NASA is seeking members for four new advisory committees:
- Astrophysics Advisory Committee (APAC)
- Earth Science Advisory Committee (ESAC)
- Heliophysics Advisory Committee (HPAC)
- Planetary Science Advisory Committee (PAC)
Unfortunately, as we’ve seen in the past, people who are not part of the Global Warming establishment may not be “qualified”:
The following qualifications/experience are highly desirable in nominees, and should be clearly presented in their self-nomination packages:
· Substantial (7-10 years post-Ph.D.) research experience including publications in the scientific field of the committee for which they are nominated, or comparable experience;
· Leadership in scientific and/or education and public outreach fields as evidenced by award of prizes, invitation to national and international meetings as speaker, organizer of scientific meetings/workshops, or comparable experience;
· Participation in NASA programs either as member of NASA mission science team, Research and Analysis program, membership on an advisory/working group or a review panel, or comparable experience;
· Good knowledge of NASA programs in the scientific field of the committee for which they are applying, including the latest NASA Science Plan (available as a link fromhttp://science.nasa.gov/about-us/science-strategy/); and,
· Knowledge of the latest Decadal Survey conducted by the National Academies or other relevant advisory reports for the scientific field of the committee.
For more info and to apply, go to:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/02/23/2017-03541/nasa-federal-advisory-committees
If Trumps proposed budgets for EPA and State are an early indication, I doubt there will be any need for an ESAC. There will be nobody and nothing to advise.
Earth Science Advisory Committee….temporary position
Program limited to observations of men with shovels working on repairing the Oroville trash earth dam.
What was it Jerry Brown said about California being plagued with worn out infrastructure.
Well after two legal terms as governor and most of two illegal terms, I would say he’s a prominent part of the worn out infrastructure.
G
the requirements do seem to encourage inbreeding.
Having worked as a civilian for the Air Force I can verify that during budget reductions the priorities are roughly as follows: Complaints about too many paper towels carried back to desks/ink pens being carried off/etc, janitors let go, secretaries let go, new hires let go, main personnel shuffled around/some let go/moved inside system. then OMG, management. I have seen first and second level management positions with only a few people under them and I believe this is done to protect higher level positions. A lack of janitors sometimes meant dirty rest rooms and unswept floors/sometimes asking main personnel to do cleanup. Back before computers, it meant a long backup for correspondence to be typed by the fewer secretaries. If an organization was unlucky enough they had a secretary/typist like one of ours who chewed gum, smoked a cigarette, ate a candy bar and talked personal matters on the phone while trying to type our correspondence. The supervisor did have several talks with her, which resulted in disappearing drafts which required us to make written backups (copiers were in short supply). He finally got rid of her by giving her an outstanding award and asking his personnel to brag about her to all organizations that we had contact with. She was finally promoted one level up to another division. I knew of only one supervisor that actually went through the h*ll of keeping the records/and repeated counseling required to have employees removed for work abuse.
Robert Gates complained about the excessively large numbers of Generals/Admirals and their high staff numbers and the large number of upper level civilian positions and we see where that got him. With NASA budget cuts coming I can see where they might be trying to protect some of their “best” personnel by moving them to other positions inside the organization instead of them being shuffled to other government organizations. The major lesson here is that federal budget cuts can reduce personnel levels, but rarely where they are most needed (at upper levels).
guv looks after guv….. who’d have thought
Been there, done that. Not in government. And with reverse effect. Wiped out a whole nest of useless (defined as never produced anything of value in over a decade) corporate ‘execs’ costing $32 million/yr in one afternoon. Kept only the exec secretary, lowest salaried in that nest– simple, just hired her as my exec sec, since did not yet have one as newish to position. She turned out to be the best, most efficient and emotionally IQd secretary I ever had in my career. Ultimately let her respond to about a third of my ~ 400/ day emails/calls without any supervision at all.
And at one point earlier in my career, I was wearing out two full timers just supporting me alone in a dual hat role as a senior partner. Ah, the Trump opportunities that await.
I got fired in a similar purge to cut costs.
The company was in the swing motion syndrome of hiring new managers who fired whoever they could to make the numbers look good at the end of the financial year and then quitting with great acolades before the proverbial hit the fan. And then the new manager would have to rehire to fill most of the positions so that proper production could actually resume again – but they got fired at the end of the financial year because the numbers didnt look so good.
Somewhere in there, I got fired. I immediately started up a small IT consultancy and unfortunately for my previous employer they had fired the one employee who, because of all the IT installations and procedures I had instituted etc knew how everything hung together, and they had to hire me back at consultants rates.
My biggest coup was when they asked me not to park my newly purchased Jag in the visitors parking lot – it was obviously causing the top management some embarrassment. 🙂
Cheers
Roger
I’m impressed ristvan.
I acquired via the escalator de-escalator process, the personal secretary / office manager, of one of the Fairchild Semiconductor Founding Fabulings, as my own personal secretary. Never could have gotten through a day without her assistance.
And yes she had something on everybody, so she could make marionettes dance like you wouldn’t believe.
And when I moved on to greener pastures she did also, becoming the same enforcer for one of the top partners of one of Si Valley’s top corporate law firms.
We can never give proper credit to all the people who greased the skids for us to do things.
G
Too many chiefs, not enough Indians.
We had a problem with new managers who were hired at great expense, spent the next two years hiring people to boost their departments and massaging the figures and then disappeared with a great CV to a similar position in a new company. We called them seagulls, because they flew in making a lot of noise and messing all over the place, then flew off leaving us to clear up the mess.
“The major lesson here is that federal budget cuts can reduce personnel levels, but rarely where they are most needed (at upper levels).”
We have a whole different animal in the White House in President Trump. I don’t know how far down in the weeds Trump is going to get with the various budgets of the federal government, but I have a feeling he is going to be looking at all the budgets in detail, and Trump isn’t afraid to cut non-essential personnel whether they be janitors or high-level management.
The Left was complaining the other day about Trump being too slow to appoint people to some of the jobs available in the Executive Branch, but Trump says he doesn’t think he needs all those postions filled!
If Trump were a Democrat, he would be creating new positions in the federal government so he could appoint his cronies to them. Trump says the Executive Branch is a little bloated! I love this guy! Gave a hell of a speech last night. Even the Dems stood up and clapped sometimes.
BFL – February 28, 2017 at 4:10 pm
You are too kind by saying “they might be trying to protect”.
It is obvious to me that they already know who is going to be hired for those ”science advisory positions” because of this, to wit:
HA, iffen you want to hire your friend(s) or relative …….. then you simply list the mandatory qualifications, experiences, spousal hair color, etc., that all “job applicants” must possess ….. but the listed “qualifications” only match what is contained in your friend’s or relative’s resume.
The story is reminiscent of the one (true) about the chemical plant manager who didn’t replace anything and when he left (retirement? with extra “thanks”?) his replacement had to replace the worn-out parts. He, of course, was tagged with the high costs and got fired soon afterward.
Ian
I thought Trump was going to zero the NASA earth science budget because the agency is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, not the National Aeronautics and Dirt/Water Administration. We have NOAA for the water (and air) and USGS for the dirt.
most of the contributors to this web-blog, according to the NASA’s high desirability for nominees, are in the category of non-desirables.
Techinically, as HRC explained, we are deplorables. A whole basket of deplorables. See the youtube video of Trump’s Miami rally the next day. Explains the election result.
Izzat the same as “deplorables” or izzit a higher pay grade ??
G
One level above general deploree, I think . .
Sure sounds as though if you a member of the clique you would be wasting your time in applying.
Jobs for the boys.
NASA must change, no matter the pain of having to do serious science after eight years of perpetrating a fraud.
Echoing ristvan, if NASA is re-focused on space projects the faithful of the AGW cult will not be qualified to advise them. Sounds like a job for Elon Musk, who may be unencumbered with Tesla soon.
Let’s hear it for renewable-powered space exploration!
Tesla is the best short I have seen since the 2008 subprime crisis. Especially after merging with equally stupid and cash burning Solar City. Could not say so at time, but best short ever was MOT at $180 just before the 3/1 split during the dotcom bubble of 2000. I was head of corporate strategy and new business initiatives, top 15 exec at Mot at the time, so saw it from the inside. My ‘short’ was a bit constrained. Quit to join a startup not in dotcom space, and sold all my vested stock and stock options. Netted 1.2 million after tax in 3 months. Was unable to actually short MOT stock also because of SEC insider rules. By time that period lapsed. MOT was $6 not $60 and not worth further shorting. Could have made another $1 mil after tax but for the insider rules.
I shorted a few days ago, partially based on your post back then ristvan. thanks. I agree, a bunch of companies that are based on government subsidies, hype, and green dreams, all rolled in to one company that is going down.
I love my Tesla, but they aren’t building enough service centers, so anytime I want to bring my car in for service, I have to wait weeks. I don’t think I can bring it any place else. The guys at the service center said management didn’t want to add service centers. I think it will be a big cost going forward to build out service centers across the country. I haven’t read anyone talking about this.
thanks.
Any thing renewable, solar, wind is a decent bet for selling calls, buying puts. Shorting Anything associated with the Progressive economic re-engineering schemes of Steyer/Soros are good bets for next 12 months.
Don,
I have my Lexus hybrid. Love it. Super reliable. I have taken it in for its 5K mile service at Denver, Austin, and Tucson Lexus dealers for its regular checks. I’ve Never had any mnx, reliability or recall issues.
Where would one find such a choice in Tesla service? I know where to go if say AC or a light is not working. Where would one go for Tesla in AZ? CO?
Cool Futures hege fund, any thoughts? Seems like a good idea (for those able to afford a Tesla S).
The sun shines all day up there so no problems with batteries and storage.
Stop whining and try it.
There are a few on this blog who have a reasonable case for a place.
And rejecting Richard Lindzen would be incredible.
Hey, what happened to the Muslim outreach program??? I thought that was a priority???
/sarc
Ore-gonE left
“/sarc” my tush…As explained by Director Bolton, the 3 were:
1) inspire kids
2) improve relations with other countries
3) Muslim outreach.
How USNA graduate, combat pilot, USMC Major General, and astronaut Bolton allowed himself to get rolled like that is a tragedy.
The Muslim Outreach stopped when Obama stopped being president. Scrapping the Space Shuttle launch system and sending U.S. taxpayer dollars to Pakistan was Obama’s contribution to our space program.
Obama was a horrible experiment gone wrong.
Dr Harrison Schmidt for earth science, Will Happer for planetary science and Richard Lindzen for astrophysics
The key person at NASA is the NASA administrator. If you have an administrator with no vision, then having very smart people on NASA committees won’t help the situation.
We need a NASA administrator who is more interested in space exploration than in building the NASA bureaucracy. NASA has all the technical expertise and funds to do a good space development program, but they have never had an administrator who wasn’t focused on building up the bureaucracy at the expense of the space program.
That’s why it took a decade and one hundred shuttle launches to build a low-Earth orbit space station, when they could have done the same thing with less than five shuttle launches and at a tenth of the cost. That’s why they scrapped a perfectly good Space Shuttle launch system to start a new program costing billions more dollars to build a new heavy-lift launch vehicle that is not any more capable than the Space Shuttle Launch System.
Bureaucrats don’t want programs that end quickly. They want to string out the program for as long as possible, which means much more money and career longevity. A person really interested in getting the U.S. into space the quickest and cheapest way possible would have never done it the way the NASA administrators did.
NASA needs Buzz Aldrin as its administrator. Buzz may not desire to take the job because of his age, and if not, President Trump should insist that whoever is appointed NASA administrator *must* call Buzz every day and ask his advice. 🙂
Dr. Leif Svalgaard would be a great nominee for the Heliophysics Advisory Committee (HPAC).
Does that leave out the data verification community as well, like the past 8 years?
Every one of those advisories needs a citizen at large to bring reality to research. Most down to Earth citizens can provide feedback on whether or not studying the length and width of non threatening meteors is worth spending hard tax dollars on.
^ This is what needs to happen.
Not the supped up over qualified PHD with multiple public awards. The common man with common sense. A jury if you will (with zero qualifications in law, they preside over a person’s guilt or innocence).
Agreed
1) How many members on an advisory?
2) How much staff do they have?
3) What authority do authorities have (if any)?
4) How long do members serve?
5) What has been the history of these advisories (have they ever done anything of note – positive or negative)?
It turns out that NASA/NOAA/NIST, etc (inside info) are terrified because they do not know
any influential Republicans. It means that they might be much more receptive to conservative
skeptics on those committees. If I were to apply, I would make a big point about my being
a Republican.
About 2 years ago, Barron’s had on the cover page a guy in bathrobe, walking out to get the paper with a cup of coffee in his hand. It said ” Job? No thanks. ” that’s me.
With luck Trump will say that NASA should no longer focus making muslims feel good and climate change, and focus on going to Mars or a least back to the Moon,
After budget day the only thing the NASA climate bureaucracy will need are more tote boxes .
The original fake climate temperature manipulators are redundant. NASA needs to restore it’s
legacy space leader reputation .
We all know what the result would be if politicians told NASA how to fly space ships . Yet no pressure NASA as long as you produce another scary global warming promo of another hottest year on record. You don’t even have to follow procedures of basic science record keeping . After all computers break and Hillary never sent any confidential E mails either . The temperature record meaning since about the 1970’s but lets not let that slight of hand trick stop the NASA temperature global warming marketing department .
Speaking of promoters we haven’t heard Bill Nye make another NASA “record ” temperature bet for 2017 now that the Democrats got unelected ?
Only pretending to be clairvoyant when the outcome is assured is like a magic trick not science .
Gee I wonder what percentage of climate scientists would agree with Bill Nye the comedian and say 100% of climate change is due to humans ?
If you want to read something interesting Google Bill Nye (the “science” guy) and read his Bio. on Wiki. I don’t think I have seen anything like it. I thought Wiki didn’t let you write your own stuff. Surely, he must be the second coming.
They left out the two most important qualifications – must be able to lie with a straight face and not start laughing when uttering complete nonsense.
I’m just not sure anyone can revive NASA to its past glory…. too much water has passed under the bridge. Besides, there is a basic, innate problem with all government agencies: Congress and the roller coaster budgets and defined functions.
Most government agencies initially start out with a well defined function and fairly competent people to handle it, especially in the technical areas. However, over time, Congress starts screwing with the budgets and the functions. One administration might cut the budget, another might redefine the functions followed by another that might screw with both budget and function. It doesn’t take many cycles before the competent managers and technical people have had their fill and start moving to greener pastures. Pretty soon most of the work is done by contractors since the agency no longer has the in-house technical capability. And, since most of the competent managers have also bailed out there’s no one left capable of supervising the contractors. Work output deteriorates, budgets grow like Jack’s proverbial beanstalk and hammers costs several hundred dollars.
I’m not sure how to estimate the life cycles, but at least from what I have seen, most if not all federal agencies should only be created under sun-shine rules/laws: one,fixed set of defined objectives and requirements with a well defined maximum life expectancy. That does seem to be the direction things are headed. All you might have to do is put term limits on the contracts.
Joe Crawford , I think you are on to something . The current continuous expansion of government
is unsustainable and will ultimately result in a massive reduction of the role of government at all levels . When you have cities creating jobs titled CLIMATE PROTECTION MANAGER
and the EPA armed like a military Delta force you know things have gone off the rails .
The three levels of government just get bigger and bigger with virtually no accountability .
How is it the USA debt has been allowed to get to over $20 Trillion ?
Too many politicians doing nothing !
Too many professional politicians trying to buy votes using any money they can get their paws on and any methods they can conceive. The government just follows Parkinson’s Law for the growth of bureaucracies.