U.S. Jobs Facing a Blackhole

So what do you do when members of a branch of the U.S. Government that have been meticulously selected and trained, find themselves with no plans of where to apply what they trained for, along with their dreams?  This is what the astronaut corps members from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are confronting.  NASA was originally established in 1958 as an executive branch agency of the United States government.  Focusing on space exploration and the understanding of the earth requires a lot of time and funding.

On January 2004, President George W. Bush announced that after the retirements of the space shuttle program by 2010, the new goal was to have the Orion program replace the shuttle by 2015 and land again on the moon by 2018.  However, the ending of the space shuttle program has been extended until June 2011, when the last space shuttle is scheduled to take off.  Also, any succeeding programs to the space shuttle have been cancelled due to the hiring of outside companies for its development.  In short, as stated by Kenneth Chang on his recent article, “under President Barack Obama, NASA’s human space flight program has been curtailed.”

It is important to remember that the United States has reached the level of knowledge in space exploration because of the constant support that our Government and its citizens have provided.  Yes, even though the budget for the current year 2011 alone is about $19,000 million, it is better to invest this in the future of our planet than on destroying it with money spent on weaponry.  If our own American astronauts don’t know if they will be receiving their next paycheck, it is most likely to drive away these many properly trained and knowledgeable personnel.   By not having enough members in the payroll, over time when the need arises to put another man or woman into space, we won’t have any.  And then what?  Are we going to knock on China’s door or other country?  Do we want to continue with the trend of driving all our job sources away from our good USA?

The note below is presented on the Heliophysics budget FY2012 reflecting the spending freeze affecting NASA.

   

In accordance with the President's proposal to implement a five-year non-security discretionary spending freeze, budget figures shown for years after FY 2012 are notional and do not represent policy. Funding decisions will be made on a year-by-year basis.

Harry C.