Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!bionet!ames!skipper!shafer From: shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle Subject: Re: Shuttle Status for 07/25/90 (Forwarded) Message-ID: Date: 26 Jul 90 15:16:58 GMT References: <54748@ames.arc.nasa.gov> <965@nikhefh.nikhef.nl> Sender: shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov Organization: NASA Dryden, Edwards, Cal. Lines: 58 In-reply-to: greg@nikhefh.nikhef.nl's message of 26 Jul 90 08:27:02 GMT In article <965@nikhefh.nikhef.nl> greg@nikhefh.nikhef.nl (Greg Retzlaff) writes: >In article <54748@ames.arc.nasa.gov> yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) writes: >>> ...similar to the one previously detected during earlier tests. >> Engineers will be digesting the data gathered during today's test >> and presenting the information to program management. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >I think we explicitly see here the NASA problem. I hope the >managers are engineers, but suspect they are not. The managers were engineers. Essentially all of NASA's line management were engineers. (Staff, such as personnel, procurement, legal, aren't.) Frequently they were our best engineers, even. The problem is that with the government system, engineers can only rise so far. To go any farther they have to go into management. But the talents that make good engineers don't always make good managers. Then not only do we end up with a bad manager, we've lost a good engineer. The other problem is that it's very difficult for a manager to keep herself technically current. >If they let >the engineers have a free hand, I suspect the fix would go better. As a NASA engineer, I'd like to endorse this wholeheartedly. But I suspect that it's bad policy. Engineers tend to focus on narrow concerns, ignoring the impact they have on other areas. >Better yet, more engineers and fewer managers >about 20 years ago and there likely would not be a problem at all. We had many more engineers and many fewer managers about 20 years ago. But many of those engineers have become the managers of today. How many people do you-all think work at NASA? The actual civil service complement is about 12,000 at 7 field centers, HQ, and some smaller installations. Here at Dryden, we have less than 500 civil servants but over 1,000 people who work here. This number includes a few Air Force people but most of them are contractors. I'd also estimate that 1/4 to 1/3 of the civil servants have engineering degrees. The proportion is, of course, much smaller for the contractors. I don't know what the agency totals are, but KSC and JSC have an incredible number of contractors. I recall hearing that KSC had something like 5 times as many contractors as civil servants, but I don't remember who told me that, so I can't really present it as evidence of anything. Does somebody else know what I'm talking about? -- Mary Shafer shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA Of course I don't speak for NASA "A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all"--Unknown US fighter pilot