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Palace Intrigue On The 9th Floor At NASA HQ

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
February 25, 2017
Filed under
Palace Intrigue On The 9th Floor At NASA HQ

Keith’s note: According to her Wikipedia page Lesa Roe “is currently serving as the Acting Deputy Administrator of NASA. Roe is also the Deputy Associate Administrator of NASA, being in role since May 2014.”. I cannot find any announcement from NASA or the White House that she was appointed to the position of Acting NASA Deputy Administrator.
The Wikipedia page was last revised to add Roe’s new position on 1 February 2017 by someone named Hosgeorges from the UK. On 22 February 2017 someone named ????? added a picture of Lesa Roe. Prior to that Roe’s Wikipedia page was last changed on 8 May 2016. This senior leadership page on NASA.gov only mentions Robert Lightfoot as Acting NASA Administrator. But this page at NASA.gov (last changed on 10 February 2017) says “Deputy Administrator: Lesa Roe (acting)”. So Hosgeorges in the UK knew about this NASA management change nearly a month ago – and NASA quietly added it to its website 2 weeks ago – but no one thought to put a memo out for the rest if us?
But wait: there’s more: This page links to a NASA Advisory Council page shows a group portrait of the NAC with former NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and refers to “Mr. Kenneth Bowersox (NAC Interim Chair)”. Yet this page mentions the NAC and says “Chair: General Lester L. Lyles (USAF, Ret.)”
On 20 January 2017 Robert Lightfoot sent out a memo “Message from the Acting Administrator of NASA” which said “As the transition progresses, we have some initial assignments from the new administration. Erik Noble has been named White House Senior Advisor at NASA. Greg Autry, who was with the Agency Review Team, has been named White House Liaison.”
According to this current NASA Organization Structure page last updated 10 February 2017 Erik Noble is now “Chief of Staff (acting)”. According to multiple sources Greg Autry told people that he would be leaving his White House Liaison position at NASA effective 17 March 2017. But he left on 23 February instead. Oddly, the page was last updated on 10 February 2017 yet made no mention of Autry despite the importance of his position at the time.
Things are starting to get a little strange when NASA makes significant agency appointments like this and does not tell anyone else – except Hosgeorges and ????? that is.

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

14 responses to “Palace Intrigue On The 9th Floor At NASA HQ”

  1. Michael Spencer says:
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    Therein lies the problem with Wikipedia: essentially unsourced edits.

    • fcrary says:
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      We try to avoid that, and flag things which should have references but don’t. It looks like NASA isn’t doing very well either. NASA tends to have multiple sites with overlapping content, and it’s no surprise that they have problems with version control. Who actually is going to remember all the pages which name the acting deputy assistant whatever and remember to update all of them when the name changes? The structure of their web sites almost guarantees self-contradiction.

  2. Natalie Clark says:
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    Perhaps Wikipedia took it off the NASA Organization Structure website. Since it’s a .gov site that seems to be reasonable for Wikipedia to state Lesa Roe as the Asistant Deputy Administrator (acting) from the website. Lester Lyles is listed as the NAC chair.
    https://www.nasa.gov/about/

    • kcowing says:
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      And NASA does not see fit to announce these things to the media or to taxpayer through normal channels?

      • Natalie Clark says:
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        The timeline is quite interesting. It is very interesting how hosgeorges and دارين knew before any publically or internal announcements. It would be illuminating to know the channels the information went through to end up on Wikipedia so quickly.

        The selections look very political and indicative of circling the wagons. From my Air Force and NASA work I’m familiar with both Lightfoot’s and Lyles circles. This doesn’t bode well for NASA.

        It certainly doesn’t help NASA morale when their own employees are among last to officially be informed who their leadership is. When I was at NASA we would read NASA watch to find out bits and pieces of what’s going on. It is very sad and strange, that NASA employees, NASA Watch, and the general tax paying public, find this out through Wikipedia first. The Wikipedia entries came from people in foreign countries who seem to be in the know.

        • kcowing says:
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          Exactly.

        • fcrary says:
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          Just out of curiosity, how hard would it be to write a script which automatically hit a web page every few hours and checked for changes? I’d expect that to be very straight-forward. Someone with a sufficiently excessive in the subject could keep amazingly current without actually being informed by anyone. Of course, the corollary is that you shouldn’t roll out the updated web content until _after_ the official announcement goes out

          • Natalie Clark says:
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            It would be easy to do. Looking at the Wikipedia hosgeorges posts he is editing lots bios of of political people, state department, U.K. Political people. In exploring Wikipedia there are people who are actively editing sites to update the new Trump president seal images, offices. So it could be someone’s job, volunteers, interested individuals updating Wikipedia after election. Many of Hosgeorges postings relate to the Trump administration positions. The other posting Arabic for Darrin is even more odd.

            This got noticed because There was no press publication or internal NASA email beforehand. Most likely someone who has information and involved for whatever reason with Wikipedia wanted to competively get it out there and get credit for posting it first. Wikipedia is neat in that the information flow is quick. Hosgeorges and Darin’s postings have not involved NASA postings before this one with Wikipedia. So it’s not a case of keen interest with NASA.I think there is some inside track of information flow here that is strange and embarrassing for NASA.

        • gelbstoff says:
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          Well, I am not getting demoralized yet. I am still very busy doing the work. So far is mostly amusement and Fremdschämen – you know, like watching singers at a karaoke bar after 2:00 am.

          G.