Congressional Staffer Ken Monroe Thinks That NASA Is "Run By Idiots"

The truth sometimes hurts...

Sadly, the penny pinchers are moving in and he is not alone. He just has the "gravitas" to say it out loud.

NASA needs to produce results on time and on budget, or like it or not, this line of thinking will continue to propagate.

VR
RE327

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain

God bless Mr. Monroe. Hope he has his cv up to date.

I was- and remain- a strong supporter of the President. But dammit! NASA is a screwed up mess. Mr. Monroe is so correct. There's an elephant in the room.

I don't know this guy-had never heard of him before this blog. He seems to be straight shooter and telling it the way it is. It is unfortunate that so much of what he says is accurate.

I would disagree with one thing. Obama has not helped NASA's situation at all, but problems with the NASA management started much earlier.

I believe that Monroe has hit the nail on the head!!! Finally someone gets it! I think that the head and neck of this monster that used to be an inspiring presence in our world need to be excised! Let 's get a fresh start and get on with the business of spaceflight!

I wonder if Charlie, Lori, and "Barry" follow his tweets... Sounds like he knows better about what's happening to NASA than they do...

While I agree with what he said - the real idiot is Mr. Monroe. What he has done is tantamount to political suicide.

Obama has helped NASA by shining the light of truth. It is correct NASA has been screwed for awhile. Since the 90s. There is no drive, desire, or want to. It is a jobs program right now.

Somewhere there is a proposal for a 5.6 Billion dollar telescope. Do you think for one second it would be completed on time and on budget with the current incarnation of NASA?

Intellectual honesty please.

Been saying for awhile now that NASA should downsize; I think it just may happen.

VR
RE327

Too many GOOD leaders at NASA have had the rug pulled out from under them too many times. Now they bide their time doing the best they can until retirement.

Too many leaders that are fine engineers and fine people have been elevated to management positions that they just don't have the tools for. Some know it, a lot don't. I think this article rings true to a large degree...

http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2010/07/10/nasa%E2%80%99s-new-mission-and-the-cult-of-management/

In five years, I believe NASA will look a lot different. It might be better, but the odds are slim. Congress doesn't care...only that NASA is a mechanism for transferring public funds to certain corporations and that a minimum number of jobs are there to be "saved" by the local congress member every few years.

Sure Florida should probably get a shuttle. But it should not be a socialist guarantee like Ken Monroe supports.

Is it surprising that a Republican thinker wants to skip democracy or merit to help his friends? Wait, Democrats do that too. Guess we're screwed.

Until space is the reason for NASA again, this is all a joke. What a farce.

NASA is like a dead animal tossed around in the air by birds of prey. NASA is a sickly, sickly pork barrel.

PS: If you fire people for being honest in public, what do you think happens?

Removing people who speak their mind is the same as hiring more people who lie behind your back.

I'd rather talk to Ken Monroe about how he is an idiot than never hear from the idiot who takes his job. Don't be such knee-jerk sissies. Talk is good.

Keith,

I've known Ken since 1995, when he was a congressional fellow for Rep. Dave Weldon from KSC.

Unfortunately, Ken is reflecting the general tone of many from my party in Congress: overall disgust with the President... just like many House Democrats demonstrated towards Bush43 from 2003 thru 2008.

Hell, I can barely read some of the comment streams in space blogs these days, because they devolve instantly to partisan/ideological strife. Space policy has become just another proxy for Obama vs. Palin, Pelosi vs. Boehner, etc...

When I had Ken's job until a decade ago, I was lucky enough to have the freedom to reach out to Democrats to try to build coalitions for good initiatives. In 1996 I even attended a fundraiser for George Brown, the Ranking Democrat on the committee, because I respected his passionate support for science and openness to commercial ideas.

President Obama is wrong about a lot of things, but he's still the President. And, in my view, by actually confronting the reality of Project Constellation's fiscal trajectory, the President has embraced many ideas that my party advocated as recently as Sean O'Keefe's tenure at NASA.

They are ideas that Ranking Member Hall, former Chairman Sensenbrenner, and others on the GOP side have supported frequently throughout their careers.

I once thought Ken supported them too. I guess I was wrong.

- Jim

Surprised nothing has popped up here about all the WYE's (support service contractors) getting axed off Orion.......layoffs to come.

I prefer someone that says what he thinks.

Some people here seems to prefer someone that says what they want to listen. Ah well, this is how democracy works - idiots choose idiots. Shame that we do not know any better political system.

That was a good one, I LMFAO.

I knew Ken Monroe when he was a NASA engineer out at KSC. We had/have many NASA engineers who really don't want to do engineering, they want to become "managers" or delve into politics and things like that. A certain contingent of us people who really do want to perform engineering instead of politics gain some lack of respect for these guys. I always thought it funny when he became one of those and ran off the be a political flunky. But you learn to live with it. Of course NASA is a big political agency too and has lost track of actually being an agency to develop spacecraft and launch rockets. We now develop managers and launch and then scuttle programs. We have become very good at that.

So sad to see my former agency becoming a paper rocket. The national leadership has turned it's back on our great heritage ever since the Nixon Administration.

Sounds like one of Shelby's dogs got off the leash again. Lot of pompous opinion with no greater claim to credibility than anyone else.

I'm sure he'll get a nice rub between the ears for barking at them "NASA people".

I know Ken pretty well, and like Ken I was an engineer working hardware and programs before I became a "political flunky", if that's what you want to call it. As a working level engineer it was frustrating to see how decisions were made in a vacuum and there is a genuine need for people who have "gotten their hands dirty" to help shape policy and program decisions. Having some engineers and scientists with practical experience cross over to the policy world is a very positive thing, and perhaps something we need more of. Policy and engineering need to work together. Neither can succeed without the other.

When I see people like rkoenn and Bill Adkins say what they say; it only re-enforces my belief that we need more SpaceXs and less of the current iteration of NASA.

Some of the comments here should be sent to people like the gentleman from Alabama and the gentle lady from Texas.

VR
RE327

Very well said. Much of the agency is filled with managers who have never done anything that has given them any real and practical experience. I think this describes the operations managers of Constellation very well-they were so busy negotiating political consensus they forgot they needed systems that actually did something.

"President Obama is wrong about a lot of things, but he's still the President. And, in my view, by actually confronting the reality of Project Constellation's fiscal trajectory, the President has embraced many ideas that my party advocated as recently as Sean O'Keefe's tenure at NASA. "

Thanks for your cross the aisle honesty, Jim.