launch systems and SLS and in the case of this story we are talking about JPL which has always been innovating. JPL put the copter on Mars, put the rovers on Mars, has Juno orbiting Jupiter, New Horizons Pluto flyby, has plans to land craft on Europa, is trying to build a drone to fly through Titan.
If innovation in space is what we are after we should be expanding JPL instead of cutting it back. JPL complements what SpaceX is doing, imagine what they could do with Stars
Re:The discipline of a recession. (Score:4, Insightful)
If this is all true there should be something detailing the methodology used to make these cuts. Every department has an Inspector General as well as the GAO so look over these things. Was there a report filed? Has the admin demonstrated this at all?
What you present sounds good but an anecdote does little to convince much less trusting this admin is doing the due diligence and not just taking an oppurtunity to further scale back the role of government via Project 2025 with it's primary architect Russ Vought at the helm particularly when we've seen other guttings of departments based on loyalty pledges.
They said right there what and how they wanted to do and now they're doing it so I can't be expected to believe this on the up and up. If the shoe was on the other foot I imagine you would be questioning these things as well. The admin themselves said they are taking an ideological view on firings, not a performance based one.
To sum it up I don't believe the admin and therefore I don't really believe you. The admin lied to everyone about Project 2025 for an entire year and now when doing it we're just supposed to take their word on it?.
SpaceX gets to blow up rockets (Score:2)
SpaceX has a structural advantage that NASA can't ever match: they're allowed to fail. How many rockets have they blown up, etc?
Imagine all the congressional investigations, firings, political backlash if NASA did the same! NASA can't run, has to walk very carefully to make sure it doesn't stumble.
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Sure and Nazi's did all the hard work in the decades before that.
The only point you are making is the state of the art advances. Does General Motors suck because Ford did all the hard work of trialing mass production and JIT manufacturing?
Space X has been doing the things that NASA and some of their more traditional MIC partners organizationally have not. The reasons why are only interesting if for political reasons you think we need to have state-run spacecraft production industry or you want to run your
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On the other hand that's critical for people like Space
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Great man theory has long since been discredited (Score:1)
I guess my point is we don't necessarily have to or certainly do not want to wait around hoping for a super genius to make a big leap for us.
What's more the next super genius could be out there but getting crushed by our brutal Dog eat Dog capitalist system that doesn't feed hungry children.
Mekor? What the heck is a mekor? (Score:3)
Is "mekor" the solution to the latest Wordle?
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Is "mekor" the solution to the latest Wordle?
almost certainly memo.
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"Lean NASA" failed in the 90's. (Score:5, Interesting)
NASA tried a lower-budget approach in the 90's, but the failure rate was considered embarrassingly high. Off-the-shelf parts were used more often, and testing made less rigorous, for example.
While perhaps the total science could be about the same via sending a higher volume of probes, it was generally decided a relatively high failure rate hurt national pride, and thus expensive quality assurance techniques were reinstated. Very few defenders of the cheap approach could be found in Congress after the problems arose.
DonDOGE may be reinventing this lesson.
Re:"Lean NASA" failed in the 90's. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Or let's have a war \o/
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Which is awful because SpaceX is not at all NASA. Their rocket and satellite programs are cool but that doesn't make them equivalent.
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Then after SpaceX gets it working, NASA came come along and do noble things with it.
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The Trump administration is not much into science and exploration, they want "glory missions" with US astronauts dancing YMCA on other planets.
Thus, they are cutting unmanned probes, especially anything to do with climate research. Those climate scientists are all "bribed woke riggers".
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Skunk Layoffs in Propellant Court (Score:1)
SpaceX is hiring (Score:2)
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and you won't find a better recruitment video than that!
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/19... [x.com]
It is great when they land in one piece. That's two wins in a row after the previous few failures. (to oversimplify)
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Nazi? You are confusing SpaceX with NASA and the Apollo program 60 years ago. They are no longer hiring.
(Can always rely on morons to self-identify by posting AC.)
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Sorry, readable version: https://archive.ph/ju9q3 [archive.ph]
You know you can make that clickable [archive.ph]
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OK, that is weird. Sorry if slashdot is to blame. My above quote of greytree is clickable (has link) but the original post is not. Why???
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But, sorry, I'm still not going to bother wrestling with Slashdot's broken text entry system - It's high time Biz X gave a shit about Slashdot, or sold the whole thing to someone who does.
Re:I just hope (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously? Of all the mistakes NASA has made over the years this most certainly is not one worthy of anyone's scorn. The same genius probably assisted in working magic to restore contact. Sorry but I have nothing but admiration for everyone involved and sorry that these budget cuts likely spell the end of a very over-achieving mission that was planned to last a few years.
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I value them very highly.
I would expect that their custodians do too.
I would therefore expect that their custodians ensure that the commands they send are double checked to prevent possibly fatal errors.
"Dodd’s team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory had actually spotted the error in the command and corrected it—but then mistakenly sent out the flawed version."
And if not, they are not doing their duty and should not be custodians any more.
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I value them but I also value human expertise also. You don't seem to. Voyagers have been on borrowed time for a long time. They will likely fail in the near future anyway, although I suspect funding cuts will end the mission in the next year before the hardware does completely fail.
The science they've accomplished is awesome, no doubt about it, and it's amazing they're still getting readings that are expanding our understanding of the universe. Obviously the crew will do their best to keep voyagers goin
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I just hope this genius was one of them:
"This genius" suggests an individual, but the article actually says, "Dodd’s team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory had actually spotted the error in the command and corrected it -- but then mistakenly sent out the flawed version."
And, you know, let they who have never made a mistake throw the first metaphorical stone, and all that.
"Access Denied"? (Score:3)
Really, CNBC? You don't want people reading your page? Your loss.
Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/13/nasa-jpl-layoffs.html" on this server.
Reference #18.8a6ccd17.1760452939.3f7b6b66
https://errors.edgesuite.net/1... [edgesuite.net]
"Restructuring" (Score:2)
Yeah, sure, nothing to do with a) budget cuts, and b) the desire of 47 to have Mu$k be a replacement for NASA (and get kickbacks from him).
Translation? (Score:2)
...restructure and establish an appropriate size to ensure future success.
I could be entirely off base here, but I'm wondering if a more accurate statement might read "restructure and establish an appropriate size to ensure future success for SpaceX.