- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- nasa@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- nasa@lemmy.world
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The gray shirts manage to make everything ugly
The sad thing is that this was all telegraphed and baked into the platform. If people are kicking themselves now, it’s too late.
Way to dishonor Katherine Johnson, Christine Darden, Mary Jackson and everyone else who were women and/or those who were of different race who helped us get to the moon and back.
What a petty, childish, incel themed administration we elected.
I mean, our POTUS is a rapist… And we know for a fact gas paid for sex. Pretty sure all his wives have married him for the money and lifestyle.
We all know he would have been a forever incel without his daddy’s money. So it tracks perfectly.
NASA needs to pull a parks service circa 2017.
And Parks Services members are out there protesting this time around too. What chads.
“These are our symbolic phalluses, women can’t be in charge of them reeee”
Your body, my choice!
Prior to Trump’s orders, NASA was named as one of the best employees in the U.S. for diversity in 2023. NASA’s workforce is composed of approximately 35% women and 30% minorities, according to a 2021 report by NASA’s Office of Inspector General. Still, the agency had more work to do to improve inclusion amongst its workforce. A 2024 report concluded that “despite support from Agency leaders and multiple initiatives to increase diversity, we found NASA has made little progress in increasing the representation of women and minorities in its civilian workforce or leadership ranks,” NASA’s Office of Inspector General wrote. “Specifically, over the past decade NASA’s overall workforce demographics have stayed roughly the same, with small increases (1 or 2 percent) for some groups.”
After decades of improvement, our strategies were stalling and starting to either hit diminishing returns or backfire. Instead of reflecting and listening and learning how to bridge the final gaps, we are going to forget and eliminate all progress made so we have to do it again and start from scratch.
Those numbers are interesting but what is the result of this? eg. because NASA has approximately 35% women and 30% minorities, it has what level of increased productivity? what has actually come out of this?
New perspectives and ideas and life experiences to draw from when a creative solution is needed. Diversity of experience yields creative solution-space possibilities. The more diverse your input space, the more potentially diverse your output space, depending on the function.
NASA is an organization whose activities push the boundaries of possible future technologies. We need people from all parts of society dreaming of and contributing to the future if we want a future society that is considerate of the needs of all parts of society. NASA’s wonder changes the world. The more people who are different and who are wondering in different directions, the more possibilities can unfold for the future.
Maybe short-term productivity benefits from a monoculture of people who are currently “the best” and all know how to work together seamlessly because they come from the same culture. Such a monoculture will not be adaptable as the landscape of technology changes the metrics by which “the best” get measured. It will not have the diverse foundation required for creative solutions. Being adaptable to a changing world requires creative solutions. Diversity is an investment of current productivity into future resilience. Diversity is extending the promise of contributing to grand societal projects like space travel to anyone who is capable. Diversity is building a future that can support all of us.
