The New NASA Is Emerging
Keith’s note: According to sources there is a “plan” under formulation to remove nearly all NASA Headquarters functions and move them to various NASA field centers. There will be little left in Washington, DC. Oversight will now be distributed – not centralized. Human Spaceflight (SOMD) will reside at NASA JSC (where it already is for the most part). ESDMD (exploration) stuff will be split between JSC, KSC, and MSFC (again, not much change). Science Mission Directorate (SMD) responsibilities will eventually go to GSFC. Armstrong would get Aeronautics programs and Technology development would be sent to LaRC. NASA Ames and Glenn will see some shrinkage and a possible effort to be closed (their real estate is valuable). Meanwhile JPL is a big TBD. Stay tuned. Things keep changing.
16 responses to “The New NASA Is Emerging”
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Would there still be some sort of administration office in DC and office for the Administrator?
Ever been to Lancaster? Cleveland (GRC is technically in Brook Park) has 3 major league sports franchises (yes the Browns still qualify as a pro franchise), arguably the best orchestra in the world, a major art museum, one of the largest theater complexes in the nation,within driving distance of a national park, and sits on one of the worlds largest bodies of fresh water. Hardly a desert.
Lancaster? YUCK.
Stennis would be a solid choice for HQ types if it is a small number of people. Their former HQ building was scheduled to be demolished prior to RTW and they took over half of the NSSC building. Difficult to squeeze more FTE in without allowing telework.
Laughed at the Newport News comment 🙂 … that’s why many of us live in the Historic Triangle (Yorktown, Jamestown, Williamsburg) — very pleasant living. If you are OK not having the need for big city life.
Hearing reports that the Issacman people want to move the shriveled remains of HQ to S. Arlington.
I’d disagree with the AFRC vs LaRC statement. LaRC has many things it does. AFRC is all aero with the exception of one small program out of STMD. The entire valley is built on aerospace, and there is significantly more opportunity for actually flying things year round, not to mention the flight ops experience. You can do all Aero at AFRC, while being significantly more limited with flight testing out of LaRC. The real argument imo is that you are 100% correct that no one wants to live in the Antelope Valley, especially if their used to things like water, or the color green…
This is not a “statement” it is a description of the plan being worked inside NASA as of this morning. I have no stance on any of this.
I’m sure Ames’ real estate is valuable, but not sure how valuable a couple hundred acres containing lots of hazardous materials next to the airport in Cleveland is.
Ames has a big underground plume too.
That real estate sits across the airport from the proposed new indoor stadium for the Browns. I would not be surprised if local politicians are being dazzled with all sorts of development if only they let GRC be shutdown. Reminds me of how GRC’s largest rocket engine test facility was shutdown to extend a runway at Hopkins for international flights. The result? GRC missed out on all the commercial rocket engine development of the past two decades and unless you are going to Dublin you are not getting an international flight out of Hopkins.
I wonder with the gutting of the EPA whether environmental concerns will still be such an impediment to development.
Google will probably buy up the rest of Ames. Probably other tech companies as well.
They just sold a long-empty lot right next to GRC for about $65k/acre.
The GRC main campus is something like 350 acres, so at the same price, that’s $23M max, if you sold off the whole thing. It’d probably go for less if you factor in the cost of any remediation & demolition of old buildings.
To put that in perspective, ONE SEAT on one Crew Dragon flight is something like $55M – $88M.
Selling off ALL of GRC wouldn’t buy half of one astronaut’s seat on the world’s cheapest ride to space.
Glenn’s ATF has a lot more empty real estate, though so maybe they’re thinking about selling that. 6000+ acres, but the price per acre would be less.
I don’t think the actual sale price of GRC real estate would necessarily a big factor in the decision making. Although it looks like the Haslams might have paid 175 million for the Ford plant and the land in Berea. The motivation would be the ~600 million savings on GRC’s budget and the 1 billion dollar a year revenue the Haslam’s are touting for their proposed mix use development on the other side of the stadium. I really hope this isn’t the plan. It is just our politicians ( and GRC management) have been inept for so long. I guess on the bright side David Stockman tried this and so did Sean O’ Keefe and they both failed.
What about Stennis? There’s a lot of land, but it isn’t very valuable. Still seems like a good place to test rocket engines.
Keith or anyone … can you expand on Technology Development to LaRC? What does that encompass? How many persons? Is that where AI is being implemented into NASA?