One of President Trump’s first actions after taking office was to institute a federal hiring freeze, leaving thousands of jobs vacant across the US government. Many of these jobs are in agencies that Trump supposedly values, like NASA. But when you look at the job vacancies that NASA is forbidden from filling, we see Trump’s “values” are garbage.
President Trump makes gestures in the Oval Office on 21 March 2017 to show that if humans really wanted to get to the moon all they needed to do was move their arms like this (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
According to data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA), Gizmodo has learned that there are currently dozens of jobs that NASA is unable to fill as a direct result of Trump’s hiring freeze. The vacant positions include everything from aerospace engineer jobs at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama to accounting positions at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to computer engineer jobs at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
President Trump has spoken highly of NASA and the role of space exploration in advancing America’s technological interests. And despite the fact that Trump’s proposed budget currently recommends cuts to NASA, the US president has even said that he’d like to see Americans travel to Mars. But it’s pretty hard to travel to Mars without aerospace engineers.
The longer this hiring freeze is in place, the more these lists will grow. And the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), under the direction of President Trump, is currently drawing up plans to make these kinds of cuts permanent.
There’s a certain segment of the population that will always see government employees as having cushy jobs, and those same people will generally believe that any cuts to federal spending are good. But these cuts have a direct impact on the number of positions available in the fields of science and technology, something that America could fall dangerously behind in during the Trump era.
Below we have the most recent list of vacant jobs that won’t be filled because of President Trump’s hiring freeze. While NASA isn’t being hit as hard as many agencies in terms of volume, it becomes apparent when you look at the list that these good, American jobs are exactly the kind of positions the United States needs if it wants to have a future in space.
Marshall Space Flight Center – Huntsville, Alabama
- Aerospace Engineer
- Aerospace Engineer
- Supervisory AST Engineer Project Management
- Contract Specialist
- Lead Aerospace Engineer
- Lead Aerospace Engineer
Kennedy Space Center – Florida
- Accountant
- Strategic Communications Specialist
- AST, Technical Management
Johnson Space Center – Houston, Texas
- AST, Environmental Control Systems
- AST, Electrical Power Systems
- Security Specialist
- AST, Avionic Systems
- Supervisory Quality Assurance and Technical Authority
- Program Specialist
NASA Headquarters – Washington, DC
- Systems Capability Leader – Entry, Descent, and Landing
- Operations Research Analyst
- Legal Administrative Specialist
- Operations Research Analyst
Goddard Space Flight Center – Greenbelt, Maryland
- Research Physical Scientist, AST, Atmospheric Chemist
- Electronics Engineer, AST, Optical Engineer
- Computer Engineer, AST, Software Systems
- Resources Analyst
- Aerospace Engineer, AST, Reliability & Quality Assurance
- Research Space Scientist, AST, Planetary Studies
- Aerospace Engineer, AST, Aerospace Propulsion System
- Program Manager
- Supervisory Contract Specialist
- AST, Technical Management
- Resources Analyst
- Resources Analyst
- Computer Engineer, AST, Software Systems
- Resources Analyst
Glenn Research Center – Cleveland, Ohio
- AST, Aerospace Experimental Facilities and Test Technologies
- Chief, Space Combustion and Materials Branch, AST Experimental Facilities Technique
- Chief, Facility Management and Planning Office, AST Experimental Facilities Technique
- AST, Aerospace Experimental Facilities and Test Technologies
Armstrong Flight Research Center – Edwards, California
- Electronics Engineer
- Facilities Management Officer
President Trump likes to take credit for the creation of private sector jobs that he had no real role in negotiating. But by lifting the US federal hiring freeze, he could legitimately create thousands of good jobs for Americans who are helping to build the future.
Again, there’s always going to be a chunk of the American population who believe that government can’t and shouldn’t create jobs. It’s more or less built into the mythology of how America became the world’s lone superpower — through private enterprise alone.
But many of America’s greatest technological successes from the 20th century, whether it was the creation of the internet or landing on the Moon, started with massive amounts of research and development by the government. And yes, that means jobs for not just the NASA aerospace engineers but the contract specialists and the program managers and the facilities management officers that make it all work.
If you really want to make America great again, let agencies like NASA hire the people they need.