Drifting Apart

Space Program Struggles
To Attract Young Talent

By Kemba J. Dunham and Kris Maher
Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal

Well before the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated, the U.S. space program was grappling with major personnel problems.

Among the most worrisome trends are declining numbers of students pursuing science and engineering degrees, growing competition for skilled workers from the private sector and an aging work force within NASA that lacks people with certain specialties, such as propulsion systems and robotics.

Then there's the "cool" factor: Many young people today with a technical bent are more intrigued by the Internet or biotechnology than space exploration. Space travel, after all, was a fascination of their parents' generation.

In testimony to Congress last summer, NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe said the agency faced a critical skills shortage in space-shuttle and international space-station programs, despite "active recruitment."

No one is suggesting the space program's personnel problems contributed directly to the Columbia disaster. But as the debate continues over the program's future, NASA's troubles are a deep reflection of a lack of skilled workers in the entire aerospace industry. The problem is likely to grow worse in coming years, as fewer young people hit the job market.

Off the Cutting Edge

The issue only begins at NASA's doorstep. As much as it captures the imagination of space watchers, NASA itself is actually a small agency. It has just over 18,000 workers, more than half of whom are in science and engineering jobs and most of whom are older than 40. In recent years, it has been cutting jobs due to a tight budget; NASA employed 7,000 more workers a decade ago.

Meanwhile, its mission has changed from "cutting-edge exploration" to being more "operational," as the shuttle program became institutionalized, says Walter Cunningham, a former astronaut in the space program from 1963 to 1971. NASA, Mr. Cunningham says, isn't seeking the best talent aggressively any more, though he says finding such talent may be tougher today. "In my days, they didn't have to recruit; everyone wanted to be here," he says. "Back then we had a technical job to do, they selected the best people to do this and that's all."

These days, many more space workers are in the private sector, with contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which do most of the servicing of the shuttle program. Yet even those companies haven't recruited enough young talent, says John de Regt, who runs a recruitment firm. One reason, he says: "There hasn't really been a major [space] program that's driven the mandate to hire in a long time."

Behind the shortage is the decline in science and engineering education. The math and science performance of U.S. 12th-graders continues to rank near the bottom internationally. Fewer engineering and science students are earning degrees, from undergraduate to doctorate, at U.S. colleges and universities. And roughly 40% of those earning engineering and science doctorates at U.S. universities are foreigners who often return to their native countries or aren't allowed to work on sensitive defense programs, according to the Aerospace Industries Association, a trade group.

Of course, with the decline in aerospace jobs, there may be good reason not to enter the science and engineering fields today. In the aerospace industry as a whole, current employment, at 702,000, stands at its lowest level in at least 50 years. Things are so tough, in fact, that when the trade group surveyed 500 U.S. aerospace workers, 80% said they wouldn't recommend that their children pursue aerospace careers.

Inside NASA, former workers and some contractors say, morale has dropped in the face of the cutbacks and general declining interest in the space program. "A lot of employees at NASA have to be incredibly personally motivated, because they just don't see the accolades that they once saw," says Joel Walker, director of education at Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, Kan. Still, a NASA spokesperson at Johnson Space Center in Houston, where astronauts train and live, says the group has no trouble recruiting astronauts. It typically hires around 20 people every few years but receives thousands of applications annually.

'Experience Is Key'

Amid this climate, many space watchers warn that replacing the aging work force is going to be tough, especially given the declining number of people with the needed experience. "In the space business, we fill the front end with people who are right out of school," says William Ballhaus, chief executive of Aerospace Corp., a nonprofit group that provides technical analyses and assessments for space programs. "But periodically, we repeat the mistakes of the past ... and it's important to have a good sense of where the breakdowns have occurred. So experience is key."

Among the solutions he and others discuss are mentoring initiatives that would pair aging talent with the new talent coming through the doors.

Certainly some young adults still dream of becoming astronauts. Teresa Sindelar, 24 years old, an assistant director of the future-astronaut training program at the Kansas Cosmosphere, says the Columbia accident doesn't deter her at all. She first attended the program in 1989 when she was 11 and has landed the space shuttle successfully in the camp's flight simulator numerous times. "Those astronauts had faith in the NASA system and it was just an accident that unfortunately happened," she says. "It kind of brings a smile to your face through all the tears."