January 15, 2009
Gration Update
Retired Fighter Pilot to Run NASA?, Washington Post
"What a difference it will make to have an Administrator who has a personal relationship with the President and will have his calls taken," opined one commenter this morning on the NASA Watch blog."
Obama may pick Nutley resident to head NASA, The Star-Ledger
"We've had other administrations who didn't have space backgrounds. He's a retired major general. He has experience running large organizations," said Mark Kelly, a NASA astronaut and West Orange native who had not heard of Gration until his name surfaced for the position."
Too early to call NASA chief job for Gration?, Orlando Sentinel
"A retired Air Force general is not an automatic lock to becomes NASA's next administrator, according to sources familiar with the situation. Instead, these sources -- who requested anonymity because of the fluid nature of the nominating process -- cautioned that no final decision has been made in response to reports that J. Scott Gration would lead the space agency."
Ex-Fighter Pilot Could Be Next NASA Chief, Washington Post
"Sources said the selection is not a done deal, but a formal announcement could precede Obama's inauguration. Gration, who retired from the Air Force in 2006, could not be reached for comment. His possible nomination was reported Tuesday night on the Web sites NASA Watch and Space.com. "He's not at all known to members of the space community," space industry analyst John Logsdon said."
Retired Air Force General Is Leading Candidate for NASA's Top Post, Wall Street Journal
"The choice of Gen. Gration was first reported by online industry publications NASA Watch and SpaceRef.com. The personnel moves follow weeks of speculation that the president-elect was leaning toward appointing a scientist or perhaps a former astronaut as NASA administrator. The current agency head, Michael Griffin, has angered some Obama insiders by publicly lobbying to stay on and bristling at the transition team's questions about current priorities."
Posted by kcowing at January 15, 2009 12:06 AM
The Orlando Sentinel article: "Too Early to Call NASA Chief job for Gration" seems to me to be the most accurate of the recent articles.
It is clear that President Obama's transition team was looking very carefully at the cost overruns NASA has had with regards to the MSL (Mars Science Laboratory) and the potential for the same kind of overruns for ARES 1 & ARES V.
How does the Major General fit with the transition teams inquiries?
I do not think he does.
His name is maybe being floated for some other job like being the Chair of a reinstated Whitehouse Space Council.
(It seems the new President likes to have a bit of redundancy/layers and that is ok I think so he gets different opinions)
Dr. Alan Stern looks like a strong potential candidate to me, given his familiarity with NASA and his efforts in getting the NEW Horizons/Pluto mission chosen by NASA and funded by congress. He brought it in on time and on budget and then got the Kepler Mission to hold the line on its budget when they came to him asking for $52 Million more (while he was Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate)
President Obama wants a sure thing at confirmation time and someone who will bring CHange we can believe in to NASA.
I Hope he picks Dr. Alan Stern
Check him out at Youtube @
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUuVtqu6k_M
ps Dear Editor Yes, I am Canadian! omg a foreign country!
but we do have TELEVISION, INTERNET AND NEWSPAPERS up here in our Igloos and we do care about the US space effort. No need to condescend to us....dude :-)
I don't know his background other than the bio linked at one of the posts here, so all I can do is have a bit of fun speculating, just like a lot of other folks. I don't know enough about his views to know if he's a good pick or not. What are his views on Space and Earth sciences? Has he had good experiences with the big aerospace contractors, or does he want to encourage them to work more commercially - and if so under what circumstances does he think that's appropriate? Would he support a COTS-D effort to encourage commercial transportation of astronauts to the Space Station (and presumably Bigelow habs, tourist flights, etc) - regardless of what happens with Ares 1? Would his background make him not want to push for ITAR reform for NASA and commercial space? etc ...
A lot of the comments on the earlier Gration post worry that he doesn't have a lot of space background. That may be true, but look at the situation we're in now with the human spaceflight gap that was made by the Constellation plan, and by the essential goals of the VSE (commercial space, international participation, security, economics, science, and sustainability) being ignored by the Constellation approach (eg: see Paul Spudis's comments in another post today on a NASA approach that would have used commercial support, ISRU, space infrastructure, lots more early lunar robotics, incremental development, etc instead of decades of government rocket building). NASA management has a lot of space background today, but NASA is at a quite a low point now, considering the binds the human spaceflight program is in and the cuts to the rest of NASA.
One point that hasn't been mentioned much is Gration's aeronautics background. NASA, after all, has a role in aeronautics. In fact, Obama's space policy has a whole section on "Maintaining Leadership in Aeronautics Research". Would Gration restore NASA's aeronautics program? If so, what aeronautics efforts would he be inclined to support? Would these use the new commercial suborbital vehicles for tests, or develop common technology for them NACA-style? Would they involve NASA rocketplanes or other X plane tests? Long-duration UAVs for Earth remote sensing?
If he's new to the space field (compared to some other candidates), who would Gration learn from? Would he take a cue from some of Pete Worden's innovations and outlook at NASA Ames?
Posted by: red at January 14, 2009 8:29 PMBrian Koester "Dear Editor Yes, I am Canadian! omg a foreign country!".
I say we need to watch these Canadians more closely! I suggests we create a new website called "Canadianswatch.com". They are among us and we are too trusting of them.
P.S. OK, I admit it. I am a Canadian too...
Editor's note: for the record, my SpaceRef.com business partner for the past decade, Marc Boucher, is Canadian ...
I think we are overlooking a very important factor in whatever NASA will or not do: National Aeronautics and Space Council. The next Administrator will not be the sole leader of NASA but will have to operate with the Council.
I would strongly recommend reading http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Space_Council
It may give us an idea where NASA may be headed in the years to come. Especially when we get to know the new members.
Posted by: common sense at January 15, 2009 5:06 PMOne thing is for sure. We get a better aviator out of Gration replacing Griffin. Beyond that who can predict the quality of the administrator we'll get from interpreting their credentials. The last three admins shows that there is little correlation between the content of their resumes and success as the NASA admin.
Interesting here too
http://www.archive.org/stream/nationalaeronaut00lars/nationalaeronaut00lars_djvu.txt
Posted by: common sense at January 15, 2009 6:34 PMExcuse me, but I have a problem with the appearance of having a military man in charge of what has always been touted as a *civilian* space agency.
Strangely enough, I would not have this problem if this gent had been in the Astronaut Corps.
Perhaps it's because of how I observed the early days of the program, when all of the astronauts had military aviation backgrounds. The public knew that these men had "the right stuff" because of their military backgrounds, and as such embraced them.
But during the STS years, NASA has embraced greater participation by civilians in the Astronaut Corps. While loading up a shuttle with active duty military is OK for secret DOD missions, sending a shuttle of active duty military to the ISS would raise some eyebrows around the world. And yes, I know that active military in NASA are considered to be "on loan" from their service branch.
They do not make "very good salaries" as someone once posted; they make exactly what their government pay grade specifies if they're government employees, and exactly what their current pay is if they come from the outside (private sector) world.
Leland Melvin stood to make a lot more money if his football career had worked out for him.
General Gration may very well turn out to be the right man for the job at this time, but is the world ready for the only truly public space agency to appear as if it's a covert arm of the military?
Posted by: Dave H. at January 15, 2009 7:28 PM