What Constitutes Space Leadership?

The President's plan calls for terminating the Space Shuttle, terminating the Constellation program, while continuing the space station, and not deciding to build a heavy lift vehicle until 2015.

So Bolden pretty much has nothing to do!

Stuff about going to an asteroid or to the moons of Mars in the 2020s and 2030s are so far off into the future that they're really not relevant to what Bolden can do.

Marcel F. Williams

BS.

Bolden and the current administration did what true leaders sometimes have to do - they cleaned shop after years of neglect and misrepresentation of the "program of record".

Regrettably, the Constellation Cronies (TM) decided that if their special interests are hurt, they will burn down the barn and take everything down with them, so the change is associated with disaster.

What followed was the ugliest episode ever of first painting the exploration-driven changes as "killing HSF", and then a set of personal attacks on everyone involved, culminating in that idiotic Al-Jazeera episode.

I went and watched the interview. It was completely innocent. Yeah he said "first and foremost". Since when did anyone talk about education or outreach and without saying "first and foremost"?! If for every time someone said "first and foremost" in an interview the topic in discussion would become a priority it would be quite a different world... Baloney.

So first the media does a hatchet job on Bolden making him practically toxic, and now people complain he doesn't speak in public?

How about someone look at what Bolden and the administration are trying to do? Kill the money sinks, invest in forward looking technology, invest in doing things efficiently, and aim for Mars.

I'm behind Bolden.

I would have expected more-I was going to say “decisive” but quite frankly I am not even looking for decisiveness-just more visible leadership, especially from a Marine General and Academy graduate.

The problem with lack of leadership has gone on for a long time, since well before Bolden came in.

Constellation is probably the best and most easily visible example. Despite the fact it was having serious problems, technical as well as cost and schedule, and it was all pointed out pretty thoroughly by Augustine, the NASA leadership spoke only the straight party line throughout from when the problems began, right through to Augustine. ‘Everything is great, we are on plan, we are on schedule; that is our story and we’re sticking to it no matter how unbelievable’.

Sure Obama is a bleeding heart liberal who had peculiar ideas about what he was going to do with NASA right from the start. But the Obama plan is really not completely bad. Maybe it needed some changes and shoring up, and some negotiations with Congressional leaders and those were all good things for some senior leaders to be doing. But I have not seen any signs of any of that or even of support for any of the plans. Whatever the plan needed to be, leadership should have been showing us the way.

If you take a look at the main support people Bolden has behind him, they are all meek and quiet. There appears to be no introspection. Doug Cook, AA for Exploration, was great at putting all his long-time (20 years) exploration support people into positions of authority and he promoted them all; despite the fact that mainly all they continued to do was keep on studying a Constellation on Steroid plan that was totally uninspiring and unachieveable. There was either no ability or no desire to challenge Griffin and the untenable plan. I expected more from that bunch. And Gerstenmeyer, the AA for Shuttle and Station, also quiet; absolutely no consideration of reconsideration from what all of us out here in the field can tell. The entire human space flight program is in serious jeopardy and yet there has been no discussion about alternatives. Not just alternatives, but the last year of ISS was the most exciting period of completing an assembly that had been planned for a quarter century, and yet no one said anything. What’s with the lack of communications? Did they not notice or did they forget? He didn’t seem to do anything on behalf of the people who supported him. Now a lot of people are being laid off unnecessarily. There was every reason to stretch the program out and keep Shuttle flying longer. But we heard no discussion of it.

These folks are the senior leaders. We are looking to them for more than just their technical opinions on external tanks or solid rocket motors.

If these are the best NASA has, then we have a serious shortage of leadership.

The one senior guy who seemed to be doing a little introspective thinking about what was happening, Wayne Hale, obviously must have had no input into anything if he just left.

I cannot even imagine that in earlier generations, Webb or Seamans or Mueller, or von Braun, or Paine or Fletcher would have been so quiescent. They were all supporters. They were all cheerleaders. They were all visible leaders.

The program badly needs leadership, right now.

Perhaps the absence of Bolden is because the puppeteers at the White House are carefully planning his exit after the midterm elections. Then they give the job to Garver, who may have even been told she would get the job eventually. Time to throw Charlie under the bus and reward the solider who has done what her candidate told her to do. This would also score points with female voters, at some level, to keep them with brand Obama. And the White House and OSTP would have someone in Garver who is severely loyal and will do what she is told. Could it happen? Sure. Will it? Let's wait and see.

I generally agree with the second two comments. The end of the shuttle program was decided 6 years ago; it has nothing to do with the other current program terminations.

It is also clear that the Media did do a hatchet job on Bolden, but that it is a grave mistake to keep him from speaking.

I most strongly agree that public communication focusing on the reasons for the decisions in the administration's program is critical. Everyone in an offical capacity at NASA should be discussing it publicly and directly and almost no one in the administration is or is being allowed to. This is very puzzling. Most of the funding decisions were right, and the House version of the bill which deletes almost all of the decades-long-neglected technology programs would be disastrous if it passes.

The Administration's spokesmen need to directly tie each of the technology programs, and the 5 year delay in creating the HLV, etc. into a specfic program need and rationale. They should point out the basic reason for not continuing with solid boosters - that the cost of operating them cannot be signifcantly reduced. Reducing launch costs must be a public policy for the Administration. They are not siding with any particular company. The large companies tied to NASA have such large capital resources that they could quickly compete with any of the Newspace companies if they chose.

The Administration should also create a common description of a coherent and integrated space exploration and space development program which would emerge out of the projected technology studies, and which NASA officials could use for the basis of talks and talking points.

If the administration cannot change its program design,(getting rid of the rescue version of the Orion, opening the HLV program to a design competition, etc), and communicate effectively with the public and media, then it will have to live with whatever the micro-managers on the Hill decide to give it.

John Strickland

As a NASA employee, Bolden's lack of visibility is troubling but not surprising. He accepted the position. In doing so, he is not only the point man to sell the President's position but he is also the employees' representative to Congress and the President. Whether he embarrassed himself by speaking out of turn to al jazeera or was thrown under the bus by the Administration, as our leader, he just can't go hide under a rock. If he chose to do this, he's at fault. If the Administration told him to do this, it's at fault. Regardless, it shouldn't happen.

Lori Garver was recently at MSFC (I was not involved in the discussion) but it was reported to us that although the Administration was sorry for the confusion surrounding the rollout of the new plan, it shouldn't have surprised anyone as it fully coordinated with Congress. Judging from Congress' reaction to it, I find this statement highly suspect. Given how Obama has handled everything else thus far, it is well within the realm of believability that he wanted to dictate to Congress what was to be done. What he refuses to acknowledge, however, is that as President, he only gets to PROPOSE a direction/budget. Congress gets to write the LAWS that NASA must abide by. Congress is an equal branch of government, as defined by the Constitution, and does not answer to the President.

The problem here is one that goes far beyond NASA. The Presidency (one comprised of both parties) has made the position of Administrator moot...of all Agencies...in that there seems to be very little coordination/negotiation with Congress of what US policy should actually be. Presidents come in and believe that they are dictators...whatever they say, goes. In some cases, Congress acquiesces and does exactly what the President wants. In other cases, not so much and this is what Obama is experiencing now. Without this negotiation, there is no Administrator job from the top down. If the Administrator is not willing to push the employees' wants/desires/needs back up to a self-appointed dictator-wanna-be (and probably get fired in the process) then, again, there is no job to be done...this time, from the bottom up. Thus, until things change and people accept their proper place and responsibilities/limitations, there seems to be very little reason to have an Agency Administrator.

I agree with Crazy Ed's premise that they were doing exactly what they're supposed to w/r/t the plan.

Bolden's responsibility, from there, does involve pitching the plan. To the Congress directly, and indirectly by pitching it to everyone.

I thought the Al Jazeera interview was completely innocent. I watched it before the media fuss. I liked the interviewer because I felt he had a clear idea of what was going on and had no agenda.

But nobody in America watches Al Jazeera. They watch Fox News.

Fox News had Michio Kaku lying through his teeth; explaining that Ares 1 was a "fully tested", "done" rocket, that Obama is canceling the Shuttle and that America will have "no rocket".

They also had a wonderful bit about how the Nuclear Summit logo was a secret muslim symbol.

Recently they implied that part owner of their own company, Al-Waleed bin Talal, is secretly funding terror mosques.

Bolden needs to be on there. On Fox News. Aggress!!!

He's a US marine general. And spaceship pilot. Arguing against a big government spending boondoggle in favor of a privatization scheme. A scheme to leverage free market capitalism and give American rocket vendors a bump to help them compete against the French and Russians.

He'd be a hit.

If it played well it might even be a small boost for Obama.

Who else is going to do it?

President Obama? Even if he really, truly, cared a lot, I think he's pretty busy.

Lori Garver? For some reason she gets all the conspiratards going. Maybe because she's female. Glenn Beck would be drawing lines on a chalkboard from her name to the Illuminati and Saudi princes.

Does he secretly disagree with the plan?

If it were me, and I really thought it was a bad plan, I would say so.

I either wouldn't have taken the job, or I'd lose it by going to Congress and explaining to them "this is retarded and I am resigning".

Look at Griffin. He fought in the old Station program. He fought for Constellation. He may be "fired", but Constellation still might win because parties are fighting for it aggressively and from what I read here I don't think he's hurt for cash.

So if I were Bolden, I would figure out what I should be fighting for, and then make my case to the Congress and public aggressively.

Don't you love how the same people who cooked up the "Islam controversy" and made sure Bolden's name is mud are now crying about "Obama is throwing General Bolden under the bus". Hypocrites.

Disclaimer:
I know Charlie. I like him. He's a good guy in an impossible position, put there by politics, priorities and media not of his making,or his alteration.

If I were him (and what an impossible situation that would be) I could not support the President, and I'd make the best possible statement. Resign. Publicly, and loudly. There comes a point where your ability to influence government policy is minimal at best. I can remember when Presidents kept the NASA Admin on "speed dial" (and not always for good reasons.) The current administration has no space policy for the present day except drift. This is a result of politics, bad management internal to NASA and an appalling lack of both energy and vision translated into action and direction external to NASA. The US space program began, in part, for political reasons. It is now a victim of that same politics. There comes a point where you can do more to improve any system from "outside" it, rather than being crushed by the BS inside it. Public awareness and support for the space program outside the "community" is at a low ebb. Government officials are not doing what must be done long-term to change that. A point of diminishing return has been reached. Resignation offers a chance to get out from under, and do the job of advocacy in public that ought to be done in cabinet rooms and oval offices but shows no sign of being done, at present, or in the foreseeable future.

Such is the fate of yes-men; they just kind of evaporate. You look around and they're gone.

---John

The fundamental problem with is not with NASA, rather its with the nation. This nation does not have a goal or requirements for continuing to pursue space travel, exploration, commercialization, industrialization, etc.
Until it does the situation will continue to spin chaotically. Therefore, the government, the people need to figure out, in a coherent manner, what the objectives are. Then and only then will things have a chance of improving at NASA.

Imagine trying to build a house with little planning and vague directions. What information there is changes every few days. Carpenters, masons, plumbers, electricians are assembled and told to build. No information is given on the number of rooms, How many stories, style of architecture etc. And by the way, the budget is a moving target. Each of the individual workers performs to the best of their abilities but at the end of the project, the house is very poorly built,
disjointed and a mess.

Bolden was doing his job fine. He made a public screw up and is taking a break from the public part of the job. The Administrator of NASA probably has better things to be doing anyway.

Pretty cut and dry for me.

I agree with Crazy Eddie and RC. Bolden has been doing his job (most of which we don't see). Given how the White House and the media have treated him, I wouldn't be surprised if he resigned -- but he hasn't, he's still in there fighting.

As for the above comments about the rest of NASA, go back and read Frank's question: "If you were the Administrator of NASA."

I'm surprised that people are still arguing that Bolden should be presenting Obama's plan, or his own plan, to Congress and fighting for it. We're way past that. Congress has already made up it's mind. They've basically told Bolden and Obama to go and play, and leave this to the big boys. If Bolden were to persist in trying to make the House and Senate players change their minds, he would only be putting himself and NASA in worse shape, because Congress would become even less tolerant with him. The man is smart enough not to run himself into a brick wall.

Over the last few weeks some posters have said Bolden should be fixing NASA, and showing leadership, etc., while other insist he should be out selling NASA and it's own plans (which they're apparently not allowed to have) to government, the public and industry. Come on, there just aren't enough weeks in a day for one man to be doing all of that.

Then again, there are clear signs that he has been working on these things. Just because you don't see something in the news or the blogs every day doesn't mean he's not working at these things -- he doesn't report to the blogs, and the media doesn't really care what he's doing unless they can say something negative. I doubt very much that anyone who posts on NASA Watch has been following Bolden around day after day cataloging his activities, so we don't really know what he's been doing.

All I know for sure (although I can't prove it) is that he doesn't seem to have bailed out on us.

Steve

One thing I have to say, I watched Boldin's testimony at one of the congress' sub-committees and was appalled at the rude treatment. The committee members would spend 10 minutes making there political statements/questions and then when Gen. Bolden was answering, the committee chair would interrupt him if he took more than 15-30 seconds in his answers. Totally disrespectful!!! I don't know that I could have sat there and been as polite as he was.

As Administrator of NASA, my primary concern is that the mission of NASA utilizes the talents and skills of the NASA employees, serves the United States Citizens, cooperates with International Space Agencies, and completes the Agency's programs within the budgetary constraints and timelines.

The Obama NASA space plan's overall design provides particular opportunities and contains many flaws which have to be addressed in order for the overall plan to be realized.

The Obama plan calls for Heavy Lift Studies to be done in order to build a rocket that can leave Earth orbit. This is unnecessary since the technology to leave orbit has existed since 1967. The Apollo Missions ran from 1968 to 1975 with 5 landings on the Moon's surface. The launches were considered so routine by the Television networks that the Soap Operas and Game Shows were shown instead.

The Falcon 9 Heavy Lift version is capable of launching the Dragon capsule with 7 Astronauts and sending them on a 3 day mission to the Moon. A Lunar lander can also be launched on the same booster and rendezvous with the Dragon capsule to send a landing mission to the Moon.

The plan to utilize the Orion capsule as an emergency vehicle makes no sense at all for various reasons.
1) There is no booster rocket to launch the capsule.
2) With the Dragon , there is no need for it.

The vasimr drive should be tested in Space as soon as possible with more advanced and powerful propulsion techniques developed.

I have a stupid question.

"The Obama plan calls for Heavy Lift Studies to be done"

It calls for them "by 2015", no?

What would happen if they studies took about a year and our hypothetical super-administrator had a plan on his desk by 2012?

You're mistaken on a lot of points. With all due respect and admiration to SpaceX, the Dragon capsule in it's current planned iteration will not be capable of ferrying Astronauts to the ISS. The company has public stated that if the U.S. Government were to invest 3 Billion or so in then then they could human rate it. This doesn't make sense in-light of the progress of Orion. Furthermore, the Dragon capsule is only designed for LEO excursions not for deep space missions so even further development would be need. And why would we do that when all that good engineering is going into Orion? There's a big deadly difference in returning at interplanetary speeds than LEO speeds. If we're serious about interplanetary travel then Orion is the way to go. And if we're not, guess what, we just don't include the features we don't need and the ship is light enough to fit on one of our "commercial" though heavily-government-invested-in boosters.

"I watched Boldin's testimony at one of the congress' sub-committees and was appalled at the rude treatment. The committee members would spend 10 minutes making there political statements/questions and then when Gen. Bolden was answering, the committee chair would interrupt him if he took more than 15-30 seconds in his answers. Totally disrespectful!!!"

You seem like you haven't seen much Congressional testimony. They often do this.

The guy who came out of retirement to run AIG after it failed - for a salary of $1 a year! - was treated so badly during a hearing that he quit shortly thereafter. Can't say I blame him - you try to help, and Congress craps all over you?

Noel

He's in a strange situation now; there are, as of this writing, three different directions before him:
1. The Obama plan, which he initially promoted.
2. The House of Representatives "compromise", which is vastly contrary.
3. The US Senate compromise.

It seems appropriate that he remain low profile until there is a definite direction for him to promote, or to resign from.