Bridenstine Nomination Update
Trump has picked a politician to lead NASA. Is that a good thing?, Science
“Although the Trump administration has proposed stiff cuts to earth science at NASA, the Senate has so far warded them off. [Kelvin Droegemeier, vice president for research at the University of Oklahoma in Norman] does not expect Bridenstine to support slashing the agency’s budget, especially given that much of NASA’s mission can be framed in terms of collecting data that are as applicable to understanding weather patterns as to understanding climate change. “He won’t come in and say we’re going to discontinue climate financing and take earth science and trash it,” Droegemeier predicts. “He absolutely believes the planet is warming, that [carbon dioxide] is a greenhouse gas, and that it contributes to warming.” …
… “But Bridenstine’s political chops could serve the agency well, says Laurie Leshin, the president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, and a former high-ranking NASA official who was set to help lead Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s potential transition. “NASA tends to value people who are geeks like them, in a good way,” she says. But NASA often has plenty of technical expertise while lacking political savvy. “Somebody with that background, I think we should give him a chance to be successful.”
Given the record of the Administrators that have been engineers it is a very good thing. NASA rises and falls based on its relationship with Congress who funds it. The day to day operations which may involve a knowledge of science should be the function of the Deputy Administrator as they were under Administrator Webb.
Bush appointed O’Keefe who looked at NASA data and said use the DOD fleet. Oops. Bush appointed Griffin, who was told by Congress that it had to be Shuttle Derived. Griffin did his best with the steam engine technology and created the 1.5 launch architecture, Ares, so that a 100mT LV would not carry a 6mT capsule LEO, but Ares I could not get off the ground due to solids and launch abort system mass–as predicted.
Congress and the NASA appointees can continue to suppress all the studies which show using the smaller existing fleet and working the Space Grand Challenges is in the best interests of the Nation and the agency.
Congress had mandated that not one, but two programs carry crew with solids. Clearly having someone from Congress run NASA is a horrible idea. “Solids..a major mistake”
https://youtu.be/hQifKbJEeGs
Jim will do a great job once he is confirmed. The senate is so screwy.