By design. That's why they want to privatize space.
Futurology
Part of it is NASA struggles to pay competitive wages versus what some technology backgrounds can get you in the private sector. I know several people who work there and I used to work the launchpads myself until I got a better job.
And despite this it’s still quite competitive and has super high requirements still from what I saw. Not that it’s a bad thing but if you meet those high requirements you can get a much better job elsewhere
Precisely. If you are that compelling a candidate, there are other industries who are usually willing to pay more for the same set of skills.
At this point, I'm pretty sure Chinese taikonauts will get to the Moon, before American astronauts return.
Well yah, Musk pulled strings to gut the place of all their proprietary info and skilled engineers. How do you think SpaceX got so successful? It wasn't because of Musk.