Chapter 8 Workforce:  Launch the Future RECOMMENDATION #8: The Commission recommends the nation immediately reverse the decline in, and promote the growth of, a scientifically and technologically trained U.S. aerospace workforce. In addition, the nation must address the failure of the math, science and technology education of Americans. The breakdown of America’s intellectual and industrial capacity is a threat to national security and our capability to continue as a world leader. Congress and the administration must therefore: • Create an interagency task force that develops a national strategy on the aerospace workforce to attract public attention to the importance and opportunities within the aerospace industry; • Establish lifelong learning and individualized instruction as key elements of educational reform; and • Make long-term investments in education and training with major emphasis in math and science so that the aerospace industry has access to a scientifically and technologically trained workforce. (Chapter 8, Page 1 and Repeated on Page 12)   “NASA has three times as many technicians over the age of sixty as under the age of thirty.” Sean O’Keefe NASA Administrator (Chapter 8, Page 5)   “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war… We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.” -- A Nation at Risk, 1981 (Chapter 8, Page 6)     “The harsh fact is that the U.S. need for the highest quality human capital in science, mathematics and engineering is not being met… Second only to a weapon of mass destruction detonating in an American city, we can think of nothing more dangerous than a failure to manage properly science, technology, and education for the common good over the next century.” -- Road Map for National Security, 2001 (Chapter 8, Page 6)