Doug Loverro Was Asked To Resign And He Has
NASA HEOMD AA @DouglasLoverro was asked to resign and he has agreed to do so. Details to follow.
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) May 19, 2020
Well @VP Pence told @JimBridenstine and @NASA to land on the Moon by 2024 "By any means necessary". So @DouglasLoverro did and the powers that be got nervous. So he is gone. So much for the whole #Artemis #Moon2024 thing. #NASA no longer takes risks. #DinosaursDontExplore pic.twitter.com/67wFyj7MjA
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) May 19, 2020
Looks like @NASA Inspector General & the Office of General Counsel at #NASA HQ had issues with how the HLS procurement went – even though everyone at @NASA HEOMD knew exactly how it was happening for months. So, of course, there needs to be a designated scapegoat #ArtemisIsToast
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) May 19, 2020
OIG announces audit of NASA’s acquisition strategy for the Artemis missions to include landing astronauts on the Moon by 2024.
— NASA OIG (@NASAOIG) March 25, 2020
All Hands Note From Douglass Loverro To The NASA Human Exploration and Operations Directorate
“The risks we take, whether technical, political, or personal, all have potential consequences if we judge them incorrectly. I took such a risk earlier in the year because I judged it necessary to fulfill our mission. Now, over the balance of time, it is clear that I made a mistake in that choice for which I alone must bear the consequences. And therefore, it is with a very, very heavy heart that I write to you today to let you know that I have resigned from NASA effective May 18th, 2020. I want to be clear that the fact that I am taking this step has nothing to do with your performance as an organization nor with the plans we have placed in motion to fulfill our mission. If anything, your performance and those plans make everything we have worked for over the past six months more attainable and more certain than ever before. My leaving is because of my personal actions, not anything we have accomplished together.”
NASA Message Regarding the Lead of Human Spaceflight
“Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Doug Loverro has resigned from his position effective Monday, May 18. Loverro hit the ground running this year and has made significant progress in his time at NASA. His leadership of HEO has moved us closer to accomplishing our goal of landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon in 2024. Loverro has dedicated more than four decades of his life in service to our country, and we thank him for his service and contributions to the agency.”
Wow he seemed all in for the VP and Bridenstine’s 2024 charge I wonder who he ran afoul of? someone in Congress, Boeing Lobbyists or some old guard entrenched at HQ that didn’t like the speed he was moving at.
Wow, that’s crazy… Loverro’s openness and transparency were refreshing.
“details to come”
Wow, should be interesting.
This is sad. He actually had the rank and file energized. It will be interesting…
What a circus.
Bad news.
It’s horrible timing canning NASA’s Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations less than two weeks before NASA is going to launch crew into space for the first time since the end of the space shuttle stopped flying.
Surely it has something to do with the HEO committee not buying “Moon 2024” last week.
No it does not. It has to do with the HLS procurement.
So will the contractor selections be disallowed?
unlikely
If its about HLS procurement and it is not bad enough to warrant disallowal or recompetition, then it should have been chalked up to 5 demerits, lesson learned, and Mr. Loverro should have been kept on the job; he was far more critical and that would have been far more important. If its NASA’s lawyers who are responsible for this then they should be drawn and quartered. Sometimes NASA is its own worst enemy.
Very disappointing.
Maybe this is what happens when you fail to short list Boeing?
Or maybe the reverse. Mr. Loverro has been vocally in favor of single launches from the ground, rather than multiple launches which will dock together in lunar orbit. That’s an approach which might make more use of SLS and less use of commercial providers. And would make the 2024 landing more dependent on SLS. I would not be shocked if there is a lot of internal debate and infighting within NASA over this. And it isn’t unheard of for senior people to get fired if they lose in that sort of internal, political infighting. But that’s all speculation. The one thing I can’t even speculate about is the timing. I can’t come up with a single theory I believe about why they would do it this week. Why not hold off until after the DM-2 fight next Wednesday?
Wow! 13 upvotes! It’s personal best!
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, (bows) thank you…
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UPDATE: Based on new reporting by our host, my attempt to link Mr. Loverro’s departure with anything Boeing related was entirely off base; as they say, “I regret the error”.
NASA continues to disappoint and illustrate why humans have not been out of low earth orbit since the early 1970s. I know it is just not NASA’s fault and the executive and legislative branch deserve their fair share of blame, but we have been – as Keith said – “kicking the can down the road” for decades.
You are 100 percent on point Keith. He was a scapegoat.
Scapegoat is usually defined as an innocent person or group being blamed for something bad. If the Vice President and/or said the Administrator told Mr. Loverro directly to “throw away the rule book” if necessary to get that crewed landing by sometime in 2024, and he did, he betrayed the public trust in him as a government employee, which could explain the OIG investigation.
I fear that the next step in this sad history will be the president’s firing of yet another IG.
I hope, however, that the full story becomes available to the taxpayers, due to the tireless efforts of people like Keith.
So who asked him to resign? Bridenstine or someone higher up in the food chain?
Remember when zealous DOJ lawyers forced Administrator Jim Beggs to step aside (later exonerated), contributing to our Challenger disaster? Who recalls who was at the NASA helm to call the shots, a temporary fill-in for Jim. Fortunately now we have Steve Jurczyk, we loved at Langley, to pull off the launch! 🙂
I appreciated times when he would post here on NW to clarify issues, even admitting to making mistakes.
Some in Congress have been whining that HLS is a Commercial Space venture done on fixed-price contracts and privately owned spacecraft instead of cost-plus contracts and NASA-owned spacecraft. Is that what this is about?
Do you have any evidence to support that claim? I haven’t heard any press reports that the Inspector General was involved or that his office had started any investigation of Mr. Loverro.
Correction: I just saw a tweet about an OIG investigation into Artemis procurements. But that isn’t specifically about Mr. Loverro, and it’s not clearly any basis to say wrongdoing occurred. An investigation happens when there is a hint of inappropriate action; it doesn’t means there actually was any inappropriate action. The OIG does lots of investigations, and mostly issues reports about minor, procedural errors. It that’s grounds for firing a senior NASA administrator, NASA wouldn’t have any senior administrators left.
For this to happen and happen in this way something of significance occurred. I wonder if it had anything to do with SLS, Boeing, status not being correctly reported, a big launch delay coming, a significant cost increase and inappropriate contract actions. Whatever occurred I wish him well.
No.
It appears Loverro fell victim to the Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario. He couldn’t both meet the Artemis-2 2024 timeline and stick to official government procurement regulations for the HLS selection process.
Loverros arrival had been so hopeful. I thought finally he would take us out of the endless, mindless tailspin we had been in, in which we were going nowhere but wasting so many precious resources. And we had gotten around the corrupt NASA bureaucracy which kept placing inexperience in charge of functions they knew nothing about. we had a genuine experienced space warrior to lead us. where will they ever even find some one…It reminds me of NASA at the time of Challenger, with Beggs gone, and no o ne in charge, a nd we killed a crew. at least we still have Musk.
I for one am going to wait until some solid data comes out on what happen as there is not enough to really speculate about it.
That said, based on his letter, this likely illustrates well the challenge of getting productive work done in a mature bureaucracy. Paraphrasing what Dr. Von Braun stated in the 1950’s it’s possible to overcome gravity but the paperwork could be overwhelming.
Thank you for reminding us about Dr. Von Braun’s excellent comment!
https://www.azquotes.com/qu…
Son of a bitch
The entirety of events, combined with overall history bodes poorly for the future of the space program. Things slip through cracks, historical lessons get swept aside and eventually something bad happens. Fair warning.
Guys like him, at his career status, have many opportunities; choosing is less about money than it is, in a large sense, being in a position to move the ball down the field.
Mr. Bridenstine has a different problem. I have no particular knowledge about high-level talent in the space industry. I do know, though, that every industry struggles to fill high-level positions. Qualified candidates can be rare; and in this case, the successful candidate will no doubt look at the experiences of her immediate predecessor, knowing additionally that her work will be closely compared, and scrutinized.
I do not believe that position is that vital to a individual launch of a rocket other than optics.
I do not know how many human spaceflight LRR/FRR/L-1 reviews you have attended but maybe you understand better than us. The position is not just ceremonial and the duties extend well beyond the couple of hours of the meeting. The duties are even more real time critical with the MMT.
I didn’t say it was ceremonial, I said this ONE person’s opinion of go no go was not vital to a single launch. I would sure as heck hope that NASA has more that one person able to make a launch decision.
If you look at the other names at today’s review, you’ll find that they are all senior managers. I have some experience with reviews like that, although for order of magnitude smaller projects. The review probably consists of senior managers making presentations which show their people have done all the things they are supposed to have done and that everything on their side is fine. Then the most senior managers at the meeting sign off saying that everything is fine. If someone were sick, and had his deputy present exactly the same material, the result would be the same.