Keith’s note: Notes from Today’s press event with NASA Administrator Bridenstine:
– The decision to reassign Bill Gerstenmaier and others was made by Jim Bridenstine. He did not consult the President or Vice President about this personnel issue.
– the decision to replace Gerstenmaier et al was the result of a need fo rnew leadership at HEOMD.
– Gerstenmaier is to be congratulated for helping to keep human space programs alive at NASA during times when human spaceflight was not exactly a priority
– Bridenstine does not. know of there will be a commercial crew flight in 2019
– Bridenstine expects that the cost of landing Americans on the Moon by 2024 will cost less than $20 billion due, in part to commercial participation and advanced technology
– NASA has a diverse workforce including the astronaut corps and it will continue to diversify.
– Artemis will land the next two Americans on the Moon and the first one to set for will be a female NASA astronaut
– NASA has not decided whether or not to do a Green Run test of the SLS before it is launched.
– Bridenstine needs to put permanent people in place at HEOMD before making some important decisions
– When asked about education and public outreach and inspiring the next generation Bridenstine said “the best thing we can do is stunning achievements. What are we doing today that will have a stunning outcome such that 50 years from today people will be celebrating it.”
– With regard to destinations and priorities Bridenstine said “Mars is that generational achievement that we are working toward. Going to the Moon to learn how to live on another world”
– When asked if Boeing will be held accountable for SLS delays and cost overruns Bridenstine said “they do or do not get compensation based on milestones. You will see in their award fee that we are not satisfied with their performance.”

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

13 replies on “Today's Media Telecon With Bridenstine”

  1. The real question is how long a hit list does bowersox have. Since he is only acting head of heomd I assume that is so he can be the hatchet man to remove other managers such as SLS, Orion, EGSE and maybe a few center directors as well. The need for new leadership to achieve a 2024 landing should not end with just Gerst and Hill as the issues go far deeper.

        1. The current crop of managers have been hamstrung by politics and Congress. Just like the last crop have been.

          I would submit that the Apollo guys prior to Apollo 11 were that last set of upper managers not hamstrung by politics and ever changing mission priorities.

    2. Having been through many purges – very few managers will purge the predecessor’s team unless they have a short list of people that they would like to move up. In the military many people “hitched their wagon to a star” and as the General moved up they took their team with them. ‘

      Who is riding on Bridenstine’s coat tails?

  2. Sadly, today we often see people react NOT to what a person says, but to counter what other people have said in other forums. So I carefully consider what I say in this and other forums.

    It is very patronizing to have already decided that the first person to walk on the Moon next will be a woman. It is pandering. I have been fortunate to have worked very closely with a number of female astronauts – Rhea Seddon, Shannon Lucid, etc – and have worked with a number of other female astronauts. We all know that they do NOT need a head start, they can compete with the best.

    When a crew next lands on the Moon – there will be a determination about who is first out the door. Maybe it would be the person sitting closest to the door! Maybe the Commander, maybe the crew will decide among themselves? But to have already determined (well before the mission is anywhere near in planning or training) about which person will go out the door first is a challenge to who ever is to be on that crew. We are sure not giving them and their training team and the layout of the cabin any “say” in the decision.

    One thing we can be pretty sure of – Bridenstine will likely NOT be NASA Administrator by then. Any pronouncements that he makes today will likely have been forgotten.

    Many times we have seen astronauts take command and tell the ground what is going to happen – this is to be celebrated.

    1. Meh. The US already had 12 white men walk on the moon 50 years ago. I’m perfectly fine with diversifying this time around. The fact is that there are so few astronaut jobs and so many overqualified applicants that pretty much any NASA astronaut would be up to the task, IMHO.

      As Homer Hickam said in another tread on the topic:

      I don’t care a bit who the next professional astronauts are on the moon. I care who the next plumber, electrician, construction worker, and stonemason are. Only when our blue collar workers start going there to work and get a paycheck will space travel mean much to the taxpayers other than golly, gee whiz stuff that doesn’t mean that much.

      I agree with Homer HIckam that we need to get past the point where astronaut is some elite job and everything they do ends up “in the history books” as a “first”. That will do away with discussions just like this. When upper management no longer cares who goes out the door first, this issue will cease to exist.

      1. What is the effect of ruling OUT certain people, or making decisions now that no team can question later? Is that going to be a directive, so that if someone later suggests that a certain person be the first out – that suggestion could be grounds for firing someone?

        This is NOT an exaggeration.

        What about the team which flies, the team that trains them, the team that writes their timeline? Can we put restrictions on them even a few (?) years before those teams are selected? How many other decisions might the Administrator or some remote management person take away from the team that flies the mission?

        This is a very slippery slope – this could lead to remote managers making a number of decisions and telling the actual team to make it work.

        What happens when every group realizes that they have not been represented – and they ask about one of their group? We will have a lot of well qualified people – will some political appointee decide (based on what?) who flies and who does not?

        This is a real discussion that we should have – the decision (and many related ones) should be delegated to the lowest, most qualified, most involved people.

      2. I agree about diversity and inclusion, and also about “firsts” and blue collar workers in space. But mandating a female astronaut is a problem. I don’t remember anyone saying Dr. Ride or Ms. Collins “just” got their flight assignments because they were women. Ms. Tereshkova has been hearing that for half of her life.

        NASA has never flown a woman in space simply because of her gender. They dropped the old (and a bit stupid) rules requiring astronauts to be military test pilots, that made women qualified, and the later classes of astronaut included women. Oblivious, one would eventually be selected for flight. But flying the first, American woman in space wasn’t a mission goal or requirement for STS-7, nor was that true of flying the first female mission commander on STS-93. If, for some reason, those women had been replaced by their backups, the missions would not have been considered failures.

        But now making sure the next person on the Moon is a woman is a politically imposed requirement for mission success. I don’t see that as healthy for diversity or inclusiveness. Could she be second out the door, like Aldrin was, if that’s what made most sense? Could she be on the second mission rather than the first, if that made the most sense on technical grounds? Why not?

        A political mandate for the gender of the first person out of the airlock on the first landing just makes gender an issue. I thought we were trying to make sure irrelevant things were not an issue.

        1. I agree that this is clear, overt, politics dictating a selection. And while I dislike politics driving a decision like this, it appears that NASA is embracing it. And no doubt it will have both positive and negative consequences for whoever gets that spot.

          That said, flight selection for astronauts has always been a murky thing, from what I’ve read over the years. I don’t doubt that behind closed doors politics does come into play when making these decisions. Unfortunately whenever people make decisions like this, bias, politics, and etc. always come into play since these are not purely objective decisions. And even when when objective criteria are used, sometimes people deliberately choose the criteria to obtain the answer they desire.

          1. Well, NASA may have embraced this decision, but that’s not going to stop me from complaining. I’ve noticed the occasional comment on NASA Watch complaining about other decisions NASA has embraced, so I won’t be doing anything unprecedented.

            You’re right about the whole process being murky and made behind closed doors. But that’s a huge problem. Objective criteria have their problems (and more than the one you mention.) A completely opaque process is much worse; it’s an open door for ever sort of discrimination and bias, both conscious and unconscious.

  3. Diverse?

    Trust me, the view from the ground is quite different. But the reason why is deeper than NASA can fix.

  4. Bridenstine already has approved reward fee for Orion/SLS performance. NASA won’t ding bad performance- just like they wouldn’t for JAmes Web Telescope. The military industrial complex will arrogantly soak the tax payers as usual. It’s simply more profitable to delay and screw up. Look at the window fiasco as just one example.

    Contractors continue to win award fees despite SLS and Orion delays
    https://spacenews.com/contr…

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