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Transition

NASA Transition Update

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 16, 2016
Filed under ,
NASA Transition Update

NASA Internal Memo: Update on the Presidential Transition, NASA
“As many of you know, we are ready to support the presidential transition activities. NASA has a team and a process in place to ensure a smooth transition of our agency. Tom Cremins, NASA Transition Official, and Jolene Meidinger, NASA Transition Coordinator, have been leading the NASA Transition Team (NTT) in their readiness to provide the incoming administration with the information it needs about NASA’s important work. The President-Elect Transition Team (PETT) has indicated that NASA will not be receiving an Agency Review Team (ART) at this time. NASA, as all federal agencies, stands ready to support the PETT at a future date.”
Why hasn’t Trump’s transition team called the Pentagon?, CNN
“Election Day was eight days ago, but Donald Trump’s transition team has yet to contact the Pentagon, State Department or other federal agencies. And a move to purge some transition advisers and employees has further slowed the process of getting the incoming administration off the blocks … Trump’s team will announce the first teams — for the Justice Department and national security agencies — Thursday, RNC spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Wednesday night. Economic and domestic policy teams will be announced next week. But it was not immediately when those officials will actually arrive at agencies in Washington. The White House was still waiting Wednesday night on names from the transition of the individuals who will form the landing teams.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

17 responses to “NASA Transition Update”

  1. Granit says:
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    I suspect the reports of civil are about as accurate as the polls….

  2. Brian_M2525 says:
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    Trump seems to be wanting meaningful, positive change. In the space program, you might think he would want a plan to get is to a goal. Moon or Mars? Throwaway or maintainable? Sortie, trans lunar or planetary first, or just landers and permanent habs on the surface? Or maybe redundant returm capsules CST, Dragon and Orion? Some of these might make sense. Some of these do not. Too bad there does not seem to be anyone at NASA to map out a meaningful plan.

    • muomega0 says:
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      http://spaceref.com/commerc

      Stage at L2. Deep Space Voyager demonstrates crew and hardware gradually demonstrate crew and hardware can function in the proper environment prior to the long duration trips to Mars and beyond, science missions test long duration in space transportation system, asteroids explored for outstanding potential for ISRU, all with within budget.

      Launch vehicle independent architecture, in space refueling enables reuse as stated in the VSE, high flight rate with relatively low cost payload in common configurations seen as a reliability growth benefit, depot reuse can minimize launch risk due to a single launch supporting multiple missions, significant IP participation reduces the launch costs and new markets. Flexible path filled with significant in space demonstrations.

      Only the ‘new leadership’ could ruin such a well thought-out plan that’s flexible and challenging and enables new markets.

      • Brian_M2525 says:
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        I agree. If it were not so expensive and launched so infrequently, SLS is great. But if it is only launched every 2 or 3 years and with a per launch cost of multiple billions$$, does not make sense.

        Orion-sorry with constraints on spending, we do not need yet another (#4) capsule eating up billions of $$ every year; in addition to Soyuz, Dragon and CST, not to mention once its flying in five years, the DreamCatcher makes much more sense for humans who have been in space long term. Another negative aspect of Orion is that its use for lunar or planetary missions implies you are going to throw away the habitat/trans planetary vehicle every time, and that is just stupid. There is a starting point today of developed and tested systems and people on ISS for the modules, power, environmental control, data management…everything needed for a long duration lunar or planetary vehicle, and its all modular so you can upgrade pieces as needed-with constraints on spending why would you throw that all away and start over?

        You take the necessary parts and create a sortie vehicle which includes the propulsion, the hab, and which can serve as a test-bed for cruising cis-lunar space, going to the moon, eventually to the planets. You design it to come back to earth orbit for refueling, refurbishment and upgrades. You use one of the existing Earth to orbit vehicles for crew change-out and logistics. Then you can refocus energy and dollars on a lander for the moon and eventually on lunar base elements. The vision is actually very clear. The strategy makes sense. You don’t have to lay off the workforce or shut down the existing contracts that are so nicely distributed all over the US.

        I fault the NASA management since 2006; it has been clueless.

  3. Saturn1300 says:
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    Heard anything he will select a Dem. like Obama did a Republican? If not I would like to see Griffen. He thought up Ares-1, so he must like SRM, my favorite.

    • Bob Mahoney says:
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      Griffin thought up Ares I? Don’t think so. See https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archi

      In fact, I distinctly recall, in 1995 at JSC, one of the astronauts discussing (and sketching…it may even have been on a napkin during down-time between simulator runs) the very idea of a liquid stage atop an SRB as a ‘cheap’ means of launching crew.

      • Saturn1300 says:
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        Thanks. Interesting. None of the liquids they wanted to put on was cheap, by anyone. OATK will use a segment for the 2nd stage on the Dark Knight. They are saying they can launch anything USAF wants and at a lower price than anyone else is offering. At only a 10% saving with the SpaceX system they might be correct with a throwaway system. A glide back system may be more cost effective. Keith this was a reply, not exactly on the subject. Is it OK or should I delete it? I do not know what to write and afraid I will be banned.

  4. Richard Brezinski says:
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    I think Trump would be wise to emulate Ronald Reagan’s management approach. Reagan formed a series of Presidential Cabinet sub-councils. They were usually composed of individuals with expertise, sometimes with competing philosophies. Different, and sometimes the same subjects were debated by the different sub-councils in order to establish competing opinions and argue resolutions. Any one subject area, such as NASA’s human space program, could often fall under multiple councils, such as Security/Defense, Economy, and Science/Technology. Reagan usually observed Council debates but would not take sides. If Councils came to an agreed upon recommendations, Reagan usually abided by them. If councils could not come to agreement, on relatively infrequent occasions Reagan would make the decision.

  5. ThomasLMatula says:
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    It would appear this news story might provide an explanation.

    http://townhall.com/tipshee

    “After signing a memorandum of understanding Tuesday evening officially putting him in charge of the transition, one of his first moves was to purge the team of lobbyists.”

    It looks like the reset button has been set on the transition.

  6. John Thomas says:
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    Like what happened when Obama became president.

    • Charles Dickson says:
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      Only without the rejections of more qualified, interested candidates by Congress first.

      • John Thomas says:
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        What NASA administrators did Obama submit that were rejected? My recollection was Bolden was the first submitted by Bolden and not until May, 2009.

  7. John Thomas says:
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    It would be interesting to compare this transition team timeline to Obama’s.

    • Paul451 says:
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      It’s not exactly hard to find.

      Obama put together his transition team during the campaign. Obama’s head of transition (Podesta) named Obama’s full transition team on November 5th, one day after the 2008 election.

      Direct comparison: http://qz.com/839947/how-fa

  8. Brian_M2525 says:
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    NASA’s ‘progress’ or lack thereof has been dominated by bureaucratic inertia at least for the last 7 years, and if you discount all the cancelled programs or programs that have resulted in nothing, really goes back to Columbia, at least. So Trump not having a team in place the first week, or the first month, or even the first year, will mean nothing. NASA will simply stay on that path to Mars; you remember it, the unfunded, unplanned one, which ought to get us to Mars sometime after 2100.

  9. Donald Barker says:
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    Why are people so surprised about all this given the last year of campaign operations insight and history in general. We “deserve” what we got and get.