How to Refresh Government Workforce: President Begins to Dismantle And Reshape Federal Workforce

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"President Trump's pledge to upend the federal workforce began rippling through Washington after he moved to force government employees back to the office five days a week, weakened their job protections and froze diversity efforts across the government.

Beginning at 5 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, all federal diversity, equity and inclusion staff were to be placed on paid leave because their offices were being shut down in accordance with an executive order halting DEI programs.

Inside a number of federal offices, a sense of anxiety and confusion permeated the atmosphere as employees parsed a flurry of executive orders and memos handed down by the new administration. Federal workers' unions rushed to shield employees from the changes, with one filing a lawsuit over an executive order aimed at peeling back civil-service protections.

"It's leaving a lot of uncertainty that folks have never really had to feel," said Michael Gibbons, 43 years old, a product-support manager for the Navy, adding that the environment undermined one of the key selling points to working in the federal government -- stability. "It seems like there is a level of distrust with how things are working."

Human-resources managers across the government had to call recent hires with start dates after Feb. 8 to inform them their offers had been rescinded. Managers fielded panicked inquiries from staff over returning to the office and from transgender employees about whether gender-neutral bathrooms would be eliminated from federal offices. Employees expressed concern over whether the Department of Government Efficiency teams dispatched to agencies would have the security clearances to review sensitive information.

Members of the Cyber Safety Review Board, which had been probing the Chinese hacking of U.S. telecommunications networks that ensnared Trump's own phone calls, were informed they had been dismissed pursuant to a Department of Homeland Security order disbanding all advisory committees, according to people familiar with the matter. Their review is now in limbo and might be terminated. DHS, which oversees the board, declined to comment.

Meetings on diversity, equity and inclusion issues were canceled, some quietly and some with large pronouncements.

At the Federal Communications Commission, Chairman Brendan Carr said he was shutting down the agency's diversity, equity and inclusion advisory group, rescinding an action plan promoting DEI, and eliminating the topic from the agency's strategic plan and budget, among other steps.

At the Food and Drug Administration, employees wondered who was actually in charge of the agency, people familiar with the matter said. Biden's FDA commissioner, Dr. Robert Califf, was gone, but there had been no official word from the White House or the transition team on who was supposed to run the show until Trump's pick, Dr. Marty Makary, could be confirmed.

Employees there felt nervous about the details of a return to the office five days a week because the agency was already short on desk and parking space at its White Oak, Md., headquarters even before the pandemic. "I guess we will all be sitting cross-legged on the floor," said a federal employee at another agency.

At DHS, acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman issued a memo ordering employees to work in person, calling remote work an "important tool" but one that is "subject to significant abuse." Last year, he said, nearly a quarter of total hours worked by Coast Guard personnel was done remotely.

DHS employees were waiting on additional directions on when they would be required to return and whether there would be exceptions -- for employees who have moved out of the Washington area, for example.

An employee at the Energy Department's Loan Programs Office, which disburses funds to clean-energy projects, estimated that about half of the office's staff work remotely. Many of those people will likely quit or be forced out, the employee said.

In a late-night post on Truth Social, Trump said the presidential personnel office was "actively in the process of identifying and removing over a thousand Presidential Appointees" and singled out four in particular.

Among them was the celebrity chef Jose Andres, whom then-President Joe Biden had appointed to serve on the President's Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition. Andres shot back that his two-year term had already expired and that he had resigned.

At the Justice Department, several top career officials in the criminal and national-security divisions were removed or reassigned, people familiar with the matter said, the first part of a larger planned shake-up at the agency with which Trump, a Republican, has long sparred.

Employees there have been increasingly on edge as Trump and his nominees have attacked the department, with many leaving on their own for law firms and other private-sector jobs.

More than 15 people have so far moved, one person said. In addition to national security, some of the employees worked in areas such as international affairs.

The changes are meant to align the department with the Trump administration's priority of increased immigration enforcement, one person said.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Some employees saw wiggle room in the wording of some executive actions. The one on returning to the office includes the words "consistent with applicable law" -- which some employees took to mean in accordance with the collective-bargaining agreements some agencies have signed, outlining their return-to-office policies. The order says the change must be implemented "as soon as practicable."

Unions representing federal workers vowed to protect them, arguing there isn't a legitimate reason to slash the workforce, which has remained relatively stable in size in recent decades.

The unions take issue with several orders pertaining to the federal workforce, including Monday's reinstatement of a plan Trump issued in October 2020 to eliminate job protections for federal workers, known as Schedule F. It was blocked at the start of the Biden administration in 2021.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 150,000 workers at 37 federal agencies and departments, sued the Trump administration late Monday in federal district court for the District of Columbia, saying the order undermined merit-based civil service and took away due-process rights from career civil servants.

Doreen Greenwald, the union's national president, said the executive order was a "dangerous step backward to a political spoils system that Congress expressly rejected 142 years ago."

Another executive order signed by Trump imposes a hiring freeze and requires the Office of Management and Budget to submit a plan by mid-April "to reduce the size of the Federal Government's workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition."" [1]

1. President Begins to Dismantle And Reshape Federal Workforce. Thomas, Ken; Ballhaus, Rebecca;
Ellis, Lindsay.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 23 Jan 2025: A1.   
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Raketų gaudymas tapo lengvas

 „Kaip „SpaceX“ inžinieriai išmokė paleidimo aikštę pritraukti žemesnę „Starship“ pakopą.

 

Koks tai buvo reginys, kuris atsiskleidė pirmoje aušros šviesoje 2024 m. spalio 13 d. Boka Čikoje, Pietų Teksase. Praėjus šešioms minutėms po penktojo bandomojo „SpaceX“ sunkiosios keliamosios raketos „Starship“ paleidimo, 71 metro ilgio apatinė pakopa viršgarsiniu greičiu pasinėrė link paleidimo vietos. 33 variklio purkštukai švytėjo oro trinties karštyje, tarsi milžinas būtų išmetęs degančią cigaretę. Tada 13 šių variklių užsidegė ir sulėtino krintantį cilindrą iki automobilio greičio miesto eisme. Dabar raketos pakopa manevravo ant paskutinių trijų vis dar veikiančių variklių purkštukų tarp dviejų į žnyplę panašių svirčių, pritvirtintų prie paleidimo bokšto. Pabaisa, dar žinoma kaip Mechazila, puolė drąsiai, atrodė, bet švelniai.

 

Laivui „Starship“ baigus šeštąjį bandomąjį skrydį, šis fotogeniškas manevras, daugelio žiūrovų nusivylimui, neįvyko. Tačiau spalio 13 d., kai buvo bandoma užfiksuoti pirmą kartą, tai pavyko. Bet kaip kažkas panašaus gali pasisekti? Bendras 121 metro aukščio „Starship“ yra didžiausia ir galingiausia kada nors paleista raketa. Kilimo metu jis išvysto daugiau, nei dvigubai, didesnę trauką, nei legendinis Saturnas V, kuriuo Apollo astronautai skrido į Mėnulį. 

 

Idėja, kad 232 tonas sverianti žemutinė pakopa būtų sugrąžinta į paleidimo bokštą ir ją pagautų, kad vėliau būtų galima greitai pakartotinai panaudoti, skamba kaip mokslinė fantastika, ir daugelis ją ilgai laikė tokia. Tačiau taip jau buvo su „SpaceX“ „Falcon 9“, kol žemesnė šios raketos pakopa 2015 m. gruodžio mėn. pirmą kartą saugiai nusileido Žemėje.

 

Dabar tai tapo įprasta: nuo šiandien „SpaceX“ gali pažvelgti į 352 sėkmingus šių stiprintuvų nusileidimus. Kai kurie iš jų buvo panaudoti iki 23 kartų.

 

Tačiau „Falcon 9“ pakopos nusileidžia ant kojų, kurios buvo išskleistos prieš pat po to, kai jas sulėtino jų pačių varikliai – ir paprastai tai daroma dronų laivuose toli vandenyne, saugiu atstumu nuo brangios infrastruktūros paleidimo aikštelėje. kai vėliau reikia gabenti ir vėl parsivežti, o tai atima daug laiko. Tiesioginis grįžimas į paleidimo vietą yra didelės rizikos ir didelio atlygio metodas, tačiau tai būdinga strategijų, kurių mėgsta laikytis „SpaceX“ įkūrėjas Elonas Muskas, dalis. Musko tikslas – ne tik sukurti pakankamai didelę raketą, kad galėtų skristi į Mėnulį ir iš esmės net į Marsą. Taip pat teigiama, kad tai pirmasis visiškai pakartotinis naudojimas. Su Falcon 9 jis turėjo apsiriboti žemesne pakopa.

 

Dabar taip pat buvo pateikti įrodymai apie „Starship“ žemesnę pakopą, vadinamą „Super Heavy“. Tačiau prieš tai Musko inžinieriai turėjo išspręsti daugybę problemų. Mechazilos rankos, dar vadinamos lazdelėmis, tarnauja ne tik pagaunant apatinę pakopą, bet ir kaip kėlimo įtaisas, leidžiantis dviem pakopoms, t.y. Super Heavy ir viršutinei pakopai – Starship siauresne prasme – susivesti į padėtį ir viena link kitos susirinkti. Valgomosios lazdelės slysta aukštyn ir žemyn bokštu ant bėgių, valdomų plieninių kabelių sistema. Kad sugautų krovinį, svirtys, kurių kiekviena sveria apie šimtą tonų, turi veikti daug greičiau, nei atliekant surinkimo manevrus, todėl hidraulikai sunku jas tiksliai valdyti. Egzistuoja vibracijos rizika, kurią reikia sumažinti, sumaniai suprojektavus.

 

Leistini nuokrypiai yra griežti ir kitais atžvilgiais. 20 metrų ilgio gaudymo bėgeliai, esantys vidinėje lazdelių pusėje, yra ant amortizatorių, kurie gaudymo proceso metu nusileidžia iki 85 centimetrų. Bėgių vidus išklotas elastingai deformuojamomis putplasčio pagalvėlėmis plonuose metaliniuose dangteliuose, kurios gali prisispausti prie raketos sienelės, jos nepažeisdamos. Tačiau jie nėra skirti suspausti ir laikyti Super Heavy. Tai atliekama dviem mažais priedais, esančiais abiejose raketos išorės pusėse. Kiekvienas iš jų baigiasi į apačią nukreiptais 17 centimetrų pločio cilindrais, kurie nusileidžiant remiasi į stabdymo bėgius. Jie gali judėti nedideliu kampu prieš savo išilgines ašis, kad būtų užtikrintas sklandus kontaktas su bėgiais, net jei stiprintuvas sugautas, šiek tiek pakreiptas.

 

Tačiau jei stiprintuvas atkeliauja pasisukęs daugiau, nei 9–17 laipsnių kampu, šie privažiavimai nepaisytų bėgių. Raketos pakopa praslystų ir atsitrenktų į paleidimo bokšto pagrindą po 40 metrų, dėl to likęs metano kuras sprogtų ir ne tik sunaikintų stiprintuvą, bet ir smarkiai sugadintų visą įrenginį. Tačiau toks iškraipymas mažai tikėtinas, nes šią riedėjimo ašį lengviausia valdyti raketose.

 

Neteisingo laiko nustatymo rizika yra daug didesnė, pavyzdžiui, jei lazdelės juda per lėtai arba raketos pakopa vis dar per greita, galbūt, todėl, kad ne visi varikliai anksčiau veikė tinkamai. Todėl prieiga pasiekiama tiksliai koordinuojant Mechazilla ir krintančios raketos pakopos telemetrijos duomenis. Ir yra sudėtingas abortų protokolas: paliktas sau, stiprintuvas automatiškai nukreipiamas į jūrą, į rytus nuo Boca Chica. Jis grįžta į paleidimo bokštą, naudodamas aerodinaminį valdymą per keturis tinklelio pelekus tik tada, kai antžeminis valdymas aktyviai duoda signalą. Tai siunčiama tik tuo atveju, jei visi stiprintuvo arba čiuptuvų parametrai yra tiksliai teisingi. Po šeštojo bandymo starto praėjusį antradienį jie akivaizdžiai nebuvo teisingi.

 

Bet net jei skrydžio direktorius stiprintuvui duos komandą „pagauti“, vis tiek gali atsitikti, kad ne visi 13 kilometro aukštyje kelioms sekundėms užsidegančių kilnojamųjų variklių tinkamai veiktų. Jų užduotis – sulėtinti raketos pakopą nuo maždaug 1100 iki 60 kilometrų per valandą jai nukritus per atmosferą. Jei tai neveiks, kaip planuota, stiprintuvas automatiškai nukryps nuo kritinės infrastruktūros. Tačiau tada jis nebepasieks jūros, o nusileis smėlėtoje lygumoje į rytus nuo bokšto.

 

Apskritai, spalio 13 d. daug kas galėjo suklysti ir, tikriausiai, net „SpaceX“ inžinieriai nesitikėjo, kad manevras iš karto pasiteisins. Tačiau sugavimas, galbūt, buvo lengvesnis pratimas, palyginti su saugiu viršutinės pakopos grįžimu po orbitinio skrydžio, t. y. iš orbitos aplink Žemę. Tik tai padarytų „Starship“ pirmąja, visiškai pakartotinai naudojama, raketa. Per du paskutinius bandomuosius skrydžius viršutinė pakopa tiksliai pasiekė numatytą nusileidimo vietą Indijos vandenyne į vakarus nuo Australijos. Tai bent jau rodo, kad erdvėlaivio judantys pelekai atliko savo darbą, nepaisant karščio ir mechaninių įtempių, atsirandančių dėl pakartotinio patekimo. Bet tai buvo tik suborbitiniai skrydžiai. Tačiau naujausioje versijoje buvo praleistos kelios nuo karščio apsaugančios plytelės ant nerūdijančio plieno laivo „Starship“ korpuso, įskaitant vietą, kurioje ateityje turi būti sulaikantys priedai. Nes galiausiai Mechazila taip pat turėtų sugebėti sugauti viršutinę klasę.“ [1]

 

  
 1. Raketenfangen leicht gemacht. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Von Ulf von Rauchhaupt; Frankfurt. 23 Nov 2024: B2.

 

Catching rockets made easy

 

"How SpaceX engineers taught a launch pad to grab the lower stage of their Starship.

 

What a spectacle it was that unfolded in the first light of dawn on October 13, 2024 in Boca Chica, South Texas. Six minutes after the fifth test launch of SpaceX's heavy-lift rocket Starship, the 71-meter-long lower stage plunged toward the launch site at supersonic speed. The 33 engine nozzles glowed in the heat of air friction, as if a giant had thrown away a lit cigarette. Then 13 of these engines ignited and slowed the falling cylinder to the speed of a car in city traffic. Now the rocket stage maneuvered itself on the jets of the last three engines still in operation between two pincer-like arms attached to the launch tower. The monster, also known as Mechazilla, grabbed hold, boldly, it seemed, but gently.

 

When the Starship landed on last Tuesday, when the rocket completed its sixth test flight, this photogenic maneuver did not take place, to the disappointment of many spectators. But on October 13, when the recovery was attempted for the very first time, it worked. But how can something like that even work?

 

With a total height of 121 meters, Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever launched. When it takes off, it develops more than twice as much thrust as the legendary Saturn V, which the Apollo astronauts flew to the moon with.

 

The idea of ​​returning its 232-ton lower stage to the launch tower and having it recover it so that it could then be quickly reused sounds like science fiction and was long considered as such by many.

 

However, this had also been the case with SpaceX's Falcon 9 before a lower stage of this rocket landed safely on Earth for the first time in December 2015.

 

It is now routine: as of today, SpaceX can look back on 352 successful landings of these boosters. Some of them have already been used up to 23 times.

 

But the Falcon 9 stages land on legs that have been unfolded shortly before after being slowed down by their own engines - and usually do so on drone ships far out in the ocean, at a safe distance from the expensive infrastructure at the launch site, to which they then have to be brought back in a complex and time-consuming process. A return directly to the launch site is a high-risk, high-reward approach, but it is a characteristic component of the strategies that SpaceX founder Elon Musk likes to pursue. Musk has set himself the goal of not only building a rocket that is large enough to fly to the moon and, in principle, even to Mars. It should also be the first that is completely reusable. With the Falcon 9, he had to limit himself to the lower stage.

 

Proof has now also been provided for Starship's lower stage, called Super Heavy. Before that, however, Musk's engineers had to solve a number of problems. Mechazilla's arms, also known as chopsticks, are used not only to catch the lower stage, but also as a lifting device to position the two stages, the Super Heavy and the upper stage - the Starship in the narrower sense - and to assemble them on top of each other. To do this, the chopsticks slide up and down the tower on rails, operated by a steel cable system. To catch the rocket, the arms, each weighing around a hundred tons, have to grip much faster than during assembly maneuvers, which makes precise control of the hydraulics more difficult. There is a risk of vibrations, which must be minimized by clever designs.

 

The tolerances are tight in other respects too. The 20-meter-long catch rails on the inside of the chopsticks sit on shock absorbers that can be lowered by up to 85 centimeters during the catch process. The inside of the rails are covered with elastically deformable foam cushions in thin metal covers that can press against the wall of the rocket stage without damaging it. However, they are not designed to clamp Super Heavy and hold it in place. This is done by two small attachments on top of both sides of the rocket stage. They each end in 17 centimetre wide cylinders pointing downwards, which rest on the arresting rails when landing. They can be moved at a small angle to their longitudinal axes to ensure smooth contact with the rails even if the booster is caught at a slight angle.

 

However, if the booster arrives twisted with a roll angle of more than nine to 17 degrees, these attachments would miss the rail. The rocket stage would slip through and would hit the base of the launch tower after 40 metres, causing the remains of the methane fuel to explode and not only destroying the booster, but also severely damaging the entire system. However, such twisting is unlikely, as this roll axis is the easiest to control in rockets.

 

The risk of incorrect timing is much greater, for example if the chopsticks take hold too slowly or the rocket stage is still too fast, perhaps because not all the engines were working properly beforehand. The access is therefore carried out in precise coordination between the Mechazilla and the telemetry data of the falling rocket stage. And there is a sophisticated abort protocol: Left to itself, the booster automatically steered into the sea east of Boca Chica. It only returns to the launch tower using aerodynamic control via its four grid fins if ground control actively gives it a signal. This is only sent if all the parameters on the booster or the tentacles are exactly right. After the sixth test launch last Tuesday, they were obviously not all correct.

 

But even if the flight director gives the booster the "go for catch", it could still happen that not all 13 movable engines, which ignite for a few seconds at a height of around one kilometer, are working properly. Its job is to slow the rocket stage down from around 1100 to 60 kilometers per hour after it has fallen through the atmosphere. If this does not work as planned, the booster will automatically steer itself away from critical infrastructure. It will then no longer reach the sea, but will hit a sandy plain east of the tower.

 

All in all, a lot of things could have gone wrong on October 13th, and probably not even the engineers at SpaceX expected the maneuver to work straight away. However, catching it may have been the easier exercise compared to an undamaged return of the upper stage after an orbital flight, i.e. from an orbit around the Earth. Only this would make Starship the first fully reusable rocket. The upper stage did indeed reach the intended landing site in the Indian Ocean west of Australia exactly during the two most recent test flights. This at least shows that the spacecraft's movable fins did their job despite the heat and mechanical stresses of re-entry. But those were only suborbital flights. On the most recent one, however, several of the heat protection tiles on the stainless steel hull of the Starship had been left out - including where the capture attachments will be located in the future. Because in the end, Mechazilla should also be able to capture the upper stage." [1]

  
 1. Raketenfangen leicht gemacht. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Von Ulf von Rauchhaupt; Frankfurt. 23 Nov 2024: B2.