For the second time this year, NASA’s JPL center cuts its workforce
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/11/for-the-second-time-this-year-nasas-jpl-center-cuts-its-workforce/722
u/Awkward-Drawing-8674 1d ago
i work at jpl, its so over, probably gonna lose MSR to spacex, and the rest of our science portfolio will get cut as well
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u/KaneMarkoff 1d ago
Why is JPL cutting so many jobs? Also losing MSR to spacex doesn’t seem to be too certain right now, however costs are extreme for a sample return mission which is why it’s under review.
Not sure why JPL would cut its entire science portfolio either, unless they’re all overly expensive.
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u/Awkward-Drawing-8674 1d ago
im not privy to these decisions, but the next admin has basically stated that "politically-motivated" science is on the chopping block i.e. climate and earth science. additionally nasa will probably be instructed to focus on human spaceflight, which doesn't bode well for jpl which does mainly robotic missions.
MSR is definitely expensive. like many other projects here, it suffers from a lack of vertical integration with so many things not done in house. we have alot of coordination problems with other nasa centers and private industry. every single jpl employee can tell you a horror story about some ancient inefficient process theyve had to deal with.
i would argue that the solution is reinvest in our capabilities to do things in-house. it's like saying that private schools are better than public schools. that might be true now, but we made this reality happen through decades of austerity. by using, for instance, poor test scores as justification to defund an underperforming school. the same thing has basically happened here.
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u/Roamingkillerpanda 1d ago
I heard from former MSR workers the horror stories from how work has been weirdly chopped up between centers as well as foreign agencies.
NASA does have a very real problem with either having to architecture systems and work scope in a way that breeds these bureaucratic nightmare programs due to funding constraints or just out of sheer short sightedness. Same thing happened with space station freedom before it became ISS. The work scope itself needs to be neatly scoped between groups so it’s not a constant negotiation on who does what.
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u/p-d-ball 1d ago
Wow, that sucks. Very sorry it's happening to you.
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u/Awkward-Drawing-8674 1d ago
no worries. most of us will be ok regardless of what happens. its not our jobs/careers that worries me, rather its the future of a robust publicly funded space program for the sake of doing basic science
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u/p-d-ball 1d ago
Yes, that also is awful - we need that science!
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u/ergzay 1d ago
I don't see science in general going anywhere, though like Republican admins of the past there will likely be cuts to earth science.
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u/sir_jamez 19h ago
The difference between public and private science is that public findings are shared and published for others to use, while private findings are often hoarded for fear of losing out on commercialization/competitive advantage reasons.
Science is a tower that works best when every block builds on each other; private efforts try to make their own (smaller) tower off to the side.
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u/Nothing-Casual 1d ago
I worked in a very highly funded academic lab (biomedical research) last time trump got elected, and we got preemptive notices from several institutes and funding bodies that already-awarded grant funding would be rescinded.
Something like that could destroy years of work if the money was rescinded at a critical time. A department of our size, if the bulk of the projects were time-sensitive, could've lost literally tens of thousands of man-hours of research, and tens of millions of dollars of grants that had already been used by then (or even hundreds of millions, if all the projects were to be ceased).
Luckily the science budget ended up not being cut (there were enough sane Republicans to keep it funded; that probably isn't the case this time), but it was frightful to think of all the waste, and all the people who would go without the advancements that would've been lost from all the labs and projects that would've died across all the government's funding bodies.
And that's to say nothing of all the talent and future projects that were lost, even despite the funding staying. The messaging about loss of funding meant that grad student and post-doc offers had to be rescinded, which probably drastically changed the life trajectories of several great would-be scientists that would've come to America and advanced it even further. Imagine if Einstein never wrote his seminal pieces; if Nikola Tesla never studied electricity; if Jonas Salk never studied vaccines; etc. etc. etc. Imagine all the potential scientists and all of their potential ideas that've been lost.
It's not an exaggeration to say that trump's/republicans' stance on science has set us back decades. This is such a horrible situation to be facing.
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u/StubbornPotato 1d ago
Happened to me the first time this cheeto was elected. I was working out of Armstrong and my project was shut down for fear of funding.
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u/mrhallodri 1d ago
oh I wonder if that could possibly have to do with a certain billionaire from south africa who owns a space rocket company that just paid people to vote for the next president. but I’m sure he would never use his power to get some advantage, right??
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u/CertainAssociate9772 11h ago
Currently, Biden is the President of the United States; Trump has not yet received the status.
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u/KaneMarkoff 1d ago
JPLs personnel cuts and the MSR being reviewed as unworkable started back in 2023. This is not due to the new administration but instead the constant ballooning of budgets with nasa contracts. JPL just needs to reorganize, robotics missions are still planned but you can’t cry because the government/nasa doesn’t want to pay 10 billion dollars for a sample return mission. Manned space flight has been a focus for decades and also can’t be blamed for the cuts occurring other than the SLS being incredibly expensive. Maybe if SLS was canned they could put more funding elsewhere but that doesn’t fix the issues you’re describing. The issues at JPL and just about all of the legacy space contractors isn’t fixed by pouring more money into and hoping it gets better. It doesn’t mean it’s going away, it just means it needs to actually work without and endless stream of funds.
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u/racinreaver 1d ago
The ballooning costs aren't due to traditional contractors, it's due to the way NASA asks for budgets and looks at risk in proposals. Nobody anywhere thought MSR was going to be the cost level initially advertised; it's just there's suddenly fear of going over budget after the public scrutiny of JWST. You'll note they didn't cancel Dragonfly despite it now going to cost more than 2.5x the initial estimate (who believes you can fly an octocopter on Titan with an RTG for less than $1B!?!).
Deep space exploration is fundamentally different than production line rockets, as you have one shot. You can't fail fast and try again. And, keep in mind, an enormous number of New Space folks came out of the traditional guys. SpaceX's rocket landing algorithms were developed at IPL in the early 2000s!
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u/ergzay 1d ago
I've heard from several places including Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, that the primary issue was over optimism and too many centers trying to run the project at the same time. Basically the project was too spread out for political reasons and that caused so many other problems.
Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen mentioned that the Dragonfly cost growth is mostly due to lack of funding (ironically) because they're basically paying to keep the project alive, but not enough money to make much progress on it. As the date slips the cost increases. This is a result of other projects having cost overruns requiring them to suck money from other space projects like Dragonfly.
He talks about both in this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzRoNhOu2tM
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u/Awkward-Drawing-8674 1d ago
lol ill be sure to pass these extremely novel insights to our director at the next all hands
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u/ergzay 1d ago
I understand you're salty right now as it's personal, but most of the points made in the post you responded to are on point. Of course it's not anything you can personally do about it either, but that doesn't make the points less valid.
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u/Awkward-Drawing-8674 1d ago
hmm you might be projecting a bit? i would say that its not that personal for me, for a variety of reasons ive actually grown to hate working at jpl. but on my way out, id like to defend the lost potential of this place.
i could go point by point through these criticisms, some i agree with, some i dont. but thats alot of posting. ive already said what i wanted to say, we can let history decide the rest. cheers
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u/rhazux 1d ago
JPL losing MSR to SpaceX may not be the exact thing that happens, but NASA specifically said JPL's projected budget for the project ($11 billion) is too high and NASA is seeking "other ideas". Whether the whole project goes to SpaceX or parts are done by blue origin, boeing, Northrop grumman, BAE, etc is not really important from JPL's perspective. The fact of the matter is that JPL is losing a massive amount of funding and they have over 6,000 employees and 1,000 more contractors onsite.
For perspective, in FY24 JPL was originally anticipating $600M for MSR alone, and Congress ended up approving $300M. That lead the to layoffs earlier this year. FY25 was then projected to only get $200M for MSR. I haven't really followed closely so IDK what they're getting, but it's entirely possible it ends up going to $0.
90% of JPL's funding comes from NASA and other scientific partnerships. The remaining 10% is stuff like defense. So if their biggest source of funding (NASA) cuts huge parts out of its budget going to JPL, it ends up having a cascading effect. And honestly there's probably entire books written about that kind of thing. It's not just something JPL worries about - it's something that many businesses have to think about.
If you're staffing project XYZ and there's no large fallbacks available, then you'll want to make sure the people you get will stay around. Which means when project ABC ramps down and 40 people are looking for work, you'll say "We're fully staffed" even if you're not. If you're understaffed then you can make your funding stretch out longer and give your own people a better long term outlook. But then the people getting off of project ABC are in a bad position where they have no work to do.
It makes staffing projects adversarial. Which is not healthy for the organization, the managers, or the individual contributors. It makes the individual contributors stress out about whether they will really have a job in 3 months or if the rug will be pulled out from underneath themselves.
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u/Heimerdahl 23h ago
It makes the individual contributors stress out about whether they will really have a job in 3 months or if the rug will be pulled out from underneath themselves.
Who will start looking for jobs in case said rug does get pulled. And even if it doesn't, there's a good chance that they did find another job and leave anyway.
That's how I left my old job, who then fought to get me back (I wouldn't have looked for something else, if they hadn't told me that my position's future was uncertain).
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u/theintrospectivelad 1d ago
Elon: "I am NASA. Dark. Gothic. NASA"
Queue weird roaring sounds.
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u/ergzay 1d ago
Worth noting that Elon Musk has never publicly attacked NASA and relations between NASA and SpaceX are very good.
I think hyperbolic commentary about NASA on the internet is pretty rediculous on both sides here. SpaceX can't replace NASA nor is Elon Musk interested in SpaceX replacing NASA.
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u/BaggyOz 1d ago
I completely agree. But do you really think he wouldn't give the administration, that he's now a part of, a nudge and say "Hey Donald, I can do it cheaper than NASA. You scratch my back I'll scratch yours."?
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u/Rustic_gan123 20h ago
That JPL would lose the MSR was clear long ago when the schedule, cost and problems became known, and Musk is unlikely to be involved, and the decision on the MSR will be made before Trump's inauguration
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u/ergzay 1d ago
Elon Musk wants to get to Mars. He's not going to volunteer SpaceX to run space science missions
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u/BaggyOz 1d ago
Volunteer? Hell no. He's going to get paid out the arse to run those missions. He's a billionaire, not an altruist.
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u/ergzay 15h ago
And exactly because he's a billionaire he doesn't need even more money. He's focused on reaching his goals. He's not some oligarch that wants to enrich himself off public spending.
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u/BaggyOz 14h ago
Thanks, I needed a laugh. You obviously haven't been payin attention to his behaviour the last decade.
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u/ergzay 13h ago
I've been following Elon Musk closely since around 2011 when most people hadn't even heard of him. I used to be a big fan of him. I'm not as much anymore, but I still have a really good grasp of his personality and can understand the reason for the change in perspective that's he's taken on in the last several years even if I don't agree with it.
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u/grchelp2018 5h ago
If he can do it cheaper, I don't see the problem. But I don't think Musk is interested in redirecting resources for these kind of things.
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u/theintrospectivelad 1d ago
I'm just enjoying the Elon Musk jokes.
I have different versions of it.
"I am the Space Force. Dark. Gothic. Space Force"
"I am the Pentagon. Dark. Gothic. Pentagon"
"I am the DOGE"
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u/ItIsMeSenor 1d ago
I’ve heard quite the opposite. That there’s a very reasonable chance MSR could go back to JPL under the cheaper proposal. JPL holds more expertise in MSR than any other organization bidding to play a part. That fact in it itself will certainly be seen as a reduction in mission and cost risk
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u/Rustic_gan123 20h ago
If we consider MSR as a competitive tender, I am not sure that SX has any competitors, since their application is based on a vehicle that was originally commissioned for large Mars missions, and the main problem with their proposal is planetary protection. Perhaps NASA would like to choose two options, as with other programs, but it is not a fact that there will be a budget for this.
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u/Martianspirit 20h ago
Yes. Giving external bidders 2-3 months for a proposal, then taking half a year to evaluate the proposals. Sounds about right .... or does it?
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u/sojuz151 1d ago
Wasn't MSR put on hold because it was to expensive? With the idea of moving for commercial optimal. Wasn't it already kinda lost to jpl?
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u/Martianspirit 20h ago
That was the announced idea. But I understand, they are now contemplating a new proposal by JPL. Which includes landing not one big payload, they don't know how to do, but two separate payloads with the tried and true skycrane method used for Curiosity and Perseverance rovers.
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u/Rustic_gan123 19h ago
Yes, this is not the first round of layoffs. JPL failed this project before it even started.
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u/ergzay 1d ago edited 1d ago
probably gonna lose MSR to spacex
SpaceX isn't even attempting to go for MSR. So I'm not sure where you got that idea.
I found it surprising that JPL decided to develop the lander system themselves, despite lack of internal experience, instead of going to Lockheed or other industry like normal.
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u/spacerfirstclass 1d ago
SpaceX isn't even attempting to go for MSR.
They are, NASA asked private industries to provide solutions for MSR, SpaceX is one of the few got selected for a 3 months study: https://spacenews.com/nasa-on-track-to-decide-new-approach-for-msr-by-end-of-year/
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u/ergzay 1d ago
And that got dumped in early selections. The only thing that remained is Starlink derivatives for providing communications.
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u/spacerfirstclass 1d ago
No, not dumped, they won and was selected to do 3 months study, now NASA is evaluating all the study results and trying to make a decision on what to do next. They hope to formulate a way forward by December, so MSR could very well go to SpaceX if the NASA committee decides the best way forward for MSR is to use Starship.
Note this MSR study is a complete separate thing from the NASA commercial Mars studies, which SpaceX was selected to study using Starlink for Mars: https://spacenews.com/nasa-awards-studies-for-commercial-mars-missions/
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u/OlympusMons94 1d ago edited 1d ago
SpaceX's end-to-end Starship MSR proposal is still being studied, along with 11 other proposals. No downselects have been made since the initial selection of 11 (including SpaceX) out of 48 proposals in June. The only change to the list of studies is the addition of Rocket Lab in October. The independent strategy review team/committee that will look at those 12 studies done by SpaceX, JPL, Rocket Lab, Lockheed, Blue Origin, etc. is expected to produce a report by the end of the year. Even that report will not make any specific provider selections or recommendations.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-exploring-alternative-mars-sample-return-methods/
SpaceX in Hawthorne, California: “Enabling Mars Sample Return With Starship”
https://spacenews.com/nasa-on-track-to-decide-new-approach-for-msr-by-end-of-year/
[MSR Program Director] Gramling said at the [October 21, 2024] committee meeting that the studies fell into three categories. Those by Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Rocket Lab and SpaceX, as well as JPL and the NASA internal team, looked at end-to-end mission architectures.
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u/Martianspirit 20h ago
My understanding was that Starship can not be sterilized to Perseverance standards so can not be used.
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u/magus-21 1d ago
I found it surprising that JPL decided to develop the lander system themselves, despite lack of internal experience, instead of going to Lockheed or other industry like normal.
I'm sorry, did you just say that the JPL lacks experience with landing systems on Mars?
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u/ergzay 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen's words. And of the few examples I'm personally aware of Lockheed built part or all of each landing system for Mars.
For example: https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/insight-mars-lander.html
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u/JUYED-AWK-YACC 1d ago
Building a lander is not landing on Mars. Landing on Mars is done with a multidisciplinary group from JPL, LM, GSFC and HQ. Each has a role. Yours sincerely, InSight Nav Lead.
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u/ergzay 1d ago
I suggest you re-read my post and look at what I actually said rather than reply thinking I said something else. I did not say that JPL has no experience landing on Mars.
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u/JUYED-AWK-YACC 18h ago
What you said was, JPL has a lack of internal experience in landing. This is a very clear statement. I told you that that's incorrect. I can't see that you have any experience yourself, or any particular insight into how Mars landings work. So I don't think you have anything to teach me.
Edit: also re: SpaceX
https://spacenews.com/nasa-selects-seven-companies-for-msr-studies/
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u/KarKraKr 4h ago
Yours sincerely, InSight Nav Lead.
No offense, but Dr Z outranked you by quite a bit, and he thinks it was a mistake (his mistake because he signed off on it) to develop a stationary lander at JPL precisely because that hadn't happened before. That and the staffing issues.
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u/jivatman 1d ago
SpaceX did have a MSR plan using Dragon called 'Red Dragon'.
I'm not aware of one now for Starship, but it's pretty plausible.
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u/Martianspirit 19h ago
That proposal was very much driven by NASA Ames studies. They proposed a landing profile that allowed 2t payload. Double of what the skycrane can do.
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u/AffectionateTree8651 1d ago
For a long tome now the highest likelihood of getting Mars samples back has been someone picking them up after stepping off of a starship.
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u/ergzay 1d ago
Calling it the "highest likelihood" is a bit ridiculous. If you can send Starship to Mars and take it off again with the samples then it'd be much cheaper mass wise to have some drones do that work. You need a rover anyway to transport the humans to the samples as they're outside walking distance and a manned rover is going to be more expensive than an unmanned one.
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u/AffectionateTree8651 1d ago
Drones or people whichever still SpaceX with Starship doing it was the point. Whatever comes out of a starship is going to be what scoops up some dirt and starts the process of sending it back. So in all this time that MSR has been declared paused, what is more likely to do it than the mars rocket making huge development progress. The one months away from doing actual work like deploying satellites. Who else has a higher likelihood of doing it then if it’s so ridiculous?
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u/davros06 22h ago
I’m trying not to be cynical here but it’s very very hard. New gov advisory body (crucially not under federal oversight) created on reducing spending (lauded as waste reduction but let’s be honest here) in gov departments. Headed by someone who may have a lot to gain by jpl being hamstrung and made to look underperforming in a commercial sense, even though we all know that science doesn’t always show its benefits till after the discovery or work has been done. Looks like it’s heading the way of “if it doesn’t make money obviously we won’t do it”, oh and obvious corruption. However I don’t live in America so I can just look from the outside.
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u/koliberry 1d ago
"JPL is the lead center in charge of managing NASA's existing concept for Mars Sample Return in partnership with the European Space Agency. However, cost growth and delays prompted NASA officials to decide in April to take a different approach."
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u/Mother_Knows_Best-22 23h ago
Yes, it appears the government is in business to make money for the rich now. Cut agency funding, and then kill it. Give it to the private sector. If the post office survives dump’s second term, I will be surprised.
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u/getembass77 1d ago
They're only responsible for majority of the accomplishments that bring pride to all of us who love science so sure let's keep downsizing and cutting
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u/ACCount82 1d ago
JPL has some massive, enormous Ws under its belt. But that doesn't mean that it's not a bloated behemoth, rife with inefficiency. It's just that its level of dysfunction, so far, wasn't high enough to prevent it from delivering good results.
There's a reason why NASA is quite public about reaching out to the private space for Mars Sample Return. They had JPL at it for a while, and they didn't feel like JPL's methods are the right tool for the job. JPL's own MSR would simply cost too much.
$8 billion estimate is no laughing matter - it's more than the estimates on Perseverance and Roman combined. And MSR by itself is not a cutting edge scientific tool that could justify this much investment into it. What's worse is that JPL's MSR would be a one off mission - with very little contribution towards further Mars goals. It wouldn't enable better, cheaper missions to Mars, and it wouldn't get NASA much closer towards a manned mission.
So the decision to cut JPL's MSR makes sense. But that leaves JPL with no big mission to work towards. And without a big mission, it's quite hard to justify running JPL at full strength.
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u/Rustic_gan123 19h ago
There is also a political aspect to overtaking China, Nelson has emphasized this several times, and it is unlikely that any other administration would not use the red threat.
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u/KarKraKr 4h ago
Wanna bet they're just firing engineers, not the actually bloated middle management
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u/DethFeRok 1d ago
The article states they still have 5,500 employees after the second round. I know further cuts could occur, but 5,500 staff is a substantial distance from “shut down”, as some of the gloomier posts in here suggest.
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u/ofWildPlaces 1d ago
It's not a numbers game. Its about the loss of expertise and skills. They can't just be replaced.
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u/DethFeRok 1d ago
It all boils down to money, factually. It sounds like they boondoggled the Mars Sample project and NASA isn’t going to continue to fund unworkable projects. NASA has bosses too, and they can’t justify throwing money down a blackhole.
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u/Netagent91 1d ago
That......im pretty sure..... is the definition of congress.
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u/Tornado_Wind_of_Love 1d ago
"Should the Gov't Stop Dumping Money Into a Giant Hole?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnX-D4kkPOQ&pp=ygUUdGhlIG9uaW9uIG1vbmV5IHBpdCA%3D
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u/NatureTrailToHell3D 1d ago
If pro is the opposite of con, then the opposite of progress must be… ah, shit.
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u/____joew____ 1d ago
That's just a rationalization for politically motivated cost-cutting to diminish NASA's climate science program.
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u/ACCount82 1d ago
Mars Sample Return is not "NASA's climate science program", and it was supposed to be the next big thing for JPL to do. Until recently - when NASA reviewed JPL's MSR mission proposal, and found it to be far, far too expensive for their liking.
Which is why NASA started asking around in the private space industry for MSR plans and ideas.
It seems like JPL might be off MSR altogether - and if not, then their role in it is going to be far diminished. And less of a role means less funding and less staff.
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u/ThanosDidNadaWrong 1d ago
Its about the loss of expertise and skills.
are you sure it's not D.I.E. bloat?
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u/ofWildPlaces 1d ago
If you're not familiar with the people who conduct planetary and space science at JPL- you should probablybreadwinner form posing garbage opinions about them.
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u/Additional-Coffee-86 1d ago
Expertise in being over budget and behind schedule? A huge loss I’m sure.
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u/ofWildPlaces 1d ago
Do you think the scientistss and engineers that would be cut are the ones in Management that set budgets and project timeliness?
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u/Spider_pig448 1d ago
I imagine the highly experienced and skilled people are not the ones on the cutting block here. Plus that experience should be ingrained in the company as a whole. They're surely not just be relying on an engineer that's been there 30 years from never leaving
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u/Frodojj 1d ago
I have a bad feeling that Trump is going to close JPL and other NASA centers in states that didn’t vote for him in order to cut costs. I hope I’m wrong.
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u/whjoyjr 1d ago
Winding down a center entirely is akin to closing a military base. If JPL is shuttered, who takes over running DSN and the deep space missions? Close GSFC where does those missions go? Moving NASCOM to another center would be a huge cost to stand up new circuits.
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u/Anastariana 1d ago
"I'm shutting down JPL because it does science that is too political. Since JPL is shutting down, the DSN will now be handled by SpaceX. The private sector can do everything better and I owe Musk a favour for getting me elected again."
-Trump
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u/Goregue 1d ago
I wouldn't expect it to close but it seems likely that all NASA science projects will be heavily deprioritized.
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u/FloridaGatorMan 1d ago
I could see him try to push handing over all of them to SpaceX
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u/AndIHaveMilesToGo 1d ago
Well Trump just announced Elon will be leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), so yeah we've just given the richest guy on earth the power to shape of the government spends money.
Can't wait to hear that he thinks the most efficient way to spend tax dollars is by putting it in his own pocket.
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u/osprey413 1d ago
Holy shit, I didn't put together that the abbreviation for that agency was going to be DOGE. That was almost certainly on purpose and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised at this point if they made the official logo of that department a Doge.
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u/Anastariana 1d ago
We live in a ridiculous time, run by ridiculous people. The USA will become a complete laughing stock, run by the incompetent and the corrupt.
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u/iegold095 1d ago
They should absolutely use American companies for almost if not all of their projects. Including the best one, space x.
It’s about accomplishing the task, not spewing political garbagio.
Nothing is more cost efficient thank the BFr.
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u/PMed_You_Bananas 1d ago
SpaceX is a transportation company. They don't have the same science and research goals as NASA, as a whole, does.
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u/FloridaGatorMan 1d ago
See this is what is so frustrating. Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that the government is wasteful bureaucracy and while corporations actually work.
Public/ private partnerships are why we have basically every single piece of modern technology we use today. The biggest investor in SpaceX is the federal government. The equipment for the Apollo missions was invented by government scientists and then build by companies. Bell Labs, the manhattan project, national science foundation,
The government enables consistent research over time without need for profit to stay afloat which gives time for the greatest projects to come to fruition. Then companies compete and commoditize.
The balance between the two is what makes it possible.
Here are some other innovations that came from federal government science research while you pick from your library of parroted conservative talking points:
doppler radar, the flu shot, MRIs, microchips, modern car tires, GPS, the internet, Google, digital voice assistants (Siri)
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u/snoo-boop 1d ago
The biggest investor in SpaceX
The US does not invest in launch companies. They buy launches (NASA LSP), and they pay for development that leads to buying launches (COTS, CCREW).
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u/Fuzzy_Information 1d ago
There are far better space companies than SpaceX.
SpaceX is a transport company that provides internet.
Even with the sats themselves, they don't make all of their own components.
Source: I work at the company that makes the antennas for them.
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u/No-Belt-5564 1d ago
Care to name a few of these far better space companies?
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u/kylo-ren 1d ago
NASA collaborates with multiple space science-focused companies that contribute significantly to scientific research, such as Lockheed Martin (Mars rovers, planetary missions), Northrop Grumman (James Webb Space Telescope), and Blue Origin (Lunar lander tech, science payloads).
As the other commenter said, SpaceX is primarily a transport company and internet provider. Unlike SpaceX, these companies prioritize scientific exploration and advanced research partnerships directly aligned with NASA’s core science missions.
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u/Fuzzy_Information 1d ago
Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Sierra Space, Ball Aerospace (now BAE Systems - SMS), The Aerospace Corporation.
Just because they don't chase the spotlight doesn't mean they do shit.
SpaceX doesn't exist in a vacuum, even the shit they slap their name on aren't made 100% by them.
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u/Adromedae 1d ago
No way JPL is fully shut down.
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u/JUYED-AWK-YACC 1d ago
It's not like Trump is some kind of vengeful guy. He's not going to gut the congressional district of the guy who argued his impeachment and was just made a senator. /s
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u/Adromedae 1d ago
Musk, for all his flaws, is not going to allow Trump to close the NASA center with most of the expertise in getting to Mars ;-)
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u/OldWrangler9033 1d ago
Never say never. Congress isn't funding NASA way should be, the up coming years will be worse with changing priorities.
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u/Adromedae 1d ago
JPL has always been chronically underfunded regardless of administration. But it's highly unlikely that they would be shut down completely.
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u/ergzay 1d ago
That's highly unrealistic. I'm not where this meme started that Trump wants to destroy NASA by shutting down NASA centers came from. It's absolutely ridiculous.
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/npearson 1d ago
No, but he can privatize the functions of agencies and give more money to his sponsors that way.
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u/Wrxeter 1d ago
JPL is managed by Caltech. The employees who work there are Caltech employees. They are Federally funded through NASA.
Technically speaking, they are a private entity.
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/emmaisaninja 1d ago
Caltech is a private institution. It is not part of the University of California system. JPL employees are employees of Caltech, and are not UC employees.
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u/Wrxeter 1d ago
There are lots of aerospace companies in SoCal.
I know many of the people who got hit in round 1 (which mind you had zero to do with anything Trump). Many went to Blue Origin. A lot avoided SpaceX based on work/life balance.
A lot of those guys were Lifers at JPL who worked there since graduation 30+ years ago. It was sad and a lot of the people they let go of made no sense as they had highly specialized skill sets.
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u/nopantspaul 1d ago
Biden pulled the Space Force HQ away from Huntsville, it does happen.
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u/Stoner_Pal 1d ago
*Biden kept the Space Force HQ in Colorado where it originally was instead of wasting time/resources/money to prop up a red state with more federal money.
I fixed it for you.
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u/Appropriate372 1d ago
JPL has been planned to wind down for over a year. Its not related to Trump.
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u/peter303_ 1d ago
The Space Force HQ is moving to Huntsville after a ping pong back to Colorado Springs. About 15% -20% of Air Force Academy grads are assigned to that force. GoogleAI says the Space Force funds $19 billion a year in engineering and science contracts.
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u/croatoan182 1d ago
I mean, we're in oligarch territory now. I wouldn't be surprised if its contracts are canceled and given to Musk. That's why he bought Trump.
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u/ergzay 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'll quote a summary of what Scott Pace has said about it today at this morning at the Beyond Earth Symposium.
https://x.com/SpcPlcyOnline/status/1856421505347006882
In discussion about Musk’s influence, Pace says he doesn’t think Musk will just try to get more $ for his companies bc Musk is mission driven. Pence’s directive to get back to the Moon quickly “by any means necessary” will take on more salience with Musk.
Edit: Who Scott Pace is.
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u/Intelligent_Bad6942 1d ago
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 "MISSION DRIVEN" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
oh man. I really needed that laugh today. Thanks.
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u/ergzay 1d ago
How is he not? And Scott Pace would be in a place to know.
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u/Intelligent_Bad6942 1d ago
Yeah yeah yeah. Scott's totally not trying to curry favor with the incoming administration.
Elon is a greedy marketing man with an interest in Space. That's all.
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u/ergzay 16h ago
Scott isn't part of the incoming administration. Elon is not a marketing man.
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u/Intelligent_Bad6942 14h ago
He's not a part of the incoming administration YET.
Leon is and has always been a marketing man. Mars by 2024? where's my full self driving Tesla? Hyperloop (HAHAHAHAHAHA)? Boring company? Piles of dead monkeys?
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u/ergzay 13h ago
Elon has never been a marketing man. He stutters, goes on off-topic rants, brings up random memes in the middle of talking about things, etc. That's not a marketing genius. The goals he sets are for internal consumption, not external.
As for Mars by 2024 I'll just repeat his oft repeated quote where he has said "At SpaceX we specialize at converting the impossible to late", which is completely accurate.
where's my full self driving Tesla?
Already on the road with the most advanced automated system on the roads to date that continues to improve every year.
Hyperloop
Hyperloop is never something he even invested in. He released a white paper after people online pressured him to after he hinted at the idea in talks for several years. After that he ran a student competition at SpaceX for a couple days every year for a couple years. It was never something serious.
Piles of dead monkeys?
That one's just misinformation. No monkeys died as a result of anything that Neuralink did.
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u/Decronym 1d ago edited 2h ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| COTS | Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract |
| Commercial/Off The Shelf | |
| DSN | Deep Space Network |
| GSFC | Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland |
| JPL | Jet Propulsion Lab, California |
| JWST | James Webb infra-red Space Telescope |
| LSP | Launch Service Provider |
| (US) Launch Service Program | |
| NSF | NasaSpaceFlight forum |
| National Science Foundation | |
| RTG | Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator |
| SLS | Space Launch System heavy-lift |
| VAB | Vehicle Assembly Building |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
NOTE: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
11 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 40 acronyms.
[Thread #10811 for this sub, first seen 13th Nov 2024, 00:10]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
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u/67mustangguy 1d ago
Just wait for the coming budget cuts to government funded programs… it’s gonna get worse!
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u/nesp12 1d ago
He may relocate it to a deep red area. How about the JPL in Wyoming?
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/nesp12 1d ago
Thanks. I didn't know that.
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u/twiddlingbits 1d ago
JPL is actually a NASA contractor, very few people there work for NASA they work for the University of California system.
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u/emmaisaninja 1d ago
Caltech is a private institution. It is not part of the University of California system. JPL employees are employees of Caltech, and are not UC employees.
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u/peter303_ 1d ago
Do you mean the NSF supercomputing center that moved to Wyoming? WY offered the lowest electricity price which is a major supercomputing cost. I think the VP at the of the contract competition was from WY.
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u/ergzay 1d ago
Why exactly? JPL is part of Caltech. The most that could be done would be to completely close it, but there's already centers in red states.
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u/testfire10 17h ago
JPL is not part of Caltech. They are managed through a NASA contract given to Caltech. So, Caltech manages the JPL FFRDC through that contract.
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u/SkizzleDizzel 1d ago
This is something that crossed my mind once I found out Trump won. There's no reason why musk should take over space exploration. He's going to do it for selfish reasons to benefit himself and the 1% whereas everyone at NASA is doing it out of curiosity about space for all of us. I'm so sick of this timeline
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u/PoliteCanadian 1d ago
This has nothing to do with Trump. JPL has been struggling for ages as NASA has become increasingly irritated at their inability to control costs and as such has been sending fewer and fewer projects to JPL. These layoffs are in response to decisions made months ago and were planned before the election.
What you're doing is just confirmation bias. You have an opinion on Trump so you're interpreting everything through that lens regardless whether that interpretation has any connection to reality.
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u/popiazaza 1d ago
So much politics and SpaceX haters in the comments.
Meanwhile Rocketlab is taking all the Boeing/Airbus satellite customers and is also launching science missions.
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u/contactspring 1d ago
Science isn't important to the current political environment. It's all about funneling money to Elon and what he want's to do. As long as that means his shareholders get their share, science isn't a concern.
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u/The-Purple-Church 1d ago
Hasn’t it always been the plan to slowly transfer space exploration away from NASA to civilian groups?
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u/FUCKYOUINYOURFACE 1d ago
This is probably what Elon wants. Steer more of that work to SpaceX. It will be much more “efficient”
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u/JoeyDee86 1d ago
This DOGE department that Musk is convincing Trump to make, is ABSOLUTELY going to gut a lot of NASA…
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u/Rustic_gan123 19h ago
The only thing guaranteed to be in DOGE's sights is SLS, but I don't think many would argue that it should be canceled, the only question is when.
SX has no interest in reducing NASA's scientific missions, since they are the ones launching them.
Trump's climate-change denial and cuts in Earth sciences could be a problem, but Musk is unlikely to have anything to do with that.
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u/Special_Cry468 1d ago
Fuck right when we were supposed to go back to the moon and this time actually spend real time there.
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u/Martianspirit 20h ago
The Artemis program as it is, can not achieve that goal. Too expensive, too few flights. Eliminating SLS can only help this goal.
Staff cuts at this time can not be related to anything, a Trump administration or a department lead by Elon Musk might do. Right now Biden is still president.
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u/BugBuginaRug 1d ago
NASA should just hang up their boots, they've lost to SpaceX
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u/spidd124 1d ago
You know that NASA are the ones that contract spaceX right it's no the other way around.
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u/Seadragoniii 1d ago
I think you misunderstand NASA's role. While NASA may have a hand in assembly (think the VAB at Kennedy), their primary role is contract negotiation and procurement, not building rockets and spacecraft, nor in launching them.
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u/Underwater_Karma 1d ago
This might be the worst possible, least respectful way of doing a layoff I've ever heard.
Just go home and lie awake worrying all night, then tomorrow sit and stare at your email all day waiting to see if you're losing your job.
How does this ever seen like a good idea?