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OMB Deputy Director Will Head NASA
Baldrson writes: "UPI reports "President George W. Bush has selected Sean O'Keefe, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, to head NASA." In his prior position, Dr. O'Keefe reviewed and gave testimony before Congress, critical of the budgetary overruns of NASA's International Space Station." (Of course, the ISS isn't all NASA's.)
"Maybe now we can put disasters like the Hubble distorted lens, and the Mars lander crash behind us"
Let's not forget that your first "disaster" was eventually fixed. The loss of the Mars probes was regrettable, but I wouldn't classify them as disasters, either. The thing is, it's extremely hard to send a probe to Mars. Goldin's "Better, Faster, Cheaper" initiative was implemented in direct recognition of the probability that deep space missions will occassionally be lost, so by having many smaller missions instead of few large missions, the loss of individual missions, when (not if) they occur, will not be disasters to the overall program.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
>Perhaps he can learn from team that built the budget satellite that was posted here a few days ago.
It's one thing to build a satellite for $50K. It's another thing entirely to build one that will last for 3 (or more years) and do something useful. Reliability costs $$$. Interesting instruments for scientific investigations cost $$$.
If the $50K satellite stops working tomorrow it will still be remembered as a success. Since it doesn't do anything useful, no one will miss it. If it were a NASA project and it were to fail, it would make headlines regardless of the price tag.
If there's one thing "Smaller, Faster, Cheaper" taught us, it's that 100 successes don't make up for a single failure in the eyes of the media. Failure is front page news. Success is consigned to the lower left corner of page 23.
What NASA doesn't need now is a penny pincher. What NASA does need is someone who will put science above politics when setting priorities. I guess we'll see which of those we're getting in due time.