Anonymous wrote:

NASAguy wrote:I'm 56 and have been a NASA contractor for 29 years. I have 10 year old twins, so I will be working here at least another 12 years until they graduate college.

But there are many people at NASA who work well into their 60s and even quite a few who work into their 70s. This agency has won best large agency in the federal government like 8 of the last 10 years. It is a fantastic place to work and people love it here. NASA values experience, especially relevant experience needed for science and engineering positions but also people who know how to work the system to get things done. Older people often have very valuable institutional knowledge that is prized here.

Hah, didn't know there were other NASA folk here. I work at GSFC as well. Curious if you know how much salaries are for your contractor? Mine starts out crazy low (70ks) and then we tend to top out at $150k unless business development/proposal side. Is your company about the same?

We have many older people, partly because I think salaries top out early so there's not too much savings in pushing out and replacing ($150k vs $70k for a freshout)

No real idea. I've worked for 7 different contractors over the 29 years and what you've cited is pretty close to my experience.

I can say that I suspect at least some people get paid above that max range, but those tend to be people that have very specialized skillsets and are in high demand. For example, I know a few scientists who were civil service, then retired and are working as double dippers and I really suspect that they are making more than $150K. And I know a few network engineers who are key employees and involved in some critical infrastructure roles who get paid more than that. But the exceptions are pretty rare.

I also know a few lower-end folks who are being hired for very basic non-skilled positions at the lower end who are making less. At one point, I was a contract technical lead and we had a guy who interned with us during college summers in a basic IT support role. He ended up dropping out of college and came to work for us full-time. With no college degree, he was offered a lower end salary that was under that $70K limit, probably closer to $55-60K. But it was much better than he was going to get most places as a college drop-out. The college degree made a big difference.

Heck, when I started in 1992, I was very happy to make $29K in my first position here at GSFC! I was young, single and it was plenty for me. I was lucky that my first manager did some research into market values for our job and in 1995, he gave two of us (me and a guy who hired 2 years after me) a substantial raise to help us come up to closer to industry standards for our job.

I'm 56 and have been a NASA contractor for 29 years. I have 10 year old twins, so I will be working here at least another 12 years until they graduate college.

But there are many people at NASA who work well into their 60s and even quite a few who work into their 70s. This agency has won best large agency in the federal government like 8 of the last 10 years. It is a fantastic place to work and people love it here. NASA values experience, especially relevant experience needed for science and engineering positions but also people who know how to work the system to get things done. Older people often have very valuable institutional knowledge that is prized here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was Trump a visionary or did he have information we peasants could never get access to?

Either way, it seems after all that the new branch will be needed more than ever.

Ridiculous. As a NASA employee, I can say that sending a branch of the military to do scientific exploration makes about as much sense as assigning Jared Kushner and a team of corporate execs to handle pandemic response. But then, not surprising, but both ideas came out of the same administration.

Sure... nasa employee on DCUM. Lolz.
And your grammar, or lack thereof, is another indicator you’re a lying pos

Yes, I am a NASA employee; I've been an employee at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt for over 28 years, but believe what you want. You can ping Jeff if you want. I've been on DCUM for about 11 years now and I've sent him email from my NASA account. He's verified me on a few threads in the past when people have asked.

Sorry to the grammar police. I'm not that careful about grammar when writing on DCUM.

And for someone trying to police others' posts, you need to clean up your language. You've got an inappropriate temper and language problem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You mean the pay cut we all took to work for the federal government, every paycheck?

-A fed who didn't qualify for the stimulus

"Work" and "Federal government job" don't go together in the true sense.

Oh really? You've never been to a NASA center, have you? We do real work, lots of it. Billions of dollars worth of it.

I have a friend who is a microbiologist who works for the FDA. Everytime there is an outbreak of salmonella or e coli or any other food born contamination, they work day and night to determine the source, restrict the contamination, identify food recalls, alert the public, etc.

I have another friend who works in federal law enforcement. They put their lives on the line for US citizens.

I have another friend who works for the IRS and is working day and night, extra hours to make sure that those stimulus checks get out to people in a timely manner even when POTUS internally requested that his name be put on the checks, delaying the entire timeline for processing checks to adapt the process to include that. Do you know how much extra time that added?

You have no idea how much work is done by the federal government. You just want to make baseless accusations. You're like a bigot who only uses stereotypes to enforce your bigotry. Have you ever worked in a federal agency and seen what goes on where the public doesn't see it? Probably not.

At Goddard Space Flight Center, we see quite a few Duval students here for both tours and internships. There is a summer internship program and we always get a handful of Duval students here. The ones that come here are highly motivated and generally quite bright, so I have a favorable opinion. But then based on the PP's comment, it's possible that we see the cream of the crop if the principal is focused on the aerospace program.

I also have a friend who is a teacher there and he works hard and cares a lot about his students. But his wife has been trying to get him to apply to teach at schools in Howard County so that they can move to Howard County and have their kid in school up there. He's been resistant because he cares about his students, but I think he's wavering. There are a lot of good teachers there, but some of them have been beaten down by the system. PGCS administration is a nightmare for the teachers.

Anonymous wrote:said no one ever.

(Except if management knows who filled out which survey.)

Not true. I know many engineers and scientists who love working at NASA. I would continue to work here if I won the lottery as would many others here.

That said, there are tons of people in regular bureaucratic jobs (project support specialists, admins, management, HR, finance, etc) here who are right there with you.

I am an IT computer, network and security administrator for NASA. I have been with the agency for 26 years and intend to stay here until I retire. I also still know many people who were here when I arrived and are still working here. There is a reason that NASA has been the #1 most popular large agency to work for in the federal government for 6 years running and has won the category more than 50% of the time. I know many people who left for more money and then fought for years to get back to working here.

This is the best agency to work for in the federal government.

If you are a federal civil servant, you should consider the GSFC Child Development Center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. I work on center and my children just finished the MD State accredited K program there. The school does pre-school from age 2 through K and the waitlist is long. Many people put their children on the waiting list when born just to have the option of the preschool, if they want it. Priority goes to NASA civil servants, then NASA contractors, then other agency Civil Servants, but most years at least some children from Civil Servants of other agencies get invitations, it's only a question of which age group has openings not filled from the current wait list.

This is a very strong pre-school curriculum that include some emphasis on STEM (of course, we are NASA after all). My children were had 3 field trips a year, had visiting scientists from around NASA that gave demonstrations with liquid nitrogen, entymologists who brought several insect species to show, and a vulcanologist who was on travel in Hawaii and Skyped with them from near the site of the active lava flow in Hawaii. They met the king of Sweden when he visited Goddard, a current astronaut in the astronaut program, and Senator Cardin. They get walking trips on center to visit our clean room when the James Webb telescope instruments were there, our on-site robotics lab, the post office on center. I think the entire K class is a bit advanced now because the teacher is phenomenal.