NASA initiates new program to grab talent from the private sector
Where new talent will now go to wither.
As part of NASA administrator’s effort to remake NASA into a cutting edge agency, “the global leader in space,” the agency in partnership with the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has initiated a new program, dubbed NASA Force, to recruit talent from the private sector for two-year terms, after which they can then try to get a full time job either with NASA or a private aerospace company.
NASA Force will identify and place high-impact technical talent into mission-critical roles supporting NASA’s exploration, research, and advanced technology priorities, ensuring the agency has the cutting-edge expertise needed to maintain U.S. leadership in space.
Tech Force, led by OPM, was established to recruit elite technical professionals into federal service, embed them at partner agencies to modernize systems, accelerate innovation, and strengthen mission delivery. NASA Force represents a focused expansion of that effort, tailored to the unique technical demands of space exploration and aerospace research.
“America’s leadership in space depends on extraordinary talent,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “NASA Force will help us attract the next generation of innovators and technical experts who are ready to solve the toughest challenges in exploration, science, and aerospace technology. This partnership strengthens our workforce and helps ensure the United States remains the global leader in space.”
This program however has things entirely backwards. The last thing any engineer who has just graduated college should do is get a short two-year job at NASA. He or she will learn all the wrong lessons, working for a government agency not interested in efficiency or profit.
Instead, it is essential the first job new engineers get is in the private sector, to learn how to do things fast and efficiently. It Isaacman had the right priorities, he would use this money to fund these jobs in the private sector, so that new graduates will get the right training. Unfortunately, that is not Isaacman’s priority. He wants the government to lead.
Moreover, NASA’s job was never intended to be “the global leader in space.” Its job was to formulate the federal government’s needs in space, and then ask the private sector — the American people — to get the job done. Isaacman instead wants to have NASA do the job, as it did for a half century after Apollo, quite poorly. Only after the agency began relying on private enterprise beginning in 2008, the capitalism model, did things finally start happening again.
The worst aspect of this program is that it will take talent away from the private sector. A lot of good and talented young engineers will gravitate to these NASA positions for the high pay, relatively easy good hours, and prestige. They won’t accomplish much there, and their training will be wrong-headed. Meanwhile, the private sector will lose that talent and have to find it elsewhere, assuming it is available at all.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Where new talent will now go to wither.
As part of NASA administrator’s effort to remake NASA into a cutting edge agency, “the global leader in space,” the agency in partnership with the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has initiated a new program, dubbed NASA Force, to recruit talent from the private sector for two-year terms, after which they can then try to get a full time job either with NASA or a private aerospace company.
NASA Force will identify and place high-impact technical talent into mission-critical roles supporting NASA’s exploration, research, and advanced technology priorities, ensuring the agency has the cutting-edge expertise needed to maintain U.S. leadership in space.
Tech Force, led by OPM, was established to recruit elite technical professionals into federal service, embed them at partner agencies to modernize systems, accelerate innovation, and strengthen mission delivery. NASA Force represents a focused expansion of that effort, tailored to the unique technical demands of space exploration and aerospace research.
“America’s leadership in space depends on extraordinary talent,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “NASA Force will help us attract the next generation of innovators and technical experts who are ready to solve the toughest challenges in exploration, science, and aerospace technology. This partnership strengthens our workforce and helps ensure the United States remains the global leader in space.”
This program however has things entirely backwards. The last thing any engineer who has just graduated college should do is get a short two-year job at NASA. He or she will learn all the wrong lessons, working for a government agency not interested in efficiency or profit.
Instead, it is essential the first job new engineers get is in the private sector, to learn how to do things fast and efficiently. It Isaacman had the right priorities, he would use this money to fund these jobs in the private sector, so that new graduates will get the right training. Unfortunately, that is not Isaacman’s priority. He wants the government to lead.
Moreover, NASA’s job was never intended to be “the global leader in space.” Its job was to formulate the federal government’s needs in space, and then ask the private sector — the American people — to get the job done. Isaacman instead wants to have NASA do the job, as it did for a half century after Apollo, quite poorly. Only after the agency began relying on private enterprise beginning in 2008, the capitalism model, did things finally start happening again.
The worst aspect of this program is that it will take talent away from the private sector. A lot of good and talented young engineers will gravitate to these NASA positions for the high pay, relatively easy good hours, and prestige. They won’t accomplish much there, and their training will be wrong-headed. Meanwhile, the private sector will lose that talent and have to find it elsewhere, assuming it is available at all.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I don’t think the best engineers will go to NASA.
I good engineer knows he is a good engineer and knows he can get a better starting offer from the private sector.
So NASA wants to make things worse for the space sector by hiring the good engineers away from all their old space companies? Like Boeing and Lockheed?
If its only a 2 year contact it will not come with a good government retirement.
Now that is something to add to your resume, I used to work for NASA but even they didn’t want me. Can you hire me for your next NASA project?
The best they can learn from NASA is how to fill out the paperwork the government wants.
Let me play devil’s advocate here, but also state my bias. I really, really wanted to be an astronaut as a child / teenager, and NASA was the only ticket. I concluded in the end it wasn’t for me, but it was appealing, and I think I harbor a soft spot for NASA.
Two things might help this program:
1. If they recruit strong talent from commercial space companies they might be able to temporarily inject some of the culture and urgency of commercial space into NASA. I also bet such talent will only manage a two year contract and be headed back to commercial space.
2. With all of the exciting things going on in commercial space, I doubt NASA will really attract the very top talent.
I guess time will tell. We had a century in which we were raised and instructed to trust the experts, and that no experts were more expert than government experts. That dogma has fallen flat for many of us, but it was so universal I don’t believe most people have really considered how much better it would be if government constrained itself to being a referee with a thin and specific rule book in most cases.