Last month the American Academy of Arts and Sciences issued a report titled “United States Space Policy: Challenges and Opportunities”, written by George Abbey and Neal Lane. The report got a brief mention in the media, and some online debate, but hasn’t yet had any visible effect on overall space policy debates. I did not get a chance to read the report until last week, and when I did I found a number of issues with the report, which I describe in an article in The Space Review. The “Abbey-Lane” report has some flaws, including overstating the effect of export controls on the commercial satellite industry (while missing an opportunity to explore the deleterious effects of those controls in other areas), and repeats the poorly-supported claim of an impending “shortage” of scientists and engineers. The report also clearly leans towards continued operation of the shuttle and more research on ISS, something that closely aligns with provisions of the Senate version of the NASA authorization bill, and may be the subject of future debate in Congress and the scientific community.
I critiqued it myself a couple weeks ago. It’s not worth the paper it’s written on, in my opinion. It looks to me like Mr. Abbey is positioning himself to become NASA administrator if the Dems regain the White House in ’08. People are probably trembling in fear in Houston.
I myself have reviewed the report, and living in the UK I have seen the increase of the international community’s engagement of ESA and the Russian Space Agency. As for the note of an alarmist view being taken, here in the UK there has been an infux of foreign students studying science and engineering. I think that this is a point that must be monitored, to keep US dominance in the feild. As for the comment of Mr. Abbey vying for the administrator position in 08, it should be stated as it was in an article from the Houston Chronicle that he supports the new adminstrator, and lauds his experience to lead NASA. If anything, I believe this to be a wake up call to a complacent agency, and administration. The NASA of Apollo Legend was born of young innovative scientist and engineers of an average age of 25, who looked to new ideas and techniques to achieve some of the greatest feats of mankind. Yet, NASA of today has an aged work force that needs the same kind of drive it had in its glory days… But the key point I believe is the trade barriers that have been imposed, and the lack of cooperative iniatives that NASA is able to undertake, Apollo-Soyez was one of the most significant missions of NASA, because of the cooperation of the USA and USSR during the Cold War, and now look were we have come. If these barriers were lowered, the achievemets that could be made in a shorter time scale than currently, could be immense.
“It looks to me like Mr. Abbey is positioning himself to become NASA administrator…”
Abbey has no Democratic credentials. Take this for what it appears to be–a former official sounding off on what is currently happening.
The Abbey-Lane report ultimately lumps together some completely unrelated issues. For that reason, it should not be trusted. For example, the under-representation of Americans in technical graduate programs is alarming and important, but it has no specific connection to NASA. Rather, the need to import talent is a diffuse drag on the economy, just like importing oil.
But here and there the report reveals some interesting details. For example,
So there you have it. Just one year into the “vision” for space exploration, Bush and O’Keefe themselves curved the funding downward. And it was already larded with molasses before that. Delusion of space exploration is more like it.
On the other hand, a delusion of human spaceflight is better than an enacted fiasco. The Abbey-Lane report unwisely recommends continuing the shuttle past 2010.
“Abbey has no Democratic credentials. Take this for what it appears to be — a former official sounding off on what is currently happening.”
What are you saying? Take out the ideology and political spin, and you’ve silenced half the alt.space community…
“Take out the ideology and political spin, and you’ve silenced half the alt.space community…”
And how would that be a bad thing?
William,
You’ve scored a home run today already.
William:
In future, I’ll add a smiley.
“In future, I’ll add a smiley.”
Please don’t. I saw where you were coming from and was perfectly happy that you did not employ emoticons. I consider them vulgar myself, like using “air quotes” in a conversation at a fine restaurant.
“The Bush Administration’s commitment to these elements of success has not been clearly expressed. Some of the challenges facing the U.S. space program—notably, a decline in the competitiveness of the U.S. space satellite and launch industry due, in part, to an overly restrictive policy on export controls and a projected shortfall in the U.S. science and engineering workforce—represent long-term (though, we believe, reversible) trends.”
What a steaming pile! Here’s my executive summary, “Bush is doing everything wrong and Clinton did everything right.” Nothing political here. Oh, and by the way, Abbey and Lane, if it wasn’t for the export controls, we wouldn’t have any domestic launch industry. Launch costs are so high, they need their domestic monopoly to continue.
As for the decline in interest in engineering, I’m an engineer and I’m not even interested in engineering any more. Are you thinking you want to be an engineer? Stop. Go into something where you not only make money, but more importantly, you get the minimal level of respect due a professional. I’ll believe there is a shortage of engineers when we stop taking out the company’s trash. I’m not holding my breath, the company can’t milk the government $200/hr to have a janitor do that job. I’ll believe there’s a shortage of engineers when they start hiring draftsmen and engineering technologists again. Oops, they can’t charge that exorbitant rate for those guys either.
A cube farm full of engineers taking out their own trash and releasing their own drawings. Each one of them working on parts so small and insignificant, they have no chance of making a positive impact on the quality of the vehicle. As for the release process, it consists mainly of getting the 20 to 30 signatures required for each drawing. Real cutting edge stuff. When you’re not getting screwed over as you try to collect signatures, you can go to meetings, like ethics training. The sheer irony often keeps me awake for minutes at a time.
The really sad thing is, those are the good jobs. If you’re really unfortunate, you’ll end up writing specifications. These are a collection of “shall” statements that mean nothing to no one, but must be traceable to the “master spec” though a process that makes watching milk curdle seem exciting by comparison. Forego the temptation to write a requirement that the person who is supposed to give a damn about what you wrote do something other than a half-baked job of meeting the requirements they actually do come close to meeting. It won’t help. Specifications are all about telling someone the least they can do, and by the time they are done, you’ll find out what the least they can do really is.
The typical retention rate for a large aerospace company: 50% of college grads are gone in 2 years. I don’t have any statistics on how often they leave the engineering “profession” after those 2 years, but personal experience has many going for an MBA, or into patent law, or one recently left to become an anesthesiologist. She felt the ethics training class made her uniquely qualified to put others to sleep, and the school concurred. Go figure.
Based on this report from NASAWatch Griffin might well intend to stay at NASA no matter who wins the White House in November 2008.
Dfens,
I am sure glad I work for a small engineering company. We have a retention rate (over our 11 year history) of 98%. Of course being smaller each person has a lot more responsibility to the overall project and we get paid for ever hour we work (which is nice).
BTW I still love engineering after 12 years. My wife hates it and went back to school to be a doctor.
“Go into something where you not only make money, but more importantly, you get the minimal level of respect due a professional.”
Okay this confuses me. For my experience and considering the cost of living in Northern Alabama, I make a small fortune. And most people are impressed when they find out I am an engineer. Could be a regional thing, though.
Bill White: “Based on this report from NASAWatch Griffin might well intend to stay at NASA no matter who wins the White House in November 2008.”
Griffin often mentions that he has 3 and half years or so to do what he wants to do as NASA admin. I think he says this just as an acknowledgment that he “could” leave when Bush’s second term expires and that he’s planning based on that. There is every chance that he could stay on, he has been praised by Democrats as well as Republicans in most all circles. After all, Goldin was appointed by Bush 41 and he stayed on through 8 years of Clinton.
Dan, I’m glad you’re enjoying your career. You are, unfortunately, part of a dwindling group. As for money, it is enough to live comfortably, but poor relative to what other professionals make. It is comperable to what someone with a business degree might make, and a hell of a lot harder to get into.
The money is just a symptom. What do engineers do these days? I’m working on a program to modify a jet with new avionics. It is taking 2x longer and costing about as much to put that new, and it some ways less capable system on the airplane than it took to design the whole vehicle from nothing. Engineers aren’t putting men on the Moon, we aren’t making jets that go higher, faster, or farther. In the private sector, innovation has been greatly inhibited by our lawyer brethern and their lawsuits. We won the cold war for America, and now we’re useless.