NASA Plan Perils 29,000 Jobs in Space Industry : Budget: Restructuring proposal would affect JPL, other California facilities. Congress may trim even more.
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin announced Friday the space agency will eliminate 24,000 to 29,000 government and industry jobs over the next five years, including cuts of 1,250 jobs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and 1,440 jobs at Ames Research Center in Mountain View.
The Dryden Flight Research Center, located at Edwards Air Force Base near Lancaster, is the only NASA operation that will have a net addition, gaining 300 jobs associated with aeronautics research.
The cuts are slightly higher than expected, though the exercise may turn out to be academic since Congress is on track to make even deeper cuts. Under a budget resolution passed by the House, NASA would be forced to make cuts affecting up to 55,000 jobs, according to an internal NASA memo.
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Goldin vowed to fight those deeper cuts, saying they would rob future generations of technology necessary to maintain U.S. competitiveness.
Under the NASA restructuring, which would affect civil service and contractor jobs, the cuts at Ames amount to 35% of its employment base, a reduction second only to the 33% loss (1,500 jobs) at Lewis Research Center in Cleveland. The two centers specialize in aeronautics, prompting questions of whether NASA is backing off its goal of increasing emphasis on aeronautics. Among the cuts at Ames will be a decision to forgo building a new wind tunnel for research in the trans-sonic region of flight.
The biggest job losses in sheer numbers will occur at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, which is losing 3,250 jobs; Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which is losing 3,150 jobs, and Goddard Space Flight Center in suburban Washington, which is losing 3,200 jobs. The National Air and Space Administration headquarters in Washington will lose 900 jobs.
Elsewhere, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will lose 2,000 jobs; Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., will lose 1,000 jobs, and Stennis Space Center in Mississippi will lose 100 jobs.
Goldin said the future of Rockwell International’s spacecraft plant in Downey, which is owned by the federal government, will be determined in future years when NASA selects a single contractor to operate the space shuttle system.
NASA must decide whether to buy a new orbiter for the space shuttle fleet by the end of the decade, a decision that will depend on whether a new human space vehicle is developed. In addition, NASA will enter talks with the future space shuttle prime contractor to privatize the entire shuttle fleet, a goal that Congress has recommended in legislation.
JPL spokesman George Alexander said about half of the 1,250 jobs to be cut at the Pasadena lab will come out of the ranks of so-called job shoppers, who are temporary contract employees. But even so, Alexander added, “there will be some layoffs, no question about it.” Dryden, meanwhile, would get new research aircraft from the Ames, Langley and Lewis centers, said Dryden spokesman Don Haley.
But no one is celebrating at Dryden yet. Haley said the planned House cuts to NASA would pull the plug on two high-profile research programs. Hypothetically, Haley said, Dryden would have to scrap research on new technologies to reduce aerodynamic drag on future supersonic jetliners and research into fiber optics for flight systems.
“Basically, we’d go down the tubes,” Haley said.
Times staff writer Jeff Schnaufer in the San Fernando Valley contributed to this story.
