NASA’s future workforce a complex problem

Concern has grown in both NASA and Congress over the past few years about how the space agency—a massive and complex bureaucracy with 17 000 civil service employees and more than 40 000 contract workers—would reorient its workforce as the quest to return to the Moon has waxed and the space shuttle program has waned. In April, NASA officials tried to address those concerns by submitting to Congress a “workforce strategy” document showing that the agency has a plan to ensure it has the right people in the right positions to return to the Moon, prepare to go to Mars, and conduct myriad other scientific projects over the next 15 to 20 years. But although the document was full of language about new approaches to workforce planning and integration of business and resource activities, an interim National Research Council (NRC) report on NASA’s workforce issues says the agency has “not...