Jim Bridenstine Is The Next Administrator of NASA
Keith’s 19 April update: The vote tally today is 50 to 49. Jim Bridenstine is the next administrator of NASA. Vice President Pence was present in case there was a 50/50 tie. Sen. Flake waited until the last minute to vote yes and then Sen. Duckworth cast the final vote (No) for the day. Sen. McCain was not present for voting today. When/where Bridenstine will be sworn in is not known. But there is extreme interest in having Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot to hand over the Keys to NASA to Bridenstine before Lightfoot leaves NASA on Friday.
Confirmed, 50-49: Confirmation of Exec. Cal. #609 James Bridenstine, of Oklahoma, to be Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration @NASA
— Senate Cloakroom (@SenateCloakroom) April 19, 2018
Keith’s 18 April update: This afternoon Jim Bridenstine made it through cloture. It was a nail biter for a few minutes when Sen. Flake unexpectedly voted against Bridenstine only to switch his vote a few minutes later (see tweets below). For a while things were tied 49 to 49. Vice President Pence is in Florida so he would not have been able to cast a tie breaker. But that dilemma was resolved when Flake flipped his vote. Bridenstine’s confirmation vote is now scheduled for Thursday at 1:45 pm EDT. There could still be some last minute drama, so stay tuned.
Vote Scheduled: At 1:45 pm, the Senate will vote on confirmation of Exec. Cal. #609 James Bridenstine, of Oklahoma, to be Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration @NASA
— Senate Cloakroom (@SenateCloakroom) April 18, 2018
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How did Nelson vote? I wonder if the second mobile launcher had anything to do with it?
A new nasa center in AZ?
This man is unqualified. But then crazy Donald is unqualified to be president. http://Www.robert-w-jones.com
I’d be worried but he couldn’t possibly be any worse than the last couple of Administrators. Look at it this way; today NASA has no viable human spaceflight program. ISS ends in 6 years. The only place to go is up.
Based on what criteria?
You don’t have to be an astronaut or rocket scientist to be administrator in fact some with those qualifications have been disasters in recent years. Knowing how to work the Halls of Congress worked well for James Webb (the gold standard for NASA administrator) so why not for Bridenstine?
He ain’t Jim Webb.
And NASA is not going to do an Project Apollo again so it’s good he is not 🙂
What NASA needs to do is get ready for the new world of low cost space access, including deep space access, that firms like SpaceX and Blue Origin are creating. Hopefully he will be able to wake the old agency up and put it on a new track in line with the space commerce revolution.
And to push the agency forward like that is going to take a lot of working the halls of Congress. Cause the Alabama mafia will fight change tooth and nail. He will have to sell a big change of the agency to adapt and evolve and convince the purse string holders who love their pork for centers.
Finally! I do not care much about his climate change posture. It has never been NASA’s job. What we do need is someone who will support and promote “commercial space” and slowly, but surely, dismantle the FAR Cost Plus contracting.
The federal acquisition regulations are an act of Congress. The NASA Administrator can’t dismantle them. He could find ways around some of them. Firm fixed price is also legal under FAR, you just have to follow the rules about when and why things are fixed price rather than cost plus. Of course, the NASA Administrator has some discretion about deciding which rules apply to which projects.
Nope, but he is able to get Congress to modify them if they are outdated, assuming he knows how Congress works, which the last few Administrators didn’t seem to understand.
NASA’s job should not be the commercialization of space either. If it was, it would need to making money just like any other business. Is it the job of the Forest Service to commercialize wilderness areas? No, and same with NASA. NASA’s job has morphed from a political-ego boost campaign to a legitimate if not overly bureaucratic research and technology leader in over 50 years. And now to change into a commercial hand holding baby-sitter is not sustainable nor a wise use of tax dollars. NASA has and continues to be weakened and dumbed-down and where will this trend end?
Actually that is how the U.S. Forest Service started out, to manage the woods to meet the timber needs of the nation. The recreation/environmental elements only came in after WWII as public perception of the National Forests changed and automobiles made it easy to visit them for vacations.
Maybe it is time for NASA to make a similar change, from being merely a science and engineering agency to one that opens space up for economic development.
If NASA is not able to make that transition, then the U.S. needs a new agency with the ability to work with the expanding space commerce sector in space development.
It has ALWAYS been NASA’s job .. read their mandates.
He doesn’t believe in climate change.
It does not sound to me like he has any deeply held personal beliefs on this, like most politicians he responds to the people he has to please to keep his job. Ironically in the case of NASA the actual policy is controlled more by Congress than the White House. If the House flips and the Appropriations bill says NASA will study climate change, Bridenstine is not going to argue about it. So the choice is up to us, the voters.
That’s NOAA’s job. Let NASA get back to a space based focus.
Sorry Tuna. He ain’t Jim Webb. I can think of better, non-political candidates who don’t have ties to Big Oil.
They can balance his short comings with the deputy position.
THAT, in a nutshell, is what has happened to our country. We live in the Era of Low Expectations.
Not about low expectations but letting him be the up and out administrator and the deputy be the down and in focused one. He can work capital Hill halls to push through the needed change and evolution the agency needs while deputy can align the centers to the plan. The career AA’s are the business line heads, CFO manages money, the administrator is the evangelist who gets the course from the president and space council and puts his hand on the rudder to steer the ship. Past administrators who came in with high expectations ended up micromanage the agency into a ditch or letting the agency flounder.
About time. Jim will make an awesome administrator. We want someone who can get things done. Jim can do that. The best administrator we ever had was a politician and not an engineer or scientist.
He’s not Jim Webb though. He’s a climate change denier, and has other issues.
This nonsense has to stop. Jim Bridenstine will do more to unscrew SMD than General Bolden did. We have huge problems right now with a lot of the problems specifically with project management and budget scheduling. No more blank checks.
This is what we need at NASA right now. Climate research will not stop tomorrow. Hopefully by the end of his term Bridenstine, working with congress and the president, can stop the sucking sounds coming from SMD.
Science will get done. We will learn about the heavens, and the earth, we will study our planet and other planets. The hysteria about his views on climate change will not impact NASA the way some would like, or fear, depending on your personal politics.
Bridenstine has the potential. No one is Webb… but Jim has the potential to do amazing things… better than Professor Griff and General Bolden for sure.
“No more blank checks.”
Presumably you are not just talking about SMD.
And just when did that become the litmus test for being NASA Administrator? Especially as only a small percentage of NASA’s budget is even related to Earth Observation. Talk about the tag wagging the dog (LOL)…
Besides you are neglecting that he is very interested in improving weather forecasting, which is difficult to do with gathering more data for climate researchers to use.
{laughs}
But NASA produces some of the most important data sets and analysis used to study climate change, which is very important for humanity.
The litmus test for NASA Administrator is the ability to look at science and draw appropriate conclusions.
I’d say the litmus test is the ability to listen to the consensus of the scientists who’ve been studying the issue for decades and back them up. I wouldn’t trust a climate change scientist to make medical recommendations. Why are we letting the voices of those who have not done the research themselves drown out the voices of the scientists who have?
That hasn’t seem to work well for the last 30 years. You don’t need someone spending their time playing chief science officer on the Enterprise, you need someone to get the money from Congress to build it.
You don’t need someone playing chief scientist, but you do need someone listening to the chief scientist, and not making stuff up to appease climate change deniers.
Yes and no. The NASA administrator shouldn’t be someone trying to be Mr. Spock. But he does need to evaluate the recommendations he gets from Spock-like advisors. That does require some understanding of the science and technical details. Not being an expert, but just knowing enough to understand the recommendations he receives.
They HAVE money to build the wrong hardware.
Gonna go out on a limb and suggest he will at least know enough not to stick a human on top of an SRB.
Straight party-line vote, with Duckworth (D) and McCain (R) not voting.
https://www.senate.gov/legi…
Worth noting that even if Duckworth votes (likely) and McCain does not (also likely) Bridenstine should be confirmed 50-49.
Forget Flake’s dithering – I’d guess less there than meets the eye. I want to know what brought Rubio around.
Hmm…
http://www.pogo.org/our-wor…
https://www.thedailybeast.c…
Because he claims his views on LGBT issues won’t influence his personnel decisions and despite his contradictory statements on climate change (I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt based on his recent comments), I began to think he wasn’t going to be that bad. But THEN I ran across the self-dealing. Isn’t anybody else concerned about this? I would think that, alone, should disqualify him (not to mention he almost ran the non-profit into the ground).
He’s not the only one in the current Administration who’s been accused of self-dealing when it comes to his own charity.
Yes, I know, starting with the self-dealer-in-chief. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but based on some of the discussion here I thought maybe Bridenstein was different. I guessed wrong.
So now I’m back to asking why, exactly, should this guy be confirmed to head NASA?
Because being a Congressman apparently makes you qualified to be NASA Administrator?
Actually he does have an MBA from Cornell University, which theoretically means he knows how to manage. His management experience includes being the executive director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium. He also flew the E2C Hawkeye in the United States Naval Reserve, so he has actual military pilot experience (although not in space, obviously).
Unfortunately, he’s got absolutely zero experience managing large engineering and scientific projects, which is what NASA is all about. Qualified? Hardly, IMHO. But that’s what we’re getting with this Administration. Appointments of people to lead huge government agencies yet they have absolutely zero domain knowledge and little to no management experience.
Meh, this too shall pass.
Read the articles, he was self-dealing while at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium.
Again, why should he be confirmed? The fact that he’s no worse than the rest really doesn’t do it for me.
Right now he is the best we are likely to get. If we want a better NASA Administrator, we need to bring a better Congress and a better White House. That’s up to the voters. That would be us.
Sigh….
It may be a sad state of affairs, but elections do have consequences.
Yes, I understand that elections have consequences and that this is the best we are likely to get. But that doesn’t lessen our responsibility to point out that, under “normal” circumstances (and this administration is nowhere near normal), a person who engages in self-dealing is an unacceptable candidate for NASA administrator (or any other position, for that matter). And we need to keep pointing it out, loud and long.
(His history also makes me completely question his latest comments on climate change and his pledge not to discriminate against LGBT personnel.)
I understand climate scientists at NASA are worried, but quite honestly I don’t think he will waste any time with the Earth Sciences other than trying to get them to work on improving weather forecasting assets in orbit, something he has long been an advocate of.
https://bridenstine.house.g…
Lucas-Bridenstine Weather Forecasting Bill Passes in House
Rather than attacking him maybe the NASA climate scientists should be looking for common ground on projects that will both improve weather forecasting and collect data for climate models to use.
Um, they already do that. Hopefully they will be allowed to continue. Based on Bridenstine’s lack of candor regarding his business dealings, I’ll expect the worst.
And that is exactly what is wrong in America now , so many folks expecting the worst. As Franklin Roosevelt said long ago, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.
I’ve pretty much expected the worst ever since 20 Jan 2017 and, I must say, I haven’t been surprised yet.
The classic example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you look for the worst you will see it, if you look for the best you will see it as well.
By contrast I believe in giving folks an honest chance to prove themselves in a job instead of descriminaring against them because of the beliefs or what others say about them. That used to be one of the things that made America different from Europe and why it’s was called the land of opportunity. Folks seem to forget that will all the labels they use these days.
Yeah, you’re right, what am I thinking?!! I really need to look for the bright side of a hollowed out State Department, an eviscerated EPA and, now, a self-dealer as NASA Administrartor.
(Based on the fervid support of Bridenstine on this site, I WAS willing to give him a chance and look past his discriminatory beliefs and his “uneven” comments on climate change. But now we all know he is most likely a tax fraud who lined his pockets, or more accurately tried to keep his business alive, by draining funds from a non-profit. Sorry, I just can’t look past that. And I can’t understand why a lot of people are. Do we no longer have standards anymore?)
It’s not about standards but simply about many, if not most, Americans being sick and tired of the dirt each side is throwing constantly at folks from the other party. You could go to Republican supporting websites and see the same type of allegations against Democrats. It’s why no one cares anymore about such politically driven claims by either side.
I am only interested in if he will be able to save NASA from becoming irrelevant after the Space Commerce Revolution occurs.
For example at the moment NASA is the main source of Earth Science from space. But will that still be the case when launch cost drop to $100/lb allowing environment groups and university researchers to launch the own satellites in place of the expensive ones that NASA does, ones often marked with cost over runs and schedule delays because of the size and complexity they need to have when it’s costs thousands of dollars a pound to launch them into orbit? The same type of Revolution happened in the 1870’s when expensive government research expeditions in the West were replaced by numerous professors and their grad students just buying tickets on the Transcontinental Railroad.
The documentation of his “past performance” is pretty clear and solid. I don’t consider it throwing dirt.
Surely there are other people more qualified that have the same vision for the agency that he does and you do. Note that I’m not advocating against that vision, even though it may not be the same as mine.
But this guy is the best guy for the job? Really? Really?
(You’ve really got to be kidding! People may say something else when asked about it but the public, by and large, thrive on dirt. The cable companies make a living off it right now, and their ratings are not suffering at all. And, again, the allegations against Bridenstine aren’t dirt, they are well documented. But it’s all moot at this point. He’s the administrator. All hail the savior of the agency.)
In case you didn’t notice cable companies are losing subscribers in large numbers, but the cable news channels are so busy trying to one up each other they don’t see the forest for the trees. Classic Titanic behavior.
http://variety.com/2017/tv/…
The article is based on Nielsen Ratings which are known to be inaccurate.
http://www.tvnewscheck.com/…
“The CRE evaluated two primary factors affecting the accuracy of information gathered through ratings diaries — random errors and biases due to skewed audience samplings.
Based on 11 years of Nielsen data, one study found that the margin of error in ratings derived from diaries is growing, meaning those figures are frequently off by more than 10%, long considered standard. Total-day household ratings fall within that 10% just 11.3% of the time, the study found.
The ratings in primetime fall within that range 26% of the time. Ratings for weekday evening and late newscasts fall within the range 18.1% and 20.7% of the time, respectively, the study shows.”
And this doesn’t take into account that Nielsen families often try to make themselves more informed by listing shows that “look good” rather that what they actually watch.
The industry is aware of this but looks the other way.
http://splitsider.com/2011/…
“People don’t want to think about whether to data is true or not,” continued Stelter. “But as long as we all agree to go along with them, it’s relatively comfortable for the industry.” He recalled balking at the numbers for Obama’s inauguration, which claimed just 37.8 million
people watched — fewer than watched Reagan’s three decades ago. This didn’t jibe with anything, really; personal anecdotes about how everyone seemed to have seen the speech were just anecdotes, but they were uniform and universal.”
Here is some data from a better source.
http://www.pewresearch.org/…
January 5, 2018
Fewer Americans rely on TV news; what type they watch varies by who they are
“From 2016 to 2017, the portion of Americans who often rely on local TV for their news fell 9 percentage points, from 46% to 37%. By comparison,reliance on network TV news declined from 30% to 26%. Cable TV news use
remained more stable, with 28% often getting news there last year, compared with 31% in 2016.”
But even more informative are the stories coming from advertisers on cable news shows.
https://www.bloomberg.com/n…
“It’s attributing this, partly, to a ratings decline at major cable news networks including Fox News and CNN. The lack of viewers rendered its advertising less effective, which weighed on results in the first part of 2018, the company said.”
I don’t think you’re entirely correct lower launch costs “allowing environment groups and university researchers to launch the own satellites.” At least at universities, the universities aren’t going to foot the bill. With few exceptions, they spend money from private donations or from government or corporate grants/contracts. I don’t think lower launch costs will change that, since universities currently don’t fund other sorts of low cost research.
But NASA’s role in research, given a low launch cost environment, would change. And NASA will have to adapt to that. If the costs are low enough, I would expect low cost, university built and managed spacecraft to become much more attractive. Instead of NASA building, managing and operating missions, it might make sense to issue research grants and let the recipients handle the mission.
What I expect is that researchers that “lose” in competition for limited NASA funding will start to seek donations from private groups and non-profits for their research. You are already seeing it with pseudoscience groups who have no hope of NASA funding.
https://www.huffingtonpost….
“A group of techies have turned to crowdsourcing in order to fund their idea of a UFO-hunting mini-satellite. After an unsuccessful run on the crowdsourcing website Indiegogo, their second campaign, via Kickstarter, has proven successful, and they have received the funding needed to
build and launch their mini-UFO hunting device.”
Sure this is just a cubesat that a pseudoscience group is funding, but its also a first effort. Expect them to develop better funding skills and get more sophisticated.
And what they do real researchers will be able to do better. Imagine instead of a New Horizon II going to Pluto a “Paul Allen Explorer” or a “Discovery Channel Explorer”.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind. Getting tens of millions from NASA, for a small scientific mission, involves convincing a whole bunch of people that the science is not only good, but has widespread and general interest, and/or significant public benefit. Sometimes the important science is about boring details. (Try to impress people with more-or-less identical images of clouds, taken once an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Yawn. And try to understand the Earth’s climate without that.) Try getting that same tens of millions from a rich, private patron? You just have to convince one person that it’s something he thinks is cool. It has to be the right person, but I think the sales pitch would be easier for some types of space science.
You mean like work together, build consensus? Seems that’s a lost art now.
I hope not. The inability to build a consensus has had traumatic consequences, in 1848, 1860, 1936 and many other times. I would like to think the United States’ “great experiment” can survive our current inability to come to a consensus.
Then statistically speaking we are doomed across the board. It is funny that people seem to think the future will ever improve, yet as our population goes up another 100 million over the next 35 years, all these problems will only intensify.
As will the technology that is able to solve them. Humanity has always been in a race between technology and doomsday. For the last 225 years since Thomas Malthus technology has been winning. Why so you think it will suddenly fail?
And of course they sat on the story of what happened a decade ago until yesterday just so they could influence the vote…
It really amazes me how much time the Democrats spend trying to dig up dirt on Republicans. And how much time Republicans spend looking for dirt on Democrats. No wonder so little work gets done in Washington D.C.
OK, forget the self-dealer aspect if you want (I won’t). Let’s just concentrate on the fact that he took the museum from a surplus of over $70k the year before he took over to a deficit of $300k during his first year. Quite a business acumen there, just right to run an $18 billion enterprise.
(The cause of the deficit was the money that went into propping up his business. Didn’t matter, it ended up tanking anyway. Quite a track record he brings to the job.)
(If they wanted to really jam him up they would have released the article a few days before the confirmation vote. But maybe they didn’t get enough warning. Too bad about that, I wish they had gotten enough.)
It shows a desire to take risks, which is something NASA needs right now. And NASA is run much different than a non-profit with a well qualified CFO in place now.
Risk? Not to him. He risked the future of the museum to keep his business afloat.
1 in 1 million humans is objective enough and has enough self-control over their ego and greed to keep their beliefs from influencing their thoughts and behaviors. So odds are his true nature will kick in and we all will regret it as usual.
Flake likely extracted some promise from the Senate leadership/Administration on another nomination (like Pompeo) for his vote. Unlikely he cares one way or the other about who is NASA Administrator.
I’m more than willing to give him a chance and then draw conclusions based on his performance. He has received what he wanted, let’s see how he does.
A general counter argument. You see a train wreck coming. What do you do? 1) stand back and watch and only take action, if at all, after the event happens or 2) you go help push the stalled vehicle off the tracks before the crash? You have 5 seconds to decide? Now scale this up to everything else.
The last few were train wrecks in disguise. We gave them a chance when they started why not him.
I think the current, popular option would be 3) take out your smartphone and see how many likes you get when you post the video to YouTube or something.
Seriously, if I can’t push the car off the tracks (and most people aren’t strong enough to do that by themselves), you can give up on the car and make sure no one is still inside. That’s called making the best of a bad situation.
I agree. He has a decent and honorable military career, so I’m inclined to give him a chance. His political choices have raised a few eyebrows, but he might still turn out to be a competent and capable administrator. We’ll have to see how good a job he has done by Feb 2019.
At long last.
Congratulations to the new free world space leader. New NASA’s pay less and do more in the future space exploration is coming. Best wishes to all in space.
Congratulations to Rep. Bridenstine for staying the course to become NASA Administrator. He has a lot of work ahead to restructure NASA,and its organization culture, for the new world of space commerce and low cost access to space.
Well, at least we HAVE a NASA administrator…finally! It’s a wonder white smoke wasn’t seen emanating from a chimney in the Senate chamber! I have no idea what sort of administrator he will be. Frankly, he doesn’t need to be an engineer or scientist. NASA still needs a deputy administrator, and he/she can be an engineer or scientist. That’s not an unusual way to head up a technical agency. Whatever happens, the new NASA administration needs to understand that commercial space is the coming thing, and, in spite of Congressional mandates for SLS/Orion, the little mammals are going to take over from the dinosaurs. So NASA needs to understand how to get along and utilize the commercial entrepreneurs to the best advantage in keeping America the leader in space!
Ad LEO! Ad Luna! Ad Ares! AD ASTRA!
Its just another sad sign of the times that our society can not come up with people to nominate and accept that are truly and obviously the best choice for the job and supported by an overwhelming majority vote. Continued even or near splits in the choosing of government representatives just highlights and solidifies the division in beliefs, thought processes, hopes and desires and places our culture on a fulcrum, tipping closer and closer to systemic failure.
We are living in the Era of Low Expectations.
Someone once described space weather forecasting (predicting terrestrial effects from solar activity) as a “triumph of diminishing expectations.” Along those lines, I’m confident Mr. Bridenstine will exceed expectations which are based on the performance of recent administrators.