28,000 Civil Service, Outside Jobs Cut

NASA chief Daniel Goldin announced sweeping cutbacks at the space agency Friday, including plans to eliminate more than 28,000 civil service and contractor jobs.

Goldin said the reductions at NASA centers nationwide are necessary to meet President Clinton’s call for a $5-billion reduction in space spending by the year 2000.

None of NASA’s 10 major field centers or any major programs would be closed or shut down under the review.

But Goldin warned that such action might be necessary under a Republican plan to reduce NASA’s annual budget from the current $14.4 billion to $11 billion by 2002.

An internal NASA review team calls for the space agency’s civil service staff to be slashed from the current 21,060 to 17,500 by 2000.

That would be the lowest NASA staff level since 1961.

“I don’t know how to cut much below that and maintain the vitality of the agency,” Goldin said at a news conference in Washington that was broadcast at NASA centers nationwide.

The review team also is calling for the elimination of an estimated 25,000 aerospace industry jobs nationwide.

Altogether, about 28,560 jobs would be eliminated.

None of this is “chiseled in stone,” Goldin said.

“We have decided to take our cuts by cutting back infrastructure and overhead, cutting jobs and facilities and maintaining the integrity and vitality of our science, engineering and technology programs,” Goldin said.

The White House is seeking a $13-billion annual NASA budget by 2000.

“We’ve taken the appropriate cuts and we’ve done it without complaining,” Goldin said. “But the cuts proposed on Capital Hill go too far. If those cuts go through, all bets are off. We will have to consider shutting down a combination of enterprises, programs and centers.”

Goldin said the cutbacks would be accomplished in a “deliberate, organized fashion.” He insisted the safety of space shuttle flight would not be jeopardized during this process.

NASA plans to select a single prime contractor for space shuttle operations and consolidate all work under that company, Goldin said.

The next step would be to privatize the work and likely would require White House approval, he said.

“We’re going to get out of the business on telling them how to do it unless we have a disagreement on safety,” he said.

One NASA center--Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.--would come away with more jobs.

About 200 NASA jobs and 100 contractor jobs would be gained because of the shift of flight operations management of all aircraft except those in support of the space shuttles.