eugene@statvax.UUCP (Eugene miya) (03/19/84)
Applying to NASA is like applying to any other Federal Agency. (Ideally). First, you obtain a standard form 171 from any Federal Agency. Fill this out. Then submit it to any of the nine major NASA centers. (Along with a resume.) Then wait. It despends on your background and what you want to do, and what that NASA Center does. (Has anybody described the organization of NASA to the net in recent days? If not, send me mail and I will post a terse description, I have work at four for various lengths of time.) You will get paid Civil Service wages which are maybe competittive in the computer field for about 2 years, after which you will make more than industry, so don't join for the money. The Other problem is that NASA tends to be somewhat backward in using computers (I note the earlier news about turning a perfectly good autonomous system into one which men could manipulate, this is true.). UNIX is unknown turf for lots of NASA people. Seems to be a problem with those who pioneered (not just NASA) computers, seems to stay with existing equipment and vendors (and software). However, things are changing, NASA realizes this and is making efforts to change, so you have a nice badwagon opportunity, if you can stand the wait. If the money is a problem, (I know the wife and kids) you can perhaps join as a contractor to NASA with certain organizations who contract to NASA: IBM, GE, Rockwell, Informatics (who runs this machine), etc. and various universities (Caltech who runs JPL), etc. This is a little bit harder as you must seek out these contractors. Also, unfortunately, contractors as seen as second class civil servants. Few wield `power' (Although I know many who actually are sharper than the surrounding CSes or contractors). Lastly, there are special Institutes and Centers which is many cases are contracted. These are like the Lunar Receiving Lab, ICASE (At Langley RC), RIACS (Here at Ames). These are run by contractors, but have slightly better status. JPL sort of falls into this class (They have third party contractors to NASA). One last point to make about NASA Centers, most are located in the S and SE parts of the country. There are exceptions: Ames and JPL are on the West Coast. Lewis RC is in Ohio, and the Goddard Space Flight Center is in MD. NASA HQ is variously in the N or S which ever is convenient at the time. If you are interested in Ames, send me a resume, we can vtroff it (Let me know the macro package). If there is a need to describe which Center does what, I will post a short description. --eugene miya hplabs!menlo70!ames-lm!statvax!eugene