Jon;
NASA isn’t pursuing Workforce retention; the Congress is.
To his credit, Griffin prefers to reduce the workforce.
I agree with the rest of your statement, because ultimately it’s a political necessity, not a technical one. But it’s a requirement that the 2005 Appropriations Act laid on NASA and it’s what they have to live to.

The only saving grace in the whole thing is that if the lunar program ever really gets off the ground, the workforce needed to support that will actually be larger than the current STS workforce, so retaining as many of them now as is possible provides a base for the future needs.

But it’s politics. It’s always been about the politics.

Please !

Some background :

1) I have worn a uniform of the US armed forces.

2) I have worked, as a civilian, supporting the military mission (command and control systems at the theatre level).

The DoD, as is true of ALL large bureaucracies, has a significant amount of embedded corruption; do some honest research and be honest with yourself about the evidence. Beyond this, as Charles pointed out (thanks !), there are (at least) several weapons systems that are a waste of resources & need to be cancelled. Big savings could be made freeing up money to be redeployed elsewhere to areas of the federal budget that are “more deserving” (maybe NASA maybe not, that`s a different discussion).

Other “target rich” environments in the federal budget are the Department of Housing & Urban Development, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Health & Human Services to mention just the more obvious ones. Do some real research and learn something about where all that money goes. I`ll pass on focusing on such boondoggles as the “War on Drugs” (not saying there isn`t a “drug problem”, just that the type of activity we have seen so far isn`t the proper approach) etc.

I`ll all for reasonable government operations, just not so much corruption & graft.

“For starters a ~30% decrease in the DoD budget would do wonders for the federal budget, NASA, DoD not to mention the rest of the humans sharing this planet with us.”

Too bad you can’t go back and edit that confusing post.

The DoD budget is not the first place to look for wasteful spending, but it does provide a target rich environment!

Start with the Missile Defense Agency – which is building a defense against a threat which might develop one day. And when it does develop, probably the interceptor missile system will be obsolete and will not address the threat.

Look at the F-35 fighter, which is so expensive that we can’t buy enough to actually use them. We can’t risk one since we will quickly run out.

We should buy additional F-15E fighters instead, the F-15 is still in production.

Who is this remark coming from – some flaming liberal military hater? Hardly! I am a retired AF LtCol who has read lots about the increasing cost and complexity of aircraft. The B-2 is so expensive and rare that we can scarcely risk it in combat. We should have just bought more B-1s instead.

And we should all know that you build a defense system concurrently with the threat – let’s not deploy the world’s best cavalry against an emplaced enemy with machine guns (remember WW1??) and let’s not build a giant Maginot Line (remember WW2?). Not everyone that questions military spending is some wild military hater, some of us are more the Billy Mitchell types.

Um…as soon as you start talking about “political realities” and “workforce retention”, isn’t it pretty obvious that you’re no longer talking about a purely engineering problem? Most of the problem actually is more with the incentives Congress provides they’re the ones that are trying to get reelected–NASA’s just reacting to pressures and incentives from them.

But pointing out that those political pressures are totally distorting the engineering and driving a suboptimal, government-centric architecture doesn’t mean I’m “ascribing evil motives” to anyone. Stupid motives, maybe. Evil? Spare us the hyperbole, please.

~Jon