NASA's Retirement Problems

I for one hope they can recover. I am very proud of
the work being done at NASA and stand in awe of such
projects as SIRTF, COBE, CASSINI, Hubble, Mars Rovers
and the like. Not to mention some of the great
advances taking place in supercomputing and
nanotechnology at Ames. I really hope our cynicism
has not gotten us all to the points where we wish the
only agency out there advancing us towards the stars
be completely demolished. Even if we are unhappy with
one element of their program, there is still a lot of
good the rest is doing.

Anyhow, this is a recognized problem at NASA. It is
for this reason that bush just signed into law the
NASA Flexibility Act
(http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/feb/HQ_04071_work_force.html)

I remember how crushed I was when I graduated from
college only to find that the number 1 place I wanted
to work was not hiring. Now the only problem years
later when they are hiring is that I don't know if I
can afford the pay cut :)

Ryan Z

--- Mitchell James
mejames@...
> I am afraid that I don't see this as an issue. An
> organization that has
> a hiring freeze on for a whole decade is not going
> to have many
> employees of the age that would have been hired in
> that decade. If we
> assume that there are 50 work years in a life span
> (for twenty year olds
> that could certainly be true) as a simplification
> then each decade would
> be 20% of the work force. The 30 year old population
> is almost perfect.
>
> Of course my personal preference is that they stop
> all hiring and slowly
> close the place down. So I can't get excited about
> these stats from any
> point of view. It is hard to imagine that new grads
> are going to have
> any impact on NASA's ability to waste money.
>
> Mitchell James
>
> > - Nearly 40 percent of the 18,146 people at NASA
> are age 50 or
> > older. Those with 20 years government service now
> are eligible for
> > early retirement.
> >
> > - Twenty-two percent of NASA workers are age 55 or
> older. Those with
> > 30 years service now are eligible for full
> retirement benefits.
> >
> > - NASA employees over 60 outnumber those under 30
> by a ratio of
> > about 3 to 1.
> >
> > - A scant 4 percent of workers are under 30.
> >
http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/stories/2004a/030704oldnasa.ht