NASA Transition Team Update
Keith’s update: I would expect that former Rep. Bob Walker is working in the background on the transition plan for NASA. You will also hear names such as Mark Albrecht mentioned for Administrator. Scott Pace and Jim Muncy should also figure prominently in this transition. More to follow.
If NASA takes it seriously, the transition report that this team compiles can be critically important. In 1960, it was the transition report that identified the potential of the moon landing goal; it became Apollo. In 1968 the transition report identified the need for a Space Shuttle. In 1980 the transition report define the next logical step to be the space station. It is usually 2-3 years from the transition to the initiation of the next big program. Does NASA have a program in mind? They seem to be trying to create some mission for Orion or SLS to do. Maybe they have not let on that there is something more out there.
Actually I do. Like I said, more to follow.
Actually, you know what some presumably well placed or informed people have told you. That’s usually good enough, but this election has been so bazaar that I wouldn’t count on anything until Wednesday morning (at the earliest.)
“Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.” Yoda.
I fear another major course change…..
If “major course change” means killing SLS/Orion, then I welcome it.
SLS/Orion are monsters we know. The question is what money eating monsters will replace them.
SLS/Orion is not going to be killed by either transition team.
Correct. The new President is going to get a lesson very quickly in the exact nature of the government he demonstrably knows so little about.
I predict massive flailing.
…. whereas I fear the lack.
f Hillary wins, probably no need for a team. They’ll stick with the same plan and people they have now. 4 more years!
Not necessarily.
In many ways this is the best part of an election: an army of people descending upon agency after agency ready to take control, hundreds of fiefdoms now belonging to someone else.
And peacefully.
But still destructive as they hit the reset button and send it in a new direction.
“Army”? Try “handful”.
A correction, then: an army in the sense that there are dozens of agencies, each with a handful.
I have a bet with a friend that the media will drag the election into Wed morning. I’m usually wrong about these things, we’ll see.
It’s not up to the media.
Seriously? The election is completely a product of a media that refuses to actually report on anything other than polling – and even then they are scurrying about trying to figure out what went wrong (hint: sign up for a statistics course sometime).
The media whipped the country into a frenzy.
So you think we’d be better off if we had stuck with CxP, had no commercial crew and were counting on the Russians until NASA launched a human rated Orion on a Ares I rocket? I don’t think most people see it that way.
“wanted to make sure there was no Kennedy like legacy attributed to Bush”
That’s a fairly broad- and unusual- charge, one I’ve not seen anywhere except Breitbart.
Out of curiosity, how was Bush’s 8 years not a “leadership fail”. He proposed a grand vision, but immediately allowed it to be hijacked by his own administrator, and then failed to garner any extra funding from Congress to pay for either his vision or Griffin’s, even during the four years when his own party controlled both chambers. Resulting in cuts to everything else in order to keep Ares afloat for as long as they did.
Obama proposed killing Ares, and succeeded. He proposed killing the lunar target, and succeeded. He then utterly failed to get support for the details of his plan (tech development and new funding) even when his own party controlled both chambers of Congress.
Other than you disliking Bush less than you dislike Obama, how is one an example of “leadership” and the other “failure”?
[BTW, back then, both Walker and Gingrich supported Obama’s changes: http://www.washingtontimes…. ]
I hope the new team will include Moon plans. I am getting really bored with JourneyToMars (I typically don’t read that stuff as it’s all same over past 50 years).
Looks like it is going to be Trump. Do we think he even has a team? If it is Bob Walker and Jim Muncy, NASA is about to be lit on fire – mostly in a good way!
Maybe a Trump team, eh?
I wonder if Newt Gingrich will now have more of an influence on space policy.
Bolden sent us all an email this morning – didn’t say much, except that we’re all amazing.
Looks like a big transition for NASA, it seems earth resources assets will be defunded. I see NASA programs becoming more political, even though many were since 1958, but will be more partisan over the years. I wonder what will happen with LC39A designated for SpaceX?
I don’t think the country realizes what is going to happen.
One thing I can say: this will be a very entertaining 4 years.
We now live in interesting times.
Got any facts to back that up?