Yet Another NASA Town Hall
NASA Invites Media to Discuss Future of NASA
“NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and other senior agency leaders will host an employee town hall for all civil servant and contractor employees at noon EDT, Tuesday, Sept. 21, to provide updates about the agency’s human spaceflight programs, projects, and activities to the workforce. The town hall will air live on NASA Television, the NASA app, the agency’s website, and multiple agency social media platforms. Media are invited to a follow-on teleconference at 2:30 p.m. with audio streaming live online.”
Keith’s note: You can expect non-answers to the whole imaginary SLS launch schedule and also what the latest faith-based plan Senator Administrator Bill Nelson has to snag billions of infrastructure money for NASA to keep Artemis afloat – a plan which has so far failed.
Ugh he is just not an inspiring speaker/boss compared to bridenstine.
Another reorg to shuffle the cards in the deck yet still playing the same game and wondering why they always bust. Sure boots on the moon 2024 was aspirational but I feel like all the urgency and wind has gone out of the collective agency sails and we are back sliding to meh whenever we get there is fine.
Remember when it was reported Trump was serious about a 2024 Moon landing? It may have been aspirational but the NASA response was anything but enthusiastical. That’s how I view NASA these days: not sincerely motivated enough to leave the relative safety of low earth orbit.
I’m sure someone here will tell me about Artemis and that big rocket being assembled at KSC. But I’m unsure anyone really knows what the motivation is beyond providing and securing job opportunities.
Well it seems Kathy was believing in going beyond earth orbit with commercial companies, so her duties have been pared back.
“That’s how I view NASA these days: not sincerely motivated enough to leave the relative safety of low earth orbit.”
Very well said. I see NASA not motivated for any objective. It’s been that way for many years. No fire in the belly anymore.
Not to worry. As soon as the EPA gets through with the EIS for Spaceship/Boca Chica, (if ever), we’ll get on track again. Wonder if there will be a market for scrapped SLS and boosters?
If he were still alive, I suspect Victor Lustig could come up with an idea about selling scrapped SLS components. (If you’ve never heard of him, Lustig was a famous, early twentieth century con man. One of his most famous scams was to sell the Eiffel Tower. Sort of. He pretended to be a government official and convinced some demolition and scrap metal company executives that the French government would have to tear down the Eiffel Tower. He then got them to “bribe” him, as the “official” who would issue the contracts, to award their company the job. I’m sure Mr. Lustig could find a way to turn the SLS disaster into money in his own pocket, if he were alive today.)
NASA would have done well to ween itself from operations in human spaceflight and to re-focus on R&D. The Science organization ought to focus on science and exploration. As last week’s Inspiration mission showed, NASA just slows things down (to a crawl). There are a few too many astronauts at the top and their focus, as always, is on operations. And ISS has operations people in the lead, and too many people focused on operations and logistics. The undue focus on operations detracts from development. They’d be best to re-organize to how it was prior to the Shuttle ops era starting around 1982, and particularly once they got into STSOC in 1986. In fact they ought to get away from NASA CS performing operations functions at all.
But if NASA gets people killed, they are hauled in front of Congress. if Elon gets someone killed, he isn’t.
If NASA gets people killed, they lament the fact for a short time, no one is fired, no one takes the blame, they do not fix the problem and they just run scared that they might do it again. In fact someone on this thread said NASA was not too enthusiastic about a 2024 moon landing date. NASA is not even enthusiastic about launching anyone into space any longer. A few years ago, after years of wasted effort and a failed initial design when the Node tin-canned, NASA found it easier to enlist ESA and the Italians to build future ‘US’ pieces of ISS. Its easier and less risky to pay someone else and just stick your own emblem on it. NASA just acts like they have some role but you notice their budget keeps going up, the number of their people keeps increasing. If Space X were to kill anyone you could be sure that they would take action to correct the problem since it is a matter of business survival and profit.
I suspect if a SpaceX rocket has a fatal failure, Elon would end up talking to Congress, because it will be big news and Congress-people want to get on TV.
But here’s the big difference: if NASA gets people killed, I really don’t see NASA being represented in Civil or Criminal Court.
How sad we’ve all become.
The Republicans have faith-based disdain for science.
The Democrats have faith-based belief in SLS.
Pretty sure the biggest SLS supporters are republican from Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi
As Keith points out so far Artemis is a failed plan. Orion and SLS are unlikely to fly this year. SLS is unsupportable for more than a flight or 2 . Gateway is nonsense. They do not have enough reason to keep a low Earth orbit station busy and you can afford to reach it. No one can afford to reach Gateway. None of it makes sense with a Space X Starship close to flight.
Dividing your forces so that half or more focus on operations that are unlikely to ever happen makes zero sense. Maybe the secret goal is to group all of operations together and then spin them off into a commercial firm that will go belly up with lack of work??
why do I see “Max Headroom” ?
I think referring to Adminstrator Nelson’s plan as faith-based is off the mark. Faith-based organizations often achieve positive substantial accomplishments.
Fantasy- or transparency-PPT-slide-based (they are so often the same) might be a more accurate characterization.
What could possibly justify this strange NASA reorganization, in the midst of multiple NASA problems with Project Artemis?
I think it is the last stand for the SLS. Nelson is going down swinging, defending his SLS baby to the last, refusing to see what a drag on NASA that SLS now is .
With this NASA reorganization, Nelson is walling off the SLS/Orion crisis from any potential competition from the successful Dragon and the already operational Falcon Heavy.
How bad could it get? Full speed ahead for the block 1B SLS. I won’t be surprised if the new Exploration directorate plans to reduce lunar cargo delivery by the cheap Falcon Heavy and switch to co-manifested cargo with the expensive SLS block 1B.
For God’s sake, bring back Bridenstine!
Nelson’s nothing but an old space puppet!
It is painfully obvious to everyone (outside of NASA – and probably many in NASA who keep their mouths shut) that there is no way Artemis will get to the Moon by 2024, and I suspect we’ll be looking at mid to late 2020s at best. SLS is a huge part of the problem – but so is lack of NASA leadership post-Bridenstine. It’s apathy – no drive, no vision, no determination. Just keep taking a taxpayer funded jobs program going, and actual space exploration is a distant second priority.
Sad…
So, press on Elon Musk – get us to the Moon BEFORE NASA. I’d totally support such a move, as it would be a huge kick in the arse for NASA who have wasted all the momentum gained in the past few years. That might get them sufficiently shaken up as to get them actually to do something.