The Obama Team has been getting positive Press from their most recent appointments of Scientists to key positions. So it's logical that Kennel is on the short list for Administrator.

Good pick... for associate administrator for science. Zero experience with aeronautics or launch vehicles.

This would be an esteemed pick for Science Advisor. But with all due respect to Dr. Kennel, he wouldn't understand the difference between the rocket vs. Hill's equation. And by the time he learns that, and _all_ of the other things that the existing Administrator learned by the time he finished his Master's in Aerospace Engineering, and after we've gone through one study after another in looking for a launcher to replace Ares I, a launch date of 2014 will look as likely as my child star career--I'm 46.

We don't need a scientist running NASA any more than Scripps needs an engineer running it.

Keith,

Interesting title, this item has. Does it reflect your personal handicapping, or have you been hearing things from people in the know?

Editor's note: How can I "handicap" the selection of a presidential appointee? The Obama team has their own process in place - one that clearly does not rely upon - or care about - what I think or say. Like the title says on my post "the Force is storng with this one". We'll soon see.

"Zero experience with aeronautics or launch vehicles."

I wouldn't be surprised if he has good experience with purchasing launch vehicles for science missions. If so, that experience should serve him well, if he's picked, in purchasing lots of launch vehicles for NASA's various science missions, ISS cargo and crew needs, suborbital missions, and so on. That includes encouraging new commercial launch vehicle capabilities (whether Shuttle-derived, EELV-based, COTS-based, or other) in cases where they don't currrently exist.

The only other launch vehicle activity NASA needs to perform is the remaining Shuttle flights. Those need to be managed carefully and safely. The question is: now that RTF is done, can the Shuttle program manage that without a NASA Administrator with aerospace engineering degrees? I don't have an answer to that question, but if the answer is no, we might want to consider shutting down that program a bit sooner than planned.

We don't need a scientist running NASA any more than Scripps needs an engineer running it.

But most importantly, we don't want an engineer either. Engineers, like Mike Griffin, want to build things and see if they work. That's OK for a hobby shop, but not when your spending billions of the taxpayers hard earned revenue.

@sc220:
tell that to Paulson and the Fed, but not to someone who might want to actually build something that works; a little carte blanche for someone who knows how to conduct experimental processes in order to get real answers would be refreshing, as well as quite effective.

By the way, you're significantly in error, the description should be that the good engineers "want to build things, and MAKE them work"

...the description should be that the good engineers "want to build things, and MAKE them work"

Yes, but if no one cares much about it, then what good is it? The person in charge needs to set a cogent, relevant direction, not an expert at just building cool stuff and making it work.

However, your comment about conducting experimental processes in order to get real answers suggests that you do respect the scientific method after all. Scientists do this all the time.

Hope he sees the wisdom of continuing Delta 2
for science missions.

The one-of-a-kind sats need the reliability
D2 provides without the hassle of dual mission options.

D2 needs a contract for more launches to allow the
spacex and taurus 2 folks time to really "prove"
their product...this will take years.
-d

Nice Guy - Very Smart but a bit dull

Check out any of his speeches on Youtube, he is all about aurora borealis, Oceanic studies. Nasa is all about aeronautics and space in the public mind.

President Obama needs Change he can believe in at NASA by having someone to keep a tight fist on project overruns and the ability to gracefully manage the retirement of the Shuttle and the start of the next generation -- be it Ares or Direct 2.0

Dr. Alan Stern looks like the best I have seen so far - Check him out on Youtube -- he makes the New Horizon/Pluto Mission cool and interesting -- he is funny and a good communicator.

If anyone is reading this - please send it to John Podesta who is handling the new President's selections in this regard

Here is Alan Stern on YOUTUBE"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUuVtqu6k_M

@sc220:
re: "Yes, but if no one cares much about it, then what good is it? The person in charge needs to set a cogent, relevant direction, not an expert at just building cool stuff and making it work.:

Sir, I respectfully submit that the person currently in charge has set a cogent, relevant direction in order to implement a policy laid out in January 2004 by the President (which of course was the result of several months of wrangling by policy advisors to respond to the aftermath of Columbia). I don't know if he is an expert at building cool stuff - but he apparently understands the methodologies needed to build the stuff and make it work.

re: "However, your comment about conducting experimental processes in order to get real answers suggests that you do respect the scientific method after all. Scientists do this all the time. "

I respectfully do not understand your comment. Engineers subscribe to the scientific method just as much as we scientists do. In fact the most effective people in all walks of life employ it.

Born in 1939. This is a bit old as far as I am concerned.

Can many of the posters here be so daft as to believe that the engineering experience of a NASA Administrator counts much in his or her ability to lead the organization? Many of the largest technology firms have CEOs whose engineering background and record of engineering accomplishment is much thinner than their business administration background and management accomplishment. You sure do need people who know how to build stuff and make it work, but (in the case of NASA) you certainly don't need those people trying to explain why they're doing it to the public or to Congress. James Webb was not an engineer and his success in guiding the agency as it met what has been it's most significant challenge is legendary.

OK, if I want someone to fix my car, I want someone who knows how to fix cars. But this is different.

You need a smart, technically and politically and policy savvy person, who can inspire and motivate, and who has a passion for space. With respect to space exploration, it's more than about getting there. A lot more. Give me an engineer, scientist, or business leader with those qualities, and I think we'd do quite well.

This choice is too good to be true. This guy is head and shoulders above all of the other mentiioned candidates. He is not only an expert on Earth Science, he is a genious with space physics. He knows launch vehicles, spacecraft, and just about everything with space exploration. Most importantly, he has commonsense,which is not very common.

"billions of the taxpayer's hard-earned revenue"?

sigh. 6/10 of 1% of the Federal Budget, folks. The PAYROLL of the Fed Employees "watching" government property (Bureau of Land Management, DLA, Parks, Forestry, etc) is bigger than that. As a gross example, ever drive across Kansas or Wyoming? How many Federal Employees does it take to keep an eye on that valuable turf? Answer: more than we are willing to spend on exploration and inspiration. Twitter about that for a while!

Here's a comment I made at Space Politics in a discussion about Kennel, science, and commercial space:

"Let’s assume Kennel would want a big push towards Earth observations and science at NASA. That seems to be a foregone conclusion anyway given Obama’s space policy document and non-space policies.

It seems to me that such a push would be more likely to be beneficial to commercial space than the Constellation/ESAS answer to the VSE call, anyway. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it would definitely help commercial space, since there are all sorts of clever ways to drain useful characteristics out of a program. However, there are a lot of opportunities for economic usefulness that would be hard to miss.

If the push happens at the low end (inexpensive missions), it could involve lots of NASA use of commercial suborbital missions, small satellites, and small orbital launchers. That’s where a lot of the entrepreneurial innovation is in commercial space now.

If it happens in the traditional class of Earth observation missions, there are opportunities for hosted payloads on commercial satellites, as well as commercial business for traditional launches and satellites (EELVs, Falcon 9’s, etc).

If it happens at the high end, it could involve a new mission for astronauts - servicing of new types of Earth observation satellites in preparation of similar efforts beyond LEO. This could be good for COTS D type launches, Bigelow stations, and new commercial infrastructure like tugs and propellant depots (plus the commercial launches to fill those depots). I could imagine such a path being chosen if the VSE is cancelled outright (which I don’t advocate - I like the VSE, just not NASA’s current way of trying to achieve it). Fortunately it would build the infrastructure that would make exploration more achievable and affordable later.

However it happens, there are also business opportunities adding value to the data like AccuWeather or any number of similiar businesses.

This type of program also strikes me as being easier to perform than the Constellation VSE approach in a way that’s useful to national security (same type of launchers and satellites the military and intelligence agencies use), international cooperation (hosting instruments across countries is done all the time) and of course science - the other central VSE goals.

It also seems easier to do in a sustainable, cost-effective way (the individual missions should be cheaper and smaller with no need for a vulnerable critical path). Results should be returned much faster than with Constellation. With lots of Earth science academic disciplines involved, as well as the engineering disciplines to do the launches, build the satellites, and processing and analyze the data, there are lots of opportunities for educational involvement, too. Finally, companies like the value-added ones as well as DigitalGlobe and GeoEye show that this type of work can be commercialized to allow NASA to move on to the next thing. When the data isn’t marketable, NOAA and USGS can make the successful NASA research missions operational, again allowing NASA to push ahead.

I don’t know Kennel’s position on commercial space, but it would take really thick blinders to miss all of these opportunities.

Anyway, his resume seems to be a lot broader than just Earth science."

I'll also add part of a comment from "anonymous.space":

"I wouldn’t be nearly so quick to dismiss Kennel in particular or scientists in general in the NASA Administrator slot.

For eight years (1998-2006), Kennel was the director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, a sizable and largely privately funded (although affiliated with the UCSD) ocean exploration institute that fields its own fleet of four seagoing ships plus a stationary platform. I know little about Scripps or ocean exploration, but Kennel has run a human exploration organization that is probably orders of magnitude more efficient and effective than NASA’s human space flight program.

That’s no guarantee that Kennel will bring any lessons from Scripps to NASA, but as Mr. Muncy notes, there’s probably a greater chance for reform and innovation under someone with Kennel’s background than an Administrator who is primarily interested in playing Apollo-era systems engineer.

Here’s links to Scripps and their fleet (add http://):

http://www.sio.ucsd.edu/
shipsked.ucsd.edu/"

Nice Guy - Very Smart but a bit dull

Check out any of his speeches on Youtube, he is all about aurora borealis, Oceanic studies. Nasa is all about aeronautics and space in the public mind.

Last I heard, NASA saw itself as the "exploration agency", investigating things that seem mysterious in a vast unexplored medium. That's aimed squarely at the public mind, and Kennel indeed seems be capturing that hunger. That's a bit different than an Administrator who is singlemindedly focused on space transportation architecture. No, the public mind about NASA isn't focused on "rockets", though self-styled "engineers" may well see it that way.

Funny? You want someone who is funny? Well, if Al Franken doesn't get confirmed, you can suggest that we get him for NASA Administrator.

I Grant you Charles Kennel is a great scientist, however the role of NASA administrator has to be not only scientific but also a cheerleader, an effective lobbyist and a political operator working with both republicans and democrats.

He or she especially need to have enthusiasm and be charismatic and exciting!!!!!!!!!!! Thats what we have been missing.

I would suggest that Dr. ALAN STERN is much more of all the above, plus the guy has integrity...when he tried to stop cost overruns and was overruled he resigned! What a concept!

The NASA program needs to focus on THE FRONTIER! Astronauts must continue to be PIONEERS...

We need a Nuclear thurster Capability for deep space like the Cancelled Project Prometheus offered,or at least RTG's (Radioactive Thermal Generators) for the VASIMR thruster project. This will open up so many more opportunities, be cheaper that chemical rockets, be safer for astronauts in shorter transit times

We need a major probe launched every 3 years, lets go to Enceladus, Titan, Europa all while we build the Moon/Mars capability.

The project Bill Stone presented at the TED conference for an ocean probe to Titan was the most exciting idea I have seen since president Kennedy speech to go to the moon. This project is now called DEPTHX.

TED SPEECH
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bill_stone_explores_the_earth_and_space.html

DEPTHX PAGE
http://www.stoneaerospace.com/products-pages/products-DEPTHX.php

Brian Koester

Those of you that wished Griffin to be replaced. You should be careful what you wished for. An earth scientist does not seem like a great choice if your objective is to get to the moon.

As far as the possibility of having Alan Stern head NASA. My biggest concern would be that he may not be much of a team player. Resigning over a trivial issue and not being able to follow directions suggests that he cannot head NASA.

@yg1968
I respectfully disagree with your comments about Dr. Alan Stern resigning over a "trivial issue"...

While I was not there, as I understand it he was trying to proactively deal with JPL'S or rather the MSL's (Mars Science Laboratory} getting way over budget and holding the line on the MER'S (Spirit & Opportunity).

We can see that since he resigned what has occured, the mission has been delayed and is costing way way more... Now I am sure that the MSL is a complicated and worthy project but at what cost? We need to ask what other Space Science projects are being eliminated or pushed back because there isn't enough money.

While "Faster Better Cheaper" (FBC) wasn't perfect under Admin Dan Goldin, it achieved some successes and it's philosophy should be remembered given the present economic times and the likelyhood that the NASA Budget will stay at current levels (with inflation protection built-in). New Horizons/Pluto is a good example how a budget and a deadline came together under Dr. Stern as the Principal Investigator and was conveived and executed in the FBC times.

As for being a Team Player, I would point out that he was the leader of the Southwest Research Institute's Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences group for 3 years and
1998 to 2005 he was the Director of the Department of Space Studies at Southwest Research Institute.

Check Dr. Alan Stern for a cool talk on New Horizons out on youtube@

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUuVtqu6k_M

The fact is that I actually like Alain Stern. He is an interesting guy. But the way that he resigned troubles me and his kiss-and-tell article in the New York Times also bothers me.

I might be mistaken but I was under the impression that he wanted to cancel the current Mars rovers mission without getting Griffin's approval. I have read this in some other posts but I don't know exactly what happenned.