Ed Weiler, The Next NASA Administrator?
Editor’s update: I received this note this morning from someone very close to Ed Weiler at NASA. I stand by my reporting and the multiple, overlapping sources that I used to write it. Also, just so that everyone is clear, NASA employee private lives (as are mentioned in this note) are utterly off limits – they always have been, aways will be. I understand, however, that Dr. Weiler would like this to be known. That said, perhaps Ed Weiler will take this episode to heart as he continues to expound on who should or should not be the next Administrator of NASA – and the continuing and persistent way in which he goes about dumping on those people he does not like – in the presence of others.
“Your whole premise is wrong and must be based on sources who really don’t understand or don’t want to understand reality. Anyone who knows Weiler personally, knows that not only doesn’t he have ANY interest in the administrator’s job, he couldn’t accept the job due to very problematic issues in his family life that do not allow him to travel extensively as the administrator must.”
Editor’s update: With the election less than a month away people are beginning to jockey for position in case Mike Griffin does not stay on as NASA Administrator. Given the prevailing view among both campaign staffs and likely transition team members, the chances that Mike Griffin will be asked to stay on permanently are rather slim. Of course, things change.
That said, there are people who want his job and are mounting their own campaign to position themselves. The most prominent self-promotion effort is being mounted by SMD AA Ed Weiler.
That said, there are people who want his job and are mounting their own campaign to position themselves. The most prominent self-promotion effort is being mounted by SMD AA Ed Weiler.
The game plan as most people have pieced it together is that he gets Sen. Mikluski to promote him as a “native son” candidate to replace Griffin. In other words a Maryland coup at NASA. This scenario only has a shot if Obama wins and Mikulski is in a position to exercise her influence fully. This is less of a likely scenario if McCain wins.
One small problem: no one in either the Obama or McCain campaigns wants Weiler to get the job. That has not stopped Weiler however. Multiple sources who have witnessed Weiler in action point to his habit of denigrating other names that are floating around as possible Administrator candidates. None of these people (with one exception Scott Hubbard albeit more subtly than Weiler) are off on a self-promotion campaign as Weiler is. Indeed, most of the people Weiler is bad mouthing are annoyed that their names are being floated about since they simply do not want the job.
Given Weiler’s lack of concern about mounting costs with MSL, Webb, and the effect that these two large projects have on the rest of SMD, one has to wonder how he’d run NASA. Will he take the Wall Street route now and let things just get worse and then spring the bad news on a new Administration hoping for a bail out? Given the current CR in effect for FY 2009, statements from both Obama and McCain about budget priorities and practices, and the impact that the $700 Wall Street bail out will have on the federal budget overall, one has to wonder if this is a wise strategy.
Stay tuned.
