New NASA Administrator Named

CheshireCatCO writes "The Bush Administration has nominated Mike Griffin as the new chief administrator of NASA. Griffin currently heads the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University and holds degrees in physics, civil, electrical, and aerospace engineering and aerospace science, as well as an MBA. (How did he ever have time to do anything else?) He was also part of the Strategic Defense Initiative in the 80s."

Comments

Heavy lift

[Mark of THE CITY]

Why build a new one, when Russia already has one?

Good appointment for 3 reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this is a Very Good idea for three reasons:

(1) the nominee is Not a Beancounter;
(2) the nominee is not an astronaut married to the Space Shuttle/Space Station welfare system;
(3) the nominee knws some science and engineering.

-- Jonathan Vos Post

Re:Good appointment for 3 reasons

[lecithin]

I'll give you another one:

"From an entrepreneurial standpoint, he has someone who has actually experienced what it is like to be on the other side of the table dealing with the government," he said. "We haven't had that before."

Re:Good appointment for 3 reasons

[helioquake]

Yeah, but the real skill required for a NASA administrator is this:

Let engineers be engineers.

You can replace the word "engineer" with "scientist", too. There are too much bureaucratic work at NASA. It costs some money to file document; it costs money to spend money. The facility is on the constant maintenance mode, i.e., a fix is being fixed as being fixed. The money is wasted where science and engineering doesn't get involved. Laboratories and divisions at NASA have largely been run by bean-counting civil servants who worked very hard in the Apollo days and now lucratively hold the wallet to keep his friends happy (yet unproductive). Let that change. Let the engineers and scientists be engineers and scientists! And those bean-counters should merely be there to help achieve the goal, instead of getting in the way.

Furthermore, it lacks a clear vision for the future of this institution. Since the Bush administration speaks little about the Moon/Mars project after the election. So I consider that moot. This Griffin guy needs to be questioned what he sees as the future of NASA at a confirmation hearing in the Senate. I'm sure Barbara from MD would ask if he'd save the Hubble.

Re:Good appointment for 3 reasons

[_Sharp'r_]

I hate to be the one to point this out to you (ok, I don't, not really), but "while reducing tax revenues" is an incorrect statement.

I know that's the myth the Dems try to feed the public, but the reality (which is readily available from the IRS website) is that U.S. tax revenues are up over the last few years.

For example, the highest annual gross revenue the IRS collected from 1992-1999 is lower than any of the years 2000-2003. Generally much lower. (Actual 2004 numbers not being out yet, but projections suggest even faster growing revenues over the next few years) This would tend to lead me to believe that the government is currently getting plenty of revenue.

Do you realize that federal tax revenues are up almost double over 10 years ago? (1.3 trillion to 2 trillion+) Similarly, revenues doubled from the end of the Carter years to the end of the Reagan/Bush Sr. years. (500 billion to up over a trillion.)

No, the budget problem has absolutely nothing to do with not enough tax revenue. The problem is way too much spending, and that's a problem that can be laid on both sides of the aisle in Congress. It is congress that spends the money, after all.

The problem with your NSF comment is that true budgeting is about priorities, where you must take money from one lower priority to fund a higher one. Resources don't appear magically to be added to someone's pet project, the government has to forcibly take them from someone else (either now or later) to spend it themselves.

So it's at least a little bit of budget sanity to say, "Hey, if we're going to fund a Moon push, some of that money needs to come from the NSF, because we think the moon thing is a higher priority!" instead of just racking up more debt for present and future generations to pay interest on.

If you really think that the NSF should get another 100 million, I presume that would be by cutting NASA 100 million? Or where else would you get the money?

Re:Good appointment for 3 reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

"We really don't need to spend as much on defense as we do."

Close, but not quite.

We don't need to spend as much as we do on weapon systems.

Congress loves weapons programs. Money for the home district, money for corporate contributors, jobs, all wrapped up in heavy press coverage. Congress consistently buys weapons that the Pentagon doesn't want and didn't ask for.

The Pentagon, on the other hand, would like some of that money so they can buy fuel, ammunition, spare parts, and all of those other little things that they need to get the job done.

Writing the Pentagon a blank check might work better than what we have now, which is that Congress writes *itself* a blank check. Get the spending priorities right within the defense budget, and then you might see the overall spending contained. Reducing the DoD budget without containing weapons program spending is how we got into this mess. We need to focus on the weapons programs, not the total DoD budget.

Re:Good appointment for 3 reasons

[demachina]

Dude, chill out. I was just googling for interesting comments about Mike Griffin and that was one. Trying to paint me as rascist for quoting something that had nothing to do with race is going off the deep end.

Nasa Scared Shitless?

[Goalie_Ca]

Time for nasa to get off its scared little ass and start realizing that space is a new frontier and there will be accidents and mistakes.

Re:Nasa Scared Shitless?

[halltk1983]

I second the motion. I spent some time at NASA, (paid visit to look at ideas), and the astronauts accept the risk. Engineers minimize the risk. But citizens don't seem to like the risk at all, they want it 100% safe

Re:Nasa Scared Shitless?

[swillden]

What is NASA doing to educate the public on that aspect of space exploration? Or is it expecting the public to just figure that one out on their own?

I suspect NASA realizes that (a) it would be an extremely difficult PR campaign to carry off successfully, since many would perceive it as an attempt to justify their failures, rather than understand that those failures are inevitable and (b) they would receive even more criticism for spending hard-earned taxpayer's dollars on advertising and PR, when they ought to be spending that money on making the space program safe and effective.

All in all, such an education campaign seems nearly guaranteed to fail and 100% guaranteed to draw fire.

Wow...

[mattmentecky]

He was also part of the Strategic Defense Initiative in the 80s.

I won't go so far as to say that this should automatically disqualify him, only because he is a science/engineering geek and it is possible to live in that realm and not mix politics. However, the "Star Wars" initiative was a horrible idea. Now it has regained momentum -- 'National Missle Defense' under GWB, interesting how this choice to head NASA supported Reagan's SDI...Hmm...
The cold war is OVER. The best way to achieve nuclear disarmament or even come CLOSE is to give the impression at least, to other countries that you aren't preparing for an oncoming nuclear attack.

Re:SDI?

[r00t]

If nothing else, SDI encouraged the USSR to run themselves out of money.

Plus you have to understand that SDI is only part of a many-layered defence. All layers are weak, and some have already failed. Some layers have not been implemented; this is terribly irresponsible. The layers can include at least:

• nuclear non-proliferation treaty (mostly successful, but note India and Pakistan among others)
• economic ties (you wouldn't nuke your trade partners)
• foreign aid
• export of culture
• revenge ability
• border crossing and port inspections
• monitored airspace
• spys and pre-emptive strikes
• early-stage ICBM take-down (airborne laser, high-speed rocket in nearby area, long-range gun in nearby area...)
• space-based mid-stage ICBM take-down (X-ray laser, smart rocks, chemical laser, rail gun...)
• late-stage ICBM take-down (high-speed rocket, long-range gun, various laser systems)
• bomb shelters

Every single one of these layers can fail. Relying on just a few layers is foolish.

Re:I am glad. But NASA hiring rules are the proble

[haluness]

and millions of IQ scores show (see the Bell Curve book data)

using the above reference pretty much makes your argument a troll.

The arguments made in that book have been pretty well repudiated (Gould, Pinker etc).

As another reply has said, get some balls, and stop whining

Re:SDI?

[Rei]

The whole "SDI helped break the Soviet Union" thing is a myth. About the only things SDI could be responsible for would be additional programs for MIRVing warheads and other countermeasures. That's hardly a budget busting line item there.

The whole "military buildup helped break the Soviet Union" might have some truth to it, but countermeasures for SDI cost a tiny fraction of the cost of SDI. It's only good against newly emerging nuclear powers.

Of course, even the notion that the military buildup was the big issue is wrong; many people had rightfully predicted far earlier that the internal contradictions within the soviet system would destroy it. One of their biggest flaws (which is still around, BTW) is the fact that people often (rightfully) felt that they would be better off by hiding damaging information than admitting it. We got a nice taste of it, for example, after the Kursk accident. Factor in the failed collective farms and other failed social experiments, and it's not surprising that so many people saw this one coming.

You can't factor out the military buildup; however, crediting SDI is pretty unrealistic.

Re:Time?

[Manan Shah]

NASA doesn't need someone who can build a rocket engine. As chief, he wont be building anything himself. His job is to MANAGE and LEAD. And he has the knowledge and experience to do just that.

Re:SDI?

[good soldier svejk]

The whole "military buildup helped break the Soviet Union" might have some truth to it... You can't factor out the military buildup; however, crediting SDI is pretty unrealistic.

Not really. You pretty much can factor out the military buildup. The Soviet military budget grew at a steady 1-1.5 percent anually from 1975 to 1988. There was no change in the growth rate under Reagan. Furthermore, Soviet spending on weapons procurement didn't rise at all under Reagan. Then in 1988 Gorbachev cut the overall military budget back to 1980 levels. All this while they were fighting a hot war in Afghanistan. When exactly did the USSR go "bankrupt" anyway? It was political bankruptcy which killed the CPSU regime, not economic bankruptcy. The economy was in decline, but it was far from collapsed. That came later under the Russian Federation.

Re:NASA is over

[Anonymous Coward]

"The real reason is that Bush wants to turn NASA and other government agencies into organizations which convert govt. funds into private contracts."

And this is a bad thing, because???

I don't feel sorry for most of the people at the NASA field centers, because they wouldn't be able to hold a real job anyway! The trouble is, people in government jobs get promoted on seniority, not merit.

Why is it that Von Braun's group in the 1960's could put a man on the moon, but today it's a real challenge?

That's because after the German rocket scientists died, the lackeys that carried their bags got promoted and are now running NASA! For chrissakes, you can't even build a Saturn V anymore!!!!!

Re:Time?

[Mukaikubo]

Let me get this straight. Because he has more advanced degrees than you or I will ever have, and because he's held a lot of fairly responsible jobs on technical projects, he's a creationist. ...ye gods, sign me up for the God-loving, if this is what it gets! Seriously, are you just trolling?

Re:Time?

[Quantum Fizz]

So you criticize this guy for having too many management jobs, and then use that as the argument for why he's unfit for the top management job as NASA?

You also criticize a guy that loves science for jumping to the 'dark side' of management. But just what kind of manager are you looking for at NASA anyway? Someone that doesn't like science?