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[seg9585]

I'm just curious -- it's a well known fact that the NASA employees were not allowed to volunteer their time to do work during the government shutdown (they weren't allowed to work for free). All public outreach was suspended.
Did that mean they also couldn't volunteer to mentor robotics during that timeframe?

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by seg9585

I'm just curious -- it's a well known fact that the NASA employees were not allowed to volunteer their time to do work during the government shutdown (they weren't allowed to work for free). All public outreach was suspended.
Did that mean they also couldn't volunteer to mentor robotics during that timeframe?

What an employee does off company property isn't controllable by the company, or government. The employees probably couldn't do 'official' NASA outreach, but there's no stopping their mentoring efforts on a personal level.

[seg9585]

Originally Posted by JesseK

What an employee does off company property isn't controllable by the company, or government. The employees probably couldn't do 'official' NASA outreach, but there's no stopping their mentoring efforts on a personal level.

Of course, but that means they also can't represent NASA in any way during that time period, for what its worth.

For any NASA employees here, did you spend your time off doing your own scientific research of interest, maybe even similar to your day job, despite the shutdown's regulations to not perform any work on behalf of NASA?