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President Trump has nominated Representative Jim Bridenstine as NASA's next administrator, to replace the acting administrator Robert M. Lightfoot:
Representative Jim Bridenstine, Republican of Oklahoma, will be nominated by President Trump to serve as NASA's next administrator, the White House said on Friday night.
Mr. Bridenstine, a strong advocate for drawing private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin more deeply into NASA's exploration of space, had been rumored to be the leading candidate for the job, but months passed without an announcement. If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Bridenstine, 42, would be the first elected official to hold that job.
[...] Although NASA has little presence in Oklahoma, Mr. Bridenstine, a former Navy Reserve pilot who is now in his third term in the House [of] Representatives, has long had an interest in space. Before being elected to Congress in 2012, he was executive director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum and Planetarium from 2008 to 2010.
[...] Mr. Bridenstine has supported a return to the moon, a departure from the Obama administration's focus on sending astronauts to Mars in coming decades.
Florida's Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson blasted the choice. Nelson said that "The head of NASA ought to be a space professional, not a politician."
NASA statement. NASA Watch analysis.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 05 2017, @08:51AM (2 children)
For example, in July 2004, Griffin steered a Planetary Society report [usra.edu] to favor Shuttle-derived heavy lift. That was almost a full year before his appointment as NASA administrator (and half a year after Bush's initial "Vision for Space Exploration" [wikipedia.org] speech). Then after his appointment, Griffin contrived the Exploration Systems Architecture Study [wikipedia.org] (ESAS) to recommend the Constellation launch architecture (which purported to compare the Shuttle-derived architecture to rival approaches, but slanted [selenianboondocks.com] the evaluation to favor the eventual Constellation architecture). On the link I just posted, that is written a full four years after ESAS was published. It took that long to reveal (via FOIA requests I believe) the hidden, biased criteria for deciding on the Constellation architecture.
I don't know how long before, but Griffin had decided on the Constellation architecture (and its heavy reliance on ATK solid rocket motors) well before becoming NASA administrator - perhaps even before George W. Bush became president.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 05 2017, @01:04PM (1 child)
As I said, brain child - W made the "I wanna be JFK" speech and left the heavy lifting to everyone else. Entirely logical that there were plans in place prior to the speech and he just let one of them step up and start development. When Martinez became Governor of Florida he increased sales tax (Florida government's primary income stream) by 25%, which accelerated all sorts of existing project schedules across the board. On the one hand, Martinez might take credit for making all of those things happen faster, on the other, he had nothing at all to do with their conception or planning.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 05 2017, @10:39PM
Being president doesn't magically make you an expert on Mars exploration, even if you are smart. Delegation is the norm.