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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!agate!eos!eugene
From: eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle,sci.astro
Subject: Re: Advice?? (asking for)
Keywords: jobs school space future
Message-ID: <5566@eos.UUCP>
Date: 12 Nov 89 19:13:43 GMT
References: <89306.192249AEA1@PSUVM.BITNET> <1989Nov9.015033.18148@everexn.uucp>
Reply-To: eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya)
Distribution: usa
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Calif.
Lines: 60

Far too many groups to cross-post to.......
>Entering the space program as a career.

You should stick with studying astronomy and physics, you can always go into
other scientific areas. 8)

In my case, I decided I wanted to be a scientist in 4th grade (specifically
astronomy).  At the time the space program was on a roll, a friend's father
worked at JPL and be brought back fact sheets on Surveyor (he worked there
for Huge Aircrash), little did I realize I would end up working in one
of those buildings (264).  By 6th grade I realized that the world would only
support about 800 astronomers, now and in the future.  So I went nuclear
[only to discover in college that there were flaws in this industry (early
70s), fortunately I started hacking on the ARPAnet 8)].  After dropping
out of grad school I did get an offer to return to get a PhD in astronomy
from Santa Cruz, a child's dream come true, oh BTW, you can return to
computing after you get it.  True.

You see the space program doesn't need astronomers specifically, in fact
there are very few jobs of with require this.  It needs generalists
with a few specialists.  The reason is that you will work in interdisciplinary
teams in many cases.  It is your flexibility which is important (for
budgetary reasons as well as problem solving).

What the space program is very poor of, in contrast to industry 9),
is training.  Expect to hit the ground running.  You also have to ask
yourself what else you value: a home, a family, etc. because will become
increasingly difficult to do this in the Government sector.  You can 
become a contractor or an academic and "close encounter" space, but
you have to remember space != astronomy.

But you get to play with some fun tools, meet a few interesting people,
have fun on some interesting (hard) problems, etc., etc.  As far as working
on projects go: perhaps 1 in 10 proposals gets funded.  I used to work
on all those neat sounding plans.  There just isn't enough money to
fund them all.  Expect layoffs.  Now, with major demilitarizations
and de-politicializations, who knows.  We have to direct our money into
new areas, hopefully it will go into science and research and some into
space.  But this requires a re-alignment of our social priorities.

Anyways, I've not said too much about jobs specificially, and the calendar
is turning so that cron should post my yearly reminder about summer
space program jobs in December [i.e. prepare resumes, etc.] but I send that to
misc.jobs.misc [sure it screws those people who read space as email,
but that is the appropriate forum for employment].  I won't give you a pep
talk, but I was one of the people who made it into the system after
watching those boosters go up with little capsules.  Your netural odds
of getting a job are slightly better than those with net access (you
"know" how to use a computer), but that ain't enough, the vast majority
of those hired MEs, EEs, chemists, physicists, astronomers don't have
net access.  So just study, and BE EXCELLENT.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {ncar,decwrl,hplabs,uunet}!ames!eugene
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