However my program is dead- cancelled by true bureaucratic morons. The people that helped build it are on different programs, or left NASA. The whole experience was disheartening - they canceled LCOT WITHOUT EVEN TALKING TO US TO UNDERSTAND WHAT WE WERE DOING and then had the gall to have a meeting to determine what we should do instead and said we should work on working with industry to create a commercial laser communications ground terminal- WHICH WAS THE ENTIRE POINT OF LCOT IN THE FIRST PLACE! The telescope we worked with industry to create is now the best selling product of Observable Space and is bringing in 100's of millions of dollars to the company- we also worked with industry to commercialize a new laser that could easily handle the high peak powers we need for some lasercom formats- so one laser could switch easily between any formats needed.

The morons that cancelled it didn't bother to even learn what they were cancelling. NASA's Space Communication and Navigation division is headed by people who are completely unqualified- They KNOW they are unqualified and try to bluster their way through it... they actually think that RF communications is the way of the future, one of them actually said at a public meeting that there was no future for optical communication because "The internet cant handle those sorts of high data rates".

COULD I go back to NASA? Probably- but there is no reason to- I would have to be at the whims of morons like that... The NASA I worked at was gutted, and its too depressing to consider going back...

NASA pays less than the industry standard and I was maxed out on the civil servant pay scale- I was fine with that when I had the freedom to develop new technologies... but right now the jobs I am choosing between pay 25% to 50% more than what I was making... and if I went back to NASA I wouldn't have the resources and freedom to really make a difference.

There is also the loss of trust- the NASA managers sold us out... they implemented the illegal cuts BEFORE THEY WERE LAW. They rushed to implement the president's agenda- actively taking steps to ensure the damage couldn't be undone. I cant work for or with people I consider traitors, people I have nothing but contempt for.

NASA is no longer what it was, and the damage will not be repaired in my lifetime- I doubt it ever will be repaired.