What's up with NASA?

        I get this question, or some version of it almost every day. Somedays I'm tired and simply don't feel like an extensive explanation so I give a terse or evasive answer. Perhaps it is time to correct that.

        To begin, I can't possibly speak for a NASA as a whole nor for anyone besides myself. What I can do is convey what we are doing and how we are feeling, at least at JSC and in my division.

        We are hurting. We are a community of capable, dedicated people who enjoy nothing more than a difficult, even impossible task, and making it happen. We have done such things and we want to continue to do them. Yet for reasons truly beyond understanding, we are cast adrift. The old mission is moribund, the new mission is non-existent. This is a dreadful situation and it saps the strength from us in ways not easy to explain. We want to leave the old and start the new, but we can't. This hurts.

        We are angry. Not merely because we are hurt but because colleagues are being sent out the door. People who know how to do things, how to design and implement flight systems are walking out the door, to never be back. We wish them the good fortune to find a job to take care of them and theirs. But they are lost to us. All of that talent is gone. For every four folks working on Shuttle since Challenger who leave we lose a century of experience. What possible price may we put on that? No amount of cash will conjure experience, wisdom and understanding.

        This profligate waste of talent is what angers us. We at JSC spend a great deal of time and effort to train up our people. Furthermore we do a great deal that must be learned but cannot be taught. By example and leadership do we turn a bright, eager engineer into a capable professional whom you would trust with our national treasures. Losing any of these good people is an impact upon us. Losing so many is incalculable. Even should we get a new, vibrant mission to pursue next week, it will take us years to recover from those already lost.

        We are angry. I am angry. I would encourage you to be angry as well. It was your money which created what is being lost. It will be your money used to make up that ground again.

        We are hopeful. We have initiatives right now at JSC which promise to change how we do things for the better. They are exciting and thankfully I have the good fortune to be a part of one of them. It is great stuff. We who are left will do all we can to make wondrous things happen. It is why we get out of bed in the morning. That has not changed.

        We are NASA. We are the ones who turn aspirations into living reality. We will continue to do that come Hell, high water or low budgets. It is what we do.

        Ad Astra Per Aspera,
        Kevin