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You Done Good Jim Bridenstine

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
January 17, 2021
Filed under
You Done Good Jim Bridenstine

Keith’s note: Jim Bridenstine has announced that he is leaving NASA. His last day will be 20 January 2021.
I really did not know much about Jim Bridenstine when his name started to bubble up as a possible NASA Administrator choice in 2017. Given the chaos and amateurish way the Trump Landing Team (more like a “boarding party”) conducted itself I was predisposed to think that they’d pick a loyalist with a high loser quotient. So I did some digging. He was actually interesting and had given some serious thought to space policy. Over the following months I’d show up at events in DC (with Jeff Foust et al) and we’d try every trick we knew to squeeze out an answer to variants on the “will you be the NASA Administrator?” question that we’d throw at him. Jim did the whole non-answer answer thing like a true pro. When his nomination was official I gave him a much closer look.
Important note: while I try to annoy everyone equally, I am a Democrat and make no secret of that. Jim is not a Democrat. Indeed he was elected from a rather conservative place with a voting record that makes me, with my leftie leanings, cringe quite a bit. But this is a company town and we try to work together despite the whole “Swamp” thing we have been hearing about. Alas, the rank and file Democrats – with Bill Nelson in the lead – went after him as being undesirable for the job etc. etc. I thought he was a breath of fresh air. So I decided to highlight his credentials – and put them in the context of other NASA Administrators. He got the job. The first day on the job he made an emphatic statement on diversity and climate change to allay concerns and he was off and running. And in an effort to broaden input and support Jim also put none other than Bill Nelson on the NASA Advisory Council.
I have been doing NASAWatch for a quarter of a century. After he was nominated people suggested that Jim might want to ping me for some ideas. So did a certain former NASA Administrator who I know rather well. I don’t want to kiss and tell, but let’s just say that Jim and I had some conversations. Quite a few – and most of them very long. He drank up everything I could offer about previous exploration initiatives and how NASA engages with the public. If you have read NASAWatch then you know about my rants in this regard. What I saw was someone with a genuine passion for space exploration and its value to the public. He did not have to learn that from me or anyone else. It had always been there.
Shortly after he showed up for work a Twitter account became active. Very active. Someone from NASA PAO actually called me and asked me if I was doing it. I laughed and said that I was flattered, but no, I was not tweeting for Jim. But I tweeted an inquiry to @JimBridenstine and got a response. It was Jim himself. NASA was not exactly ready for this. I loved it. Finally – an Administrator who took the issue of communicating personally.

Jim was presented with a human exploration program of record that had problems. Big problems. It still does. The White House threw the whole 2024 thing at him and he ran with it. But there were other things that he managed to pull off that people have not really noticed. While the Trump Administration did its level best to deny the impact of human influence on climate change at other agencies such as NOAA, somehow, NASA continued to do its science – and talk about it – with no censoring. Yes, some attempts were made to cancel some Earth science missions, but other than that, NASA seemed to have a Teflon coating when it came to openly talking about climate change. This most certainly required some deft thinking on Jim’s part.
Jim also had to suddenly transform a sprawling agency and its workforce from one that worked in offices to one that worked from spare bedrooms as the Coronavirus pandemic descended upon our world. Like everyone else, Jim had to deal with his kids eating up the bandwidth for home schooling while he was running NASA on his cellphone in his living room. While this called for a lot unprecedented changes in the way people worked – it seems to have worked far better than anyone had a right to expect. And you can only get that when the person at the top is fully invested in its success.
To me, however, the thing that I hope that Jim will be remembered for is his embracing of education and diversity. Some people like to go back to his voting record. It is what it is – and to be fair, his job was to vote the way his constituents wanted him to vote. But as he arrived at NASA he listened to wiser minds and adjusted his world view accordingly at NASA. Although the “first woman and next man” line appears in everything the agency says, he ran with the notion that when Americans go back to the Moon they need to do so representing our nation as a whole. The “Artemis Generation” phrase also became popular – echoing the “Apollo generation” phrase commonly used to refer to people (like me) who grew up as we first reached out to the Moon half a century ago. After all, while we work here in the present on these programs, the next generation will truly inherit and expand upon the benefits that will result.
As Administrations change there is always a temptation to change the name of things to erase the previous Administration from people’s minds and put a new mark on things representative of the incoming team. The “Apollo” program managed to keep its name under the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford administrations. The Orion spacecraft got its name under the Bush II Administration and will bear it under the Biden Administration. I certainly hope that the Biden folks have better things to do and let the Artemis program keep its name – and with it, Jim’s contribution to keeping it alive.
Oh yes, Jim brought back the worm logo. And y’all know how I feel about that. ๐Ÿ˜‰
A lot of people (including me) would have liked to see Jim stay on. But Jim took himself out of possible consideration to stay on at NASA. Odds are that the Biden folks would not have given thought to this given the global house cleaning that they are implementing. That said, Jim’s rationale was honorable. When the NASA Administrator sits in front of OMB at budget time, everyone needs to have no doubt of the Administrator’s support of the current Administration’s interest without having any concern of lingering prior policies. He simply shut down pointless speculation by saying that he was moving on. He wanted NASA to have the best Administrator that the Biden Administration could find.
Jim now has the distinction (I think) of being the youngest former NASA Administrator. We have certainly not heard the last of him. I wish him well.
Ad Astra Jim. You done good.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

40 responses to “You Done Good Jim Bridenstine”

  1. Courtney Rigo says:
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    Keith, thank you for the absolutely wonderful tribute to Bridenstine, who I think earned every bit of it.

    Bridenstine is the best administrator I’ve been conscious of in my adult life, and from what I know of NASA’s history, I would vote him the 2nd best of all time after Webb.

    One thing I liked about Bridenstine that you didn’t touch on was his on-camera childlike, infectious enthusiasm for NASA and space, along with projecting a confidence and competence at his job. He’s one of those few politicians that can bring everyone together and make them feel like they’re all on the same team working towards a worthy goal. I hope he runs for President, with the same sort of “this nation faces challenges, but we can rise to them if we all come together.”

    • fcrary says:
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      A former NASA administrator running for President would be very interesting. But also unlikely. Mr. Bridenstine has proven that he’s a good leader, can handle demands from an unreasonable Congress (while still avoiding making enemies) and doing the best job possible of running a government agency. But I think he’s background is weak on foreign policy, the national economy or social issues. I’m more interested in learning whether he will run for Congress again. He once was a Representative, and he could be a fine Senator. I think that’s much more likely than him running for President.

      • Colin Seftor says:
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        I must admit Bridenstine surprised me with his competency and ability, and we should all be grateful to him and thank him for his service, particularly given the administration he worked for and the way he managed to protect the agency. That was/is no small thing.

        I truly hope he’s able to find some position where he can utilize his talent (and he’s proven he does have talent). But I’m glad to see him leave, and I hope he decides never to think about government service again.

        I’m not saying that because of his voting record as a legislator (although yes, I still cringe at that). [Personal attack deleted]

        Again, I wish him well (and I’m glad I was wrong about him), but outside of government please. Particularly now, we need a fresh start.

        (Keith, you actually pulled the “voted the way his constituents wanted” bit? Really? That has always been, and will continue to be, a weak excuse for any public servant. Public servants need to believe in what they do and in what they say. If that deviates from what their constituents want then they should either resign or stand up for what they believe and, possibly, get voted out of office. Besides, I am willing to believe Bridenstine had a change of heart concerning LGBTQ rights between the time he was a Congressman and NASA administrator. But I simply do not believe that what he said when he was a Congressman was because that’s what his constituents wanted him to say.)

        • kcowing says:
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          I did not “pull” anything. Its a fact. If he did not they’d have voted him out of office when he ran for reelection.

          • Colin Seftor says:
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            Wow, what you deleted was pretty mild. I thought long and hard about what I said, with the specific purpose of trying NOT to attack him personally. I thought I succeeded (because, surprisingly, I like the guy). But fair enough, itโ€™s your web site, your rules.

            (As for my comment about what you โ€œpulled,โ€ reread what you wrote…)

          • kcowing says:
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            Do that again and you will be banned.

        • jamesmuncy says:
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          WARNING: I am NOT saying anything about the issue that JimB “had a change of heart” about. I’m just using this topic to illustrate something readers of NASA Watch would do well to better understand.

          Congressmen and -women do try to represent their constituents’ views, as they understand them. But their job is to help MAKE policy. (As in one out of 435 votes of one legislative branch.)

          NASA Administrators’ jobs is not to MAKE policy on LGBTQ issues. There exists relevant anti-discrimination law and policy binding on all federal agencies. Bridenstine’s job was to implement that policy within NASA. He did that.
          (He also promised he would before he was confirmed.)

          Even if you (wrongly) assumed that his legislative positions were motivated by animus towards gay people, personal views are not supposed to play any role in carrying out law and policy. If you really hate the policy, you don’t take an executive branch job that makes you follow it.

          JimB’s role in Congress was different from his role at NASA. He knew/knows the difference.

          He may or may not still believe that religious groups should not have antithetical views forced on them. So he may or may not have “changed his mind”. But that’s irrelevant. His job at NASA wasn’t to agree with a political position about policy, just to carry out it. Since he’s a good manager, and cares about all 18,000 of his employees, that wasn’t hard for him to do.

          He is, after all, a good guy.

  2. Steve Pemberton says:
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    I started to miss Jim Bridenstine already last night while watching the post green run press conference, likely Bridenstine’s last of that type while administrator. I’m not sure we will see another administrator who has so immersed himself in what is going on, and who is capable of communicating in a clear and engaging way to a wide audience. And who is always very present in the moment. A couple of examples from last night:

    In John Honeycutt’s opening remarks he referred to the engine conditioning issue that occurred during one of the wet dress rehearsals, which he said had been with engine four. Bridenstine waited until Honeycutt had finished speaking before saying, “I want to make sure because reporters are out here reporting, the thermal conditioning from the hydrogen bleed, the challenge that we had there before the engines fired, that thermal conditioning challenge was on engine three, I just want to be clear on that, it was not engine four.” (Honeycutt, “You’re right, did I say four? I misspoke it was three you are right.”)

    Later after they had taken several in person and online questions, the moderator said we’ll take one more then I think we’re going to wrap up, pointing out that “it’s pretty cold out here”. Jim jumped in and said no we’re here for them if they have more questions, and the press conference continued.

    All we can hope is that future administrators are just as here for them, and here for all of us, as Bridenstine has been.

  3. Skinny_Lu says:
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    I agree 100%. I wish he stayed but understand his decision. Any rumors about possible candidates for the job? Lori Garver?

    • kcowing says:
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      I am not posting rumors about possible Administrators.

      • fcrary says:
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        Which may be a first. I believe NASA Watch has posted stories about possible new Administrators on many past occasions. But it’s you’re site, so that’s you’re business.

        • kcowing says:
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          I do not want to post inaccurate information. There is far too much of it out there right now.

          • Skinny_Lu says:
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            There HAS to be a list of candidates, somewhere… someone is thinking about the NASA Administrator. Who’s got it? =)

  4. Matthew Black says:
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    I for one shall miss him. I’m a New Zealander, but I got to meet the previous two NASA Administrators; Griffin and Bolden and they were memorable. I’m sure it would have been an honour to meet Jim Bridenstine as well!

  5. SouthwestExGOP says:
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    Having met a few NASA Administrators, and having worked with Charlie Bolden (while he was an active astronaut, not that I can say that I knew him, just worked with him and realized that he was brilliant and very talented and really easy to talk to) still I can say that they must be able to walk away from direction that is not reasonable. Charlie might have resigned when President Obama cancelled Constellation in such a blundering way. Bridenstine accepted a 2024 Lunar landing goal when it required us to be resigned to the unacceptable risk of so few flights before a Lunar landing. He might have been enthusiastic about daily events but he has held NASA to a schedule that everyone fervently hoped would greatly slip.

    • jamesmuncy says:
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      Ahem… Charlie had a lot to do with the “blundering way” Constellation was cancelled.

      • SouthwestExGOP says:
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        We would HAVE to think that Charlie Bolden was informed and asked about the plan, that is why I wish that he had resigned when it was announced. I can only think that he objected to the way it was done but wasn’t respected enough for the Administration to listen to his advice. The way it was done is just NOT Charlie Bolden at all.

      • tutiger87 says:
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        Nah. Constellation had a lot to do with the blundering way Constellation got canceled.

        • SouthwestExGOP says:
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          Constellation was blundering along as all large programs do, I happen to know Jeff Hanley (Program Manager) and worked with him (on Shuttle) and he was probably doing as well as could be done (in my opinion anyway).

          My comment was about the destructive way in which it was cancelled – that was far more damaging to morale than it should have been. I will always wonder why Charlie Bolden did not resign when the cancellation was done that way. It certainly is NOT the way that he would have done it.

          My highly biased opinion is that any manager needs to be able to walk away when they are given direction that is not executable. The direction to land on the Moon in 2024 is not executable with any level of safety.

      • kcowing says:
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        Mike Griffin handed Charlie a stinking pile of bad designs and cost estimates that were out of synch with reality.

        • tutiger87 says:
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          I’m waiting for one of you space reporters and authors to write the book about the ATK Mafia…

        • jamesmuncy says:
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          As you know, I completely agree. My point above was simply that Charlie was partly responsible for the clumsiness of the cancellation, because he wanted to do all the new things Obama was starting in FY2011, AND he wanted to keep Constellation as is. That wasn’t going to happen. Instead of a well-defined alternative to Constellation, the final proposal looked more like connect the dots than an actual vision. Which made it vulnerable to the many gored oxen.

  6. jamesmuncy says:
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    Great piece, Keith. Neither of us may wear alligator shoes, but DC is still a swamp. Where else could a Senate-mandated rocket continue years after a cheaper commercial alternative is successfully demonstrated… three times?

    One nit: I’m pretty sure the proposal to delay a few Earth Science missions had nothing to do with Trump’s climate biases, and everything to do with cost overruns on existing earth science procurements forcing a Hobson’s choice between paying to finish the current project versus planting seeds for new ones. I would think that the need to get science done might justify some discipline, but no… everyone must get their lollypops.

    • kcowing says:
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      Well Jim your guy Trump introduced vastly more slime into the swamp than anyone has ever done before. He made things worse – not better.

      • jamesmuncy says:
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        Not on space he didn’t. Pence did a great job on space.

        • kcowing says:
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          I don’t care about space. Your guy polluted this city and polarized an entire nation while aiding and abetting insurrection and sedition. If you want to try and turn this into a Trump apologist discussion you will be posting somewhere else.

    • TLE_Unknown says:
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      Yep, 2007-2017 ES Decadal priorities largely not achieved, most not launched and many, by the mid-term assessment, were not even ready for PDR (overpromised technology developments and underestimated costs).

      From https://spacenews.com/2007d

      “Itโ€™s not surprising that NASA has made little progress flying missions recommended in the 2007 report, โ€œEarth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond.โ€ When it was published, NASA leaders including then-Administrator Mike Griffin, warned the plan was overly ambitious and only a fraction of the work could be completed in a decade because the missions would cost far more than estimated.”

      Then there’s the NPOESS / JPSS fiasco….nuff said

      • Colin Seftor says:
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        Huh? NPOESS was primarily a NOAA/Air Force disaster. Although it was the third leg of the “tri-agency” program, NASA didn’t have much (if any) say in either managing it (NOAA) or supervising its cost (Air Force).

        The completely “civilian” JPSS program, which rose from the NPOESS ashes and where NOAA contracts with NASA to manage the development, launch, and checkout of JPSS satellites and instruments (a la the POES program), is doing reasonably well.

        • TLE_Unknown says:
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          Was speaking here more generally about joint NASA-NOAA climate goals (not NASA in particular) in relation to the OP’s comment about “Earth Science” priorities and cost management realities spanning several administrations and budget cycles. The tragic impact of the 2006 Nunn-McCurdy certification put long term satellite climate data records in jeopardy by demanifesting critical climate sensors (Solar and Earth Radiation measurements as well as ozone and aerosol mapping). Issues around measurement overlap and data continuity made delays (or descopes) unacceptable to maintaining a robust climate observing system.

      • jamesmuncy says:
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        Thanks for this data.

  7. robert_law says:
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    Thanks Keith that was an excellent post , as some one who lives in Scotland and Loves Space Jim was a big hero to me he was always pushing NASA he was so full of enthusiasm He kept everybody informed of what was going on , he going to be a hard act to follow !

  8. Ryan Wright says:
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    he sure had a lot of enthusiasm while dealing with a mandate that was unachievable.

  9. Doug Loverro says:
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    Keith

    Thanks for the fine tribute to a fine man. I can tell you from experience, Jim will be missed by all the folks at NASA and those of us no longer there.

    Doug

  10. Richard spencer says:
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    Keith, I agree with you completely. Both Jims have impressed me, though I must admit I have less knowledge of Mr. Morhard’s management and policy actions. NASA definitely got the best team of this Administration.

  11. Rod Burton says:
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    The best NASAWatch article I can remember.

  12. Michael Spencer says:
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    I had nothing but trepidation on the nomination of our current Administrator, as did many here; I was particularly vexed by comments made by then-Rep. Bridenstine regarding climate change. “Another Trump” dummy, I concluded, ill-suited to the Agency.

    I was SO wrong. The initial hesitancy was warranted, to be sure, but I was so wrong, happily watching our new Administrator ably leading the Agency.

    And I must say that I am very pleased with myself ๐Ÿ™‚

  13. SouthwestExGOP says:
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    When Charlie Bolden left the Administrator job, he had accolades (I wanted to work that word in somewhere!) from all of the Centers. Now that Jim is leaving, at least JSC appears to be very quiet. Of course Charlie was an astronaut who had deep roots here.

    Certainly Hq is giving him a sendoff – what about the other Centers? Anyone sending good wishes, etc?

  14. Hmmm says:
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    Said it up above in another article, but I agree Keith. He was a very good administrator and I’m sorry he didn’t stay on. He was a leader and someone you wanted to follow.

  15. JJMach says:
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    As touched on by Keith, one of the most refreshing things about Jim Bridenstine’s tenure as NASA Administrator was his openness.

    His Twitter account was mentioned, but what about his “Watch This Space” YouTube / podcast series? Here is the head of a major government organization, bringing people from within his organization in front of a camera and talking, enthusiastically, about the work they are doing. Is there anything else like that in government?

    I understand this next story is completely anecdotal, but it is telling. I remember being as amused as I was impressed, when space enthusiast Tim Dodd managed to score an interview with Elon Musk for his “Everyday Astronaut” YouTube series leading up to Demo2, and Elon casually brought Jim along to join the discussion. A NASA Administrator doesn’t have to do that, but Jim did, because that’s the kind of guy he is.