3,870 employees have applied to depart NASA

[Greg Bernhardt]

Another travesty. Trump is absolutely killing this nation and we're not even done with year 1.

More than 20% of NASA's workforce requests to leave agency

About 3,870 employees have applied to depart NASA over two rounds through the Trump administration's deferred resignation program, the agency disclosed.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[fresh_42]

Well, it certainly depends on their job description, but by that number, it can't be all warehouse workers or truck drivers. I remember a documentary on TV - my main TV consumption is documentaries of all kinds - about Kourou and the assembly of the Ariane series. One major goal they rely on, be it the assembly of the engines, or the final assembly of the rocket, is know-how transfer and how to pass it from one generation to the next, because you cannot replace knowledge in those fields by training on the job, neglecting experience and know-how built over decades by a two-year (or whatever) training. They explicitly emphasized the long-term obligations of their staff as a major reason for the reliability of the Ariane platform.

Figures like Trump, Kennedy, Vance, or Musk are not only literally criminals, but also a serious threat to their economies. And I know what I'm saying. We had to go through this.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Well, it certainly depends on their job description, but by that number, it can't be all warehouse workers or truck drivers.

Just from seeing "goodbye" threads on LinkedIn, I see a lot of R&D in titles.

 

[fresh_42]

Just from seeing "goodbye" threads on LinkedIn, I see a lot of R&D in titles.

If it were only NASA, but it's everywhere. I have heard from an MPI official that their institutes are seeing a significant increase in applications from American scientists. And I don't want to know what's going on in the health sector with all those budget cuts and even total losses. It doesn't even save money because the US deficit is increasing further.

A pub in London wrote on their display board on the sidewalk: "To all American asylum seekers: You are safe here and we have wine."

 

[jack action]

Here, in Canada, we all know about the demise of Avro Canada - the maker of the Arrow - because of politics, and we will never forget the lesson:

Within two months of the cancellation, all aircraft, engines, production tooling and technical data were ordered scrapped. Officially, the reason given for the destruction order from cabinet and the chiefs of staff was to destroy classified and "secret" materials used in the Arrow and Iroquois programs. The action has been attributed to Royal Canadian Mounted Police fears that a Soviet "mole" had infiltrated Avro, which were later confirmed to some degree in the Mitrokhin Archives.

[...]

Following the cancellation of the Avro Arrow project, CF-105 chief aerodynamicist Jim Chamberlin led a team of 25 engineers to NASA's Space Task Group to become lead engineers, program managers, and heads of engineering in NASA's manned space programs—projects Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. The Space Task Group team eventually grew to 32 Avro engineers and technicians, becoming emblematic of what many Canadians viewed as "brain drain" to the United States. Among the former Arrow engineers to go south were Tecwyn Roberts (NASA's first flight dynamics officer on Project Mercury and later director of networks at the Goddard Space Flight Center), John Hodge (flight director and manager on the cancelled Space Station Freedom project), Dennis Fielder (director of the Space Station Task Force, later the Space Station), Owen Maynard (chief of the LM engineering office in the Apollo Program Office), Bruce Aikenhead, and Rod Rose (technical assistant for the Space Shuttle program). Many other engineers, including Jim Floyd, found work in either the UK or the United States. Work undertaken by both Avro Canada and Floyd benefited supersonic research at Hawker Siddeley, Avro Aircraft's UK parent, and contributed to programs such as the HSA.1000 supersonic transport design studies, influential in the design of the Concorde.

[...]

At the time of its cancellation, with specifications comparable to then-current offerings from American and Soviet design bureaus, the Arrow was considered by one aviation industry observer to be one of the most advanced aircraft in the world. According to Bill Gunston:

-- In its planning, design and flight-test programme, this fighter, in almost every way the most advanced of all the fighters of the 1950s, was as impressive, and successful as any aircraft in history.