Keith’s note: Last year the White House nominated Matt Anderson to be Deputy NASA Administrator and Greg Autry to be NASA CFO (twice in 2020 & 2025). And of course Jared Isaacman was nominated twice. So … not a smooth year for NASA nominees. Since their nominations we’ve heard nothing about Autry or Anderson’s status. Yesterday Autry tweeted “On both occasions my nomination expired at year end, without a Senate vote. I have decided not to pursue confirmation again and have requested that I not be renominated.” If you look at it says “01/03/2026 Returned to the President under the provisions of Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate.” If you look at the status of Anderson’s nomination it also says the same thing. Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 specifies that “Nominations that have been neither confirmed nor rejected by the Senate at the time the Senate adjourns sine die or for a period of more than 30 days are returned to the President”. So it looks like there will need to be a new CFO nominee. Matt Anderson certainly seems to be chipper and happily ready to on-board at NASA – so I guess maybe he is still the Administration’s choice. Or Jared Isaacman could just use NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya as his de-facto deputy. Dan Goldin did this throughout his tenure. I would ask NASA Public Affairs – but they ignore me these days.

Keith’s note: Last night NASA SMD AA Nicky Fox was presented with the Collier Award for NASA’s Parker Solar Probe – an astonishing mission that has literally touched the sun. NASA Comptroller nominee Greg Autry congratulated her with a tweet adding “Go NASA Science”. This morning the @NASASpaceSci Twitter account announced that it was being shut down and swallowed into a larger effort somewhere at NASA. Yet another example of how the NASA FY 2026 budget and other Administration Executive Orders and memos have moved to gut NASA’s science budget, cancel missions, eliminate external research grants, stiff other space agencies with international agreements, and cut personnel. Weirdly, (soon to be) Administration personnel like Autry try to laud NASA science. Some political staff at NASA even try to take credit for missions started and launched by other presidents. Alas, Autry will preside over the cancellation of all these science activities and he’ll write glowing tweets about what he cut. It’s now all Flags and Footprints. Science is a buzz word used as hashtag windowdressing in social media. If Greg Autry wants to cheer on Science at NASA then he’ll need to support it too after he arrives.

Keith’s note: The whole internal Administration tariff spat touches NASA rather directly. First there is “Musk lashes out at architect of Trump’s tariffs in first public comments about shock policy – then there’s “Musk “doesn’t understand” trade cheating, Navarro says“. Peter Navarro’s frequent co-author Greg Autry has been nominated to become the next NASA CFO and (former) SpaceX guy Michael Altenhofen is a senior advisor to NASA where two time SpaceX customer Jared Isaacman will soon work. Hopefully NASA can put up a firewall against this internecine bickering. Ad Astra y’all

Keith’s note: Greg Autry has been nominated to be the next NASA CFO. In other words he’ll be NASA DOGEFather. Based on earlier public comments you can expect zero sympathy for the erasure of NASA’s greatest asset: its diverse expertise (see screen grab below). Update: official NASA words. Oh yes: they spelled his name wrong in the nomination. Nice way to start. “PN55-3 — Gregory Autrey — National Aeronautics and Space Administration https://www.congress.gov/nomination/119th-congress/55/3 — 03/24/2025 Placed on Senate Executive Calendar in the Privileged Nomination section with nominee information requested by the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, pursuant to S.Res. 116, 112th Congress.” (more below)

Looking forward to addressing the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee tomorrow. At the least, I believe you will all enjoy my opening remarks. I'm hoping there will be some insightful questioning.https://t.co/bynbQXz7Rp — Greg Autry ?????????? ?? ?? (@GregWAutry) November 9, 2020 Keith’s note: You would think that after Joe Biden’s win that hearings on Trump Administration appointees would be moot. I guess not. Senators could be off focusing […]