Guarenteed to qualify for being physicist in NASA (salary at least $90000)

[jhooper3581]

Hello guys,

I am going into U.S. Navy next year, and I am signed up in Nuclear Power Program (Nuclear Physics) thing in the Navy. Then, I will also get a bachelor's degree in the Navy while aboard a ship, and after all that six years, I can stay in Navy, and go for the PhD for physics, so that I can get paid in Navy still. After about 9 years of hard work, do you guys think NASA will hire me for working as a physicist, minimum salary of $90000? I really wanted to work for NASA, and it's my dream.

 

[bpsbps]

I think you're getting the horse in front of the cart. Wait to see if you enjoy and are good a physics. Then decide on grad school. Then decide on a career.

Regarding NASA... you can do better, I hope. From my work experience I'm much more impressed with NRL than NASA. There is much better science coming from NRL. Maybe you should consider being a physicist in the Navy?

http://www.nrl.navy.mil/

 

[Andy Resnick]

NASA, and the rest of government jobs, follow the general pay scale: $90k is a solid GS-14, well above anywhere you are going to be when you start. A PhD is a GS 11 or 12.

http://www.employment911.com/asp/federal-pay-scale.asp

 

[jhooper3581]

I think you're getting the horse in front of the cart. Wait to see if you enjoy and are good a physics. Then decide on grad school. Then decide on a career.

Regarding NASA... you can do better, I hope. From my work experience I'm much more impressed with NRL than NASA. There is much better science coming from NRL. Maybe you should consider being a physicist in the Navy?

http://www.nrl.navy.mil/

Oh, I am 100% confident that I will enjoy and have talents for physics. That's why I am planning a Ph.D on physics. NASA is still my dream!

NASA, and the rest of government jobs, follow the general pay scale: $90k is a solid GS-14, well above anywhere you are going to be when you start. A PhD is a GS 11 or 12.

http://www.employment911.com/asp/federal-pay-scale.asp

Ah, this is the reply I was looking for. Thanks for the site, but do you think from Navy's nuke program and Ph.D in physics will get me into NASA?

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Oh, I am 100% confident that I will enjoy and have talents for physics. That's why I am planning a Ph.D on physics. NASA is still my dream!


Ah, this is the reply I was looking for. Thanks for the site, but do you think from Navy's nuke program and Ph.D in physics will get me into NASA?

NASA is a very large (and ever shrinking) program. What exactly are you hoping to do at NASA? By the time you graduate most of the space program (for humans) is likely to have been competely scrapped. I mean this isn't the 60's/70's , I guess I just don't see the big appeal of NASA.

 

[Choppy]

I doubt there's a secret formula. If you really want to get into NASA, the route you're looking at is likely as good as any.

Really, what getting in will come down to is what openings there will be a decade or so from now when you've earned your Ph.D. and completed your military service, as well as how well your specific qualifications match up with what is needed. That's a long period of time. Think about what the world was like 10 years ago just to get an idea.

 

[jhooper3581]

I doubt there's a secret formula. If you really want to get into NASA, the route you're looking at is likely as good as any.

Really, what getting in will come down to is what openings there will be a decade or so from now when you've earned your Ph.D. and completed your military service, as well as how well your specific qualifications match up with what is needed. That's a long period of time. Think about what the world was like 10 years ago just to get an idea.

Well the NASA jobs site says that they can take even bachelor's degree in any scientific areas, so Ph.D will be very exceptional, plus the nuclear power program studies. I know things change over the years and all that, but I've been waiting for a chance to getting into NASA for quite a long time. And I am not an idiot, seriously.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Well the NASA jobs site says that they can take even bachelor's degree in any scientific areas, so Ph.D will be very exceptional, plus the nuclear power program studies. I know things change over the years and all that, but I've been waiting for a chance to getting into NASA for quite a long time. And I am not an idiot, seriously.

But what do you want to DO at NASA? Or is it just a prestigous acronym?

 

[jhooper3581]

But what do you want to DO at NASA? Or is it just a prestigous acronym?

Study & research scientific studies (specifically physics) at NASA. Also, teamwork on scientific experiments.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Study & research scientific studies (specifically physics) at NASA. Also, teamwork on scientific experiments.

Of what though? It's not like NASA is the best research group/agency in your country. They're pretty middling. NASA hasn't been where the "best" minds go for about 30 years. I'm not trying to trample your dreams or anything but NASA has not been the leading expert/research on anything except maybe "sending people into space" for quite some time and they rarely send people into space these days and it's entirely likely that by the time you graduate NASA will send no one into space. Is it aeronautics you're interested in? Is it JPL you're eying?

 

[jhooper3581]

Of what though? It's not like NASA is the best research group/agency in your country. They're pretty middling. NASA hasn't been where the "best" minds go for about 30 years. I'm not trying to trample your dreams or anything but NASA has not been the leading expert/research on anything except maybe "sending people into space" for quite some time and they rarely send people into space these days and it's entirely likely that by the time you graduate NASA will send no one into space. Is it aeronautics you're interested in? Is it JPL you're eying?

Yeah, you're probably right. NASA isn't everything when it's about gathering brightest minds for research. Do you have any job suggestion for a Nuclear Power Program student/Ph.D physics guy?

 

[jhooper3581]

I think you're getting the horse in front of the cart. Wait to see if you enjoy and are good a physics. Then decide on grad school. Then decide on a career.

Regarding NASA... you can do better, I hope. From my work experience I'm much more impressed with NRL than NASA. There is much better science coming from NRL. Maybe you should consider being a physicist in the Navy?

http://www.nrl.navy.mil/

Sorry about my previous post. I'll look toward to this site.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Yeah, you're probably right. NASA isn't everything when it's about gathering brightest minds for research. Do you have any job suggestion for a Nuclear Power Program student/Ph.D physics guy?

Well of course the obvious answer is any given top tier university (for an american that'd be MIT, Caltech,Princeton,Yale,Harvard, etc.). Although, for whatever reason (I'm not trying to discourage you just haven't specified what you're interested in and why) you seem set on gov't labs (which is rarely, with a few exceptions, where the bulk of physics research is done) and you seem to have your mind set on Nuclear Power physics. Then you might want to know that I'm pretty sure NASA doesn't even have a nuclear power group. Probably the most well known, government run, american research lab that does nuclear physics research would be Oak Ridge National Labs. I'm not american (in Canada it'd probably be Chalk River), nor do I do nuclear physics, so there are probably others kicking around I don't know about.

Also I get the impression that your image of physics is quite ascew, which is perfectly natural for someone just starting to consider their career in the field, but I feel it my responsibility to give you a little information. NASA does not even do physics research. It does aeronautical engineering. There's never been a famous physicist that worked for NASA. Physicists work for, generally, universities or certain national or corporate labs (actually, one of the most successful physics outfits was Bell Laboratories, unfortunately that was shut down a while ago). If you're interested in quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, general relativity, string theory, etc. NASA does none of these, you'd be more likely to do these things working for Google or Microsoft than NASA (actually I hear these are sweet gigs if you get in their "basic" research departments) but far and away this work is done in universities by professors. Einstein, Feynman, Bohr, Newton, Dirac, etc. every physicist you've ever heard of was a professor at a university.

NASA's job WAS to get people into space, now they mostly do astrophysics/astronomy (not much interest in sending people into space these days not that the cold war is over and that we realize that the moon really was just a hunk of rock, just like everything else in our solar system).

 

[jhooper3581]

Again thanks for the good reply. Yeah I might have to find another job where it gives me a lot of opportunities for physics. But, being a university professor is not my interest, since the salary is not good enough for me. I am on iPod Touch now, so sorry for the short reply.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Again thanks for the good reply. Yeah I might have to find another job where it gives me a lot of opportunities for physics. But, being a university professor is not my interest, since the salary is not good enough for me. I am on iPod Touch now, so sorry for the short reply.

Professors, on the average, make more than national lab employees. Corporate lab scientists make the most in terms of "pure" research and working in industry makes the most of all (but then you'll never be tackling the "big" questions, more the "how to make a better lightbulb" variety).

 

[jhooper3581]

Professors, on the average, make more than national lab employees. Corporate lab scientists make the most in terms of "pure" research and working in industry makes the most of all (but then you'll never be tackling the "big" questions, more the "how to make a better lightbulb" variety).

Hmm well yeah I guess I'll have to think about this one a bit more. Thanks for the replies!

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Not a problem. I just didn't want you spending 8 years of your life only to find that your average NASA employee only makes a little over half what you thought they did and that they don't even really do physics. I should point out that a nuclear physicist working for the Department of Energy (I think that's what it's called in the states) will easily make 6 figures. But they don't do research, more keep the power plants running.

 

[jhooper3581]

Not a problem. I just didn't want you spending 8 years of your life only to find that your average NASA employee only makes a little over half what you thought they did and that they don't even really do physics. I should point out that a nuclear physicist working for the Department of Energy (I think that's what it's called in the states) will easily make 6 figures. But they don't do research, more keep the power plants running.

The job doesn't has to be about research - it can be where physics knowledge can be used.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Well the highest paid "physicists" are in medical physics, the second highest are in industrial and the third highest in nuclear. All of these are "working" physicists (i.e. no research, except for med phys). However, often money hungry physicists end up working in engineering or software development which also pays well.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

http://www.aip.org/statistics/ Here's statistics on average wages and such for physicists. I'd pay special attention to:
http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/highlite/emp3/figure2.htm and
http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/highlite/salary/salsum06.pdf

 

[Stratosphere]

Of what though? It's not like NASA is the best research group/agency in your country. They're pretty middling. NASA hasn't been where the "best" minds go for about 30 years. I'm not trying to trample your dreams or anything but NASA has not been the leading expert/research on anything except maybe "sending people into space" for quite some time and they rarely send people into space these days and it's entirely likely that by the time you graduate NASA will send no one into space. Is it aeronautics you're interested in? Is it JPL you're eying?

That explains the planned 2020 moon missions?

 

[maverick_starstrider]

That explains the planned 2020 moon missions?

I don't know what you're referring to but NASA makes these kinda claims every couple years when their budget gets cut and then silently scrap it. These failed PR stunts/manned missions almost take up half of NASA's budget and never get off the ground. To me I think the real tragedy would be if we actually DID try and send a manned space flight. What a waste of time. At the moment "manned" space flight exists of putting people on the ISS, which has done basically nothing since it was put up there (and it's still not finished), and then sending manned shuttles to fix the ISS.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I'm sorry, but a lot of information that's been posted here is way, way off the mark.

First, making $90,000 as a physicist right after a PhD is just not in the cards. Expect perhaps half that. It takes a good 10-15 years post PhD to be making that much - and some people never reach that.

Second, a BS earned shipboard will not be of anything like the quality you will get by going to a college or university. For instance, what will you do for labs? This will make graduate school more difficult. Also, the amount of time it takes to earn a degree is often wildly underestimated by young soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. Similarly, the amount of free time available is often wildly overestimated.

Third, the Navy is not going to pay for you to get a PhD and then let you leave for NASA. Expect between 12 and 18 months of obligated service per year of education. An average PhD takes 6 years. Tack on 9 years of additional service obligation to the 4 to get a bachelors and the 15 to be making $90k and you're talking 34 years from now.

Fourth, it's simply not true that National Lab salaries are lower than university salaries. On average, they are higher. Yes, if you look at only Harvard salaries, the picture is different.

Fifth, it's simply not true that most research is done in universities. The DoE HEP budget has 37% going to facility operations, 38% to laboratory research, and 16% to university research.

Sixth, Maverick_Starstrider's "every physicist you've ever heard of" argument relies on a list of physicists who died, on average, 85 years ago. Removing Newton and the average is still 37 years ago. Furthermore, I can easily give you a list of people at labs who have won Nobel prizes based on their work there: Bardeen, Penzias & Wilson, Bednorz and Muller, Charpak, and Smoot. Note that some of these people did their research at the corporate labs that Maverick_Starstrider pooh-poohs as 'never be tackling the "big" questions, more the "how to make a better lightbulb" variety.'

And finally, a DoE nuclear physicist does not run power plants.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Sixth, Maverick_Starstrider's "every physicist you've ever heard of" argument relies on a list of physicists who died, on average, 85 years ago. Removing Newton and the average is still 37 years ago. Furthermore, I can easily give you a list of people at labs who have won Nobel prizes based on their work there: Bardeen, Penzias & Wilson, Bednorz and Muller, Charpak, and Smoot. Note that some of these people did their research at the corporate labs that Maverick_Starstrider pooh-poohs as 'never be tackling the "big" questions, more the "how to make a better lightbulb" variety.'
QUOTE]


I'd urge you to reread my post I explicitly mentioned Bell Labs and explicitely distinguished corporate basic research labs from simply "industry" and said "industry jobs" are not ones where you tackle the big questions (I'm well aware of Microsoft and Google's and such sizeable basic/fundamental research labs and I explicitly mentioned them). Furthermore, when saying that any physicist you heard of was a professor it was in the context of stressing the point that NASA is not a physics research agency. I was not disparaging corporate or national research labs (in fact I happen to think Bardeen was probably the most influential physicist of the 20th century in terms of the common man). Ultimately the OP seemed to thing that NASA is where physics happens, when in reality very little, if any, physics is done at NASA (as opposed to engineering, the two obviously overlap). The bulk of physics is done in universities (there are only a handful of national and corporate labs)

 

[JDGates]

Vanadium is right that the Navy isn't going to go along with your educational plan, and that you'll have a hard time getting into a good grad school with any kind of distance learning bachelor's -- if a physics bachelors is even available in such a way. Further, you seem to think that your enlisted service will be of interest to employers looking for a physicist. But Navy Nuclear experience really won't be applicable to most physics research; even for a nuclear power-related job, the graduate-level training is what's important.

NASA does have quite a bit of astrophysics research going on, including some very good people (contrary to what maverick_starstrider seems to think). But if you're not interested in astrophysics, then as others have said, NASA isn't the place to look.

As far as $90K out of grad school, it's certainly possible in industry -- I had several acquaintances in grad school who made more than that going to places like IBM and defense contractors. Postdocs at national labs and places like NIST or the military research labs typically make much more than academic postdocs; a friend at NIST started at around $65K, I think. Any comparison of "national labs vs. academia" or "industry vs. academia" is pointless unless one is very specific about which portion of academia one is talking about; leaving aside the Harvards and Caltechs, professors at major state universities spending most of their time on research and teaching one class per term will make more than professors at smaller state universities who are teaching 3-4 classes per term. Of course, the research-oriented jobs are far harder to get.

All that being said, if what you want is to make money, save yourself the grad school years and go into business or finance. After a couple of years you can get your company to fund you for an MBA, and in two more years you'll be making the kind of money you're talking about. There are too many "ifs" along the physics-oriented road to high salary.

 

[Vanadium 50]

The bulk of physics is done in universities (there are only a handful of national and corporate labs)

This is simply not true. The fact that there are fewer large laboratories than universities is irrelevant. Los Alamos has something like 7000 employees. How many universities have physics departments that big?

 

[Norman]

Also I get the impression that your image of physics is quite ascew, which is perfectly natural for someone just starting to consider their career in the field, but I feel it my responsibility to give you a little information. NASA does not even do physics research. It does aeronautical engineering. There's never been a famous physicist that worked for NASA. Physicists work for, generally, universities or certain national or corporate labs (actually, one of the most successful physics outfits was Bell Laboratories, unfortunately that was shut down a while ago). If you're interested in quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, general relativity, string theory, etc. NASA does none of these, you'd be more likely to do these things working for Google or Microsoft than NASA (actually I hear these are sweet gigs if you get in their "basic" research departments) but far and away this work is done in universities by professors. Einstein, Feynman, Bohr, Newton, Dirac, etc. every physicist you've ever heard of was a professor at a university.

Your statements about NASA not doing physics research are just plain WRONG. I am a physicist working under contract for NASA in Nuclear Physics. The actual civil servants in our group are physicists, mathematicians and a nuclear engineer. Yes, a lot of my work is driven by engineering (and that of my co-workers), but there are still fundamental physics needed for the engineering to be completed. Does NASA care about Grand Unification or String Theory... well, not likely. But there is research to be done.

NASA's job WAS to get people into space, now they mostly do astrophysics/astronomy (not much interest in sending people into space these days not that the cold war is over and that we realize that the moon really was just a hunk of rock, just like everything else in our solar system).

Have you heard of the International Space Station? The shuttle program is still going (for a little while longer) and NASA's current vision for space exploration is for manned missions to return to the Moon in the ballpark of 2020.

Then you might want to know that I'm pretty sure NASA doesn't even have a nuclear power group.

Wrong again. Check out Project Prometheus: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/hall/present/prometheus.htm

Regarding the general view of NASA:
I don't disagree with you that the most cutting edge physics research is being done at universities and national labs and has been for a long time. NASA is supposed to do space operations. That requires a lot of engineering and some basic research into making the science behind the engineering more clear. NASA is not the bastion of science that the general public thinks that it is, but that does not mean there is not science being done.

Regarding the original poster:
The physicists I know at NASA (PhDs) were hired at the GS12-13 range which puts you at around $50-$60k starting. This is better compared to most assistant professor's salaries and very few people come out of PhD and step right into an assistant professor's position. There is this little stepping stone called a post-doc position.

 

[Stratosphere]

I don't know what you're referring to but NASA makes these kinda claims every couple years when their budget gets cut and then silently scrap it. These failed PR stunts/manned missions almost take up half of NASA's budget and never get off the ground. To me I think the real tragedy would be if we actually DID try and send a manned space flight. What a waste of time. At the moment "manned" space flight exists of putting people on the ISS, which has done basically nothing since it was put up there (and it's still not finished), and then sending manned shuttles to fix the ISS.

How would it be a waste of time to send men to the moon? The possibility of finding helium-3 is a good reason to go by it's self. Also were are humans suppose to go? If we are to survive we can"t stay on Earth forever.

There is still research that is being conducted on the ISS, you might want to do more research on it before you post something.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

How would it be a waste of time to send men to the moon? The possibility of finding helium-3 is a good reason to go by it's self. Also were are humans suppose to go? If we are to survive we can"t stay on Earth forever.

There is still research that is being conducted on the ISS, you might want to do more research on it before you post something.

Because you don't need to put PEOPLE on a lander to do scientific analysis. You can get all the data you want for a fraction of the cost and without the risk to human life with an unmanned mission. Hell, even John Glenn thinks those missions are silly. If these 2020 missions people are talking about are the constellation program (I can't seem to see a 2020 firm launch date anywhere) well then it may have funds syphoned from it to extend the lifetime of the ISS and Obama has already ordered a review of it. It may not even survive a single presidency.

As for the ISS, remember when it was suppose to be finished by 2005? Now they're saying 2011 (that's a big jump) and its current decommission date is 2015 (thought they may extend it by syphoning money from the constellation program, among others). Plus how are they achieving this 2011 completion date? By scrapping additions, they're dropping a lot of intended features and add-ons so they can send less flights. Honestly, I think we'd be lucky if they manage to complete a skeleton version of the original plan before it needs to be decommissioned. As for the good research on the ISS, well you're certainly welcome to your own opinion, but I'm not alone at thinking most of the "science" coming from ISS (i.e. growing tomatoes in microgravity and then distributing them to school children) is little more than grandstanding to keep public interest. I haven't seen any research coming from the ISS that couldn't have been performed on an unmanned mission (although I admit I don't follow it too closely) and, to the best of my knowledge, the only work being done on ISS is of the effect of space on human physiology (and, evidently, tomato physiology). So basically we spent/will spend an estimated $100 billion to find out how people are effected by long term exposure to space, the only possible use of such information is in regards to new manned missions. Manned missions are a waste of time, the ISS exists to support manned missions, the shuttle program exists to support the ISS... People complain about the cost of something like LHC, well we could have built like 20 LHC's for the cost of the ISS.

 

[jhooper3581]

Well thanks for all the replies, guys!