Since Bush every incoming president has set up a “vision” that scraps all previous work and which then in turn gets scrapped by the next guy. I wonder how the people working there can keep motivated knowing that most of their work is just for show. Seems unmanned missions are fine but manned missions are just a mess.
From what I've heard, a lot of people have left NASA as a result of the month-long government shutdown this year. NASA is a political football, and it's not going to get any better: it just takes too long to see a big mission (i.e., manned ones) through, so they're never going to get done with the way our government is running these days. The probes are usually OK because those can get done a lot quicker.
> From what I've heard, a lot of people have left NASA as a result of the month-long government shutdown this year.
I've got two friends there, a civil servant and a contractor, and I've heard no such thing. That doesn't mean it isn't true, but I'm curious whether there's any data to back this up. You'd have to be careful looking at that data, too: a lot of people are retiring from NASA simply because they're old.
Nothing that's happened to NASA lately is a new phenomenon.
Likewise, I'm a NASA contractor and I heard of exactly one person leaving after the shutdown. Granted anecdata isn't proof of anything, but it's clear that wasn't any kind of mass exodus.
Today, the President signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017, which funds the U.S. government for the remainder of the fiscal year. NASA received $19.65 billion—its best budget since 2010—and the Planetary Science Division saw its budget increase to $1.846 billion—its best budget in more than ten years.
They also are pushing NASA to send men to the Moon before Trump leaves office, without also giving them the budget necessary to do such a task (which honestly, with any budget, is still a ridiculously short schedule). They already had one main guy at NASA just quit because he knew this plan was unrealistic.
SpaceX? Or if your science isn't specifically on materials for rockets/physics for rockets/etc... you could be funded by a university or research institute and simply pay for (part of) a launch on a SpaceX rocket.
NASA still does quite a bit of science work though, so I wouldn't count them out entirely. Administrations come and go. Sometimes you just gotta keep your head down and keep doing your job until someone better is voted in.
That's the point... Private space is ramping up quickly, but they're building rockets, not doing science. If you're and American astrobiologist (for example), NASA is where you want to be. There's really no competition.
The problem is that since there's always a switch between Republican and Democrats, each president has a different perspective on the overall NASA mission (plus each one wants to leave a big mark), so they keep changing.
I think what the people actually working there try to do (as it can be seen here) is find a way to fit what they have already done, with what the new mission statement is, so that they won't have to scrap everything they have done, only the limited amount. That's good is some senses (less wasted work), but the result is then usually not the most fitting solution.
I don't think it's accurate to say there are any partisan components to the NASA mission. I guess the exception is the Republican party is trying to cut Earth observation satellites because the data coming back is politically inconvenient. However that's a pretty small part of NASA's budget.
I am working in a different industry (which calls itself an industry but is a joke and a god sent heaven for marketing consulting gig) but with the same kind of political minefield.
Public servants get demotivated and set to mediocrity.
Hired cattle gets demotivated and try to get out.
Only managers and middle managers are driven by the ego boost coming from "changing things".
