Bridenstine Takes On Entrenched NASA Death Star Management
Message from the NASA Administrator: NASA Strategic Alignment, NASA
“There continues to be a requirement for greater coordination in the Agency to ensure alignment with the Office of the Administrator given the increasingly diverse and growing interests and capabilities in space and aeronautics, and in light of the President’s major exploration campaign. Last November, I named Tom Cremins as the Associate Administrator for Strategic Engagement and Assessments to put a greater focus around these technical areas, as well as continue to support me in defining and setting Agency strategy and plans. We have now determined that a Federated Board, working closely with Tom, and led by the relevant deputy associate administrators in the Human Exploration and Operations, Science, and Space Technology mission directorates, will add to these efforts. The Board will ensure Agency alignment and coordination with my strategic direction and help to define and implement Agency priorities. The Board leverages mission directorate staff and support from Agency support offices as needed for Board discussions and coordination. I have asked the associate administrators and the center directors for their full support in making the Federated Board successful in their efforts to ensure strategic alignment across the Agency.”
Another layer of high-level bureaucracy.
Just what NASA needed.
Yes a new committee is just what is NOT needed. This is another committee in charge of increasing efficiency. Another layer of review to see why things are so slow.
The Empire will strike back.
If this demolishes the fiefdoms, kills the pet projects, aligns the workforce across the agency to the boots on the moon then I think it could be good for agency. Getting science, robotics, and human spaceflight all on the same page will be a bit effort but worth it.
It would certainly be a first.
And meanwhile, while everyone is watching the Old Space bureaucrats from around the world in Washington making speeches, down Texas way, a Huge Roar was heard on the McGregor Test Range for almost a minute. SpaceX never slows down when it’s on a quest. Yes, the gorilla is waking up and soon this new save NASA scheme will look about as important as the deck chairs being rearranged on the Titanic.
In instances like this I find awkward congruity with the worldview of Dr. M and others hereabouts regarding the efficacy of government: on what universe is adding another layer helpful?
(Aside perhaps from coordinating web sites?)
But: to put it lightly, the Administrator is in a tight spot, with every internet schmo, every Congressional schmo, and everyone else* feeling they can do a better job, usually based on a couple of policy arenas while the Administrator has all in his portfolio. I’d find myself increasingly irritable and headed for a desert island.
I’d want to keep the shirts, though.
* I should mention that I can do a better job.
Remember, government’s role is not to be efficient, but to be in control. The two tend to be incompatible which is why governments tend to acquire more levels of bureaucracy with time, layers like the one Administrator Bridenstine is battling against.
Meanwhile in more SpaceX news Elon Musk is now using Starlink for his tweets while the Boca Chica facility survived a thunderstorm with winds clocked at 88 mph that knocked out power on South Padre Island. The storm appears to have not slowed down workers who are continuing to prepare Starship Mk1 for its first flight.
…with their power backed up by Tesla batteries.
Disclaimer: Yes, I am invested in a small amount of Tesla stock.
Bridenstine is praying the old prayer: grant me the serenity to accept the Godlike Power of Senator Shelby, courage to fix the internal NASA stuff I can actually affect, and the wisdom to avoid hypertension and a possible psychotic break in the meantime.
Until an Administrator is willing to go against the grain and talk reality to power… I do not see a change
You are making assumptions here, Vlad, assumptions not likely true. Guys like the Administrator are not weak individuals, easily pushed about. I don’t know him, but I’d guess he has no trouble speaking ‘truth to power’, as they say. And that he knows not to talk dirt in public.
Also, unlike other Administrators, he does have the option of returning to Congress, or running for the Senate, after his job at NASA is over, with increased insight of the needs of NASA.
Stomp them thar swamp ‘gaters!
Speculating, Bridenstine might be realizing he’s in the short term vs. long term trap. In his memo he uses the words long-term, out-year, integration, architecture, planning. This as he grapples with a spaceflight organization that for the last 10 years, Constellation having been thrown into defense-mode having demonstrated an inability to plan and implement, decided that the best strategy was none at all. The only NASA spaceflight focus these last 10 years under Gerst, if there can be said to be a focus or plan, has been to live to fight another day. Now some troublesome congressional representatives want a long term, comprehensive budget for the whole thing to get to the Moon, and to sustain it after. This in a spaceflight organization where Gerst famously said he would not provide long term cost estimates – because he was not required to (re. the Ars / Berger article). Well guess what – now you are being required to.
Oh and with a wrinkle, most all the people who might have called BS on whatever numbers do roll out were summarily executed by Gerst during the last decade too. Gerst probably read something once about Cortes burning ships, so a decision was irreversible.
And so – the trap. Avoid long term numbers and you open a door to never get all the funding you might need, when you need it, or at the least you disconnect efforts and funding to a point they never accomplish anything together at all. Pursue long term thinking and you might find the only answers that match objectives are the one’s you don’t want to hear, and the organizations below don’t want said, like eliminating SLS and Orion.
Also called Get Your Foot In The Door. I see other consultants doing this frequently: answer a proposal in a crafty way, leaving pieces out that, as an experienced professional you know damn well will be required at some point.
I learned this lesson the hard way many years ago. Having client’s interest in front, I’d quote services not in the proposal. Bad idea.
At least in proposals for research grants, that sort of thing can get you in trouble. If one of the reviewers noticed that you glossed over a potential problem or a necessary step, that can ruin your chances of getting funding. In some ways, it can be better to mention those problems, even if you don’t have a good solution and have to be vague about it. That at least avoids criticisms about things “they didn’t even think about…”
In the aerospace biz we call it Getting Well In The Outyears – quote a price to get a program started and then add required things later when it is too far along to kill. At first you lose money on a contract but you make it up later – sustaining engineering can be very profitable.