Most JASON scientists haven't worked at a government lab for decades. How is this relevant?
> ...I've never heard a contractor...
These aren't contractors, they are scientists. And not just any scientists. In most cases, they aren't even the scientists employed by a national lab. They're scientists employed by all manner of institutions, including universities who will pay their paychecks regardless of whether this funding comes in. Usually senior and well-respected.
Many of those scientists have, if not "fuck you money", at least "fuck you reputations" that translate into "fuck you money". E.g., the current chairperson is fucking Russell Hemley... he's not putting up with federal background checks because he needs the extra pennies...
JASON members work on JASON projects because they think those projects are important. Nobel laureates and other top scientists don't work on grant funded projects for the money... if all they cared about was feeding their families, they would just retire. And if all they cared about was money, they would pimp their reputations to private industry labs.
Needless to say, silicon valley senior VPs don't usually need extra spending cash.
> The contract, run through the Mitre Corp., is the vehicle that allows the Jasons to do work with other parts of the government as well. Without it, the group has no way of getting the several million dollars in funding it needs to operate annually.
There's "not in it for the money", and then there's "dipping into my personal funds".
Also, again, for many of these scientists, 1MM+ is the annual opportunity cost they pay to stay in academia/public sector vs. private industry. If they were in it for personal payout, they'd have jumped ship a long time ago.
If you are paid to perform a service based on the terms of a contract you are, by definition, a contractor.
It doesn't matter if you are cleaning toilets or hosting a conference on quantum computing.
1. "Contractor" means something specific in the Defense industry. Every employee, including members of the armed forces and employees of DHS, are "paid to perform a service based on the terms of a contract" (the employment contract). But, of course, literally everyone knows that when I say "contractor" I definitely do not mean "someone who has signed an employment contract with the federal government".
2. The expectations associated with grants are different enough from most other contracts that there's a useful distinction between "grant work" and "contract work".
https://fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason
JASON was founded as Project 137 by John Archibald Wheeler and others. It was only publicly confirmed to exist after the Pentagon Papers mentioned them.
We do software requirements, identifying the minimum necessary features to maximize the value. Some projects have no redeeming value.
Who wants to waste a clients money working on something that has no value for a client?
Isn't that the whole business model of Accenture and similar?
Doing valueless projects is a consequence of that function.
ETA: I used to work at a government lab. I've never heard a contractor say "they made the right choice. My work is obsolete/irrelevant/a waste of money." At the end of the day, people have livelihoods to maintain. Their work is always "needed now more than ever". Some of it actually is. Some of it isn't.