02.10 NASA

WASHINGTON, October 2 (by Karin Zeitvogel for RIA Novosti) � NASA was supposed to be marking its 55th birthday this week, but the US space agency gave furlough notices, not birthday invitations, to nearly all of its 18,000 employees, and began fretting about future missions as funding dried up with the US government shutdown.

One of the select few who did not get a furlough notice, Mike Trenchard of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said on National Public Radio (NPR) that the shutdown left him feeling �frustrated with Congress� even though he was �one of the lucky ones that�s going to continue to work.�

But, he added, �Most of my colleagues won�t be there, so it�s going to be kind of a lonely place.�

�NASA reacted to the shutdown with a broad brush when it came to furloughs,� a NASA engineer who was furloughed and asked not to be identified, told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

�Just about everyone, 97 percent of people, were considered non-essential and were furloughed,� he said.

Only NASA personnel who are working on �on-orbit assets, or something that�s up there that could be damaged� were told they could come into work and pick up a paycheck during the shutdown, the engineer said.

�The mission I work hasn�t launched yet � it�s supposed to launch in February � so it�s not in space and in danger of being damaged,� he said.

�So on Tuesday, when the shutdown happened, we were given four hours to safely conduct an