Slashdot Mirror
New NASA Admin Griffin Cleans House
Doug Dante writes "Michael D. Griffin, the new NASA Administrator, has given 20 senior NASA officials their walking papers, in a first purge that can see as many as 50 loose their positions, reports the Washington Post. Included are Associate Administrator for Space Operations William F. Readdy, and his deputy Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael C. Kostelnik (retired)."
This makes me wonder to which extent the bureaucracy is to blame (or attribute) to "entrenched" managers or the whole system. In this case, it is apparently believed that the top layer of people keep an inefficient system intact. The question is: can one change the nature of a system by replacing the managing people in that system?
see a Text Widget
I'd go a step further. Bring in REAL engineers as well as entrepreneurs. Get guys with some ambition and a sense for getting a goal completed. Triage your remaining senior staff and fill it up with young MIT grads.
Will the be bringing in real engineers? Real engineers, rather than bureaucrats, are the only way that NASA can be revitalized.
William Readdy, the first person named in the story, is an aerospace engineer. Michael Kostelnik, the only other person specifically mentioned, is a mechanical engineer. Why do you (and a lot of people) assume that NASA is run by bureaucrats, or that engineers can't BE bureaucrats, or that engineers are somehow wiser, nobler, and better able to run the agency than non-engineers?
Kennedy made it the goal of the nation to land a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade, knowing that someone else would be in the White House then.
It looks to me like Griffin has decided that whether or not the president's new goal was diversion or eagerness, he's going to do his best to get it done.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Does anyone have the political affiliations of the people who were fired?
[o]_O
Actually, they're getting rid of the managers that Slashdotters like to complain about. You know, the ones that don't understand the technical end of things, and as a result end up setting unrealistic deadlines and promising impossible accomplishments. They're getting RID of the political bureaucracy and replacing it with scientists. Oh the shame!
Of course, since you can attribute it as another negative of the Bush Administration, you will. And most of Slashdot will agree.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Perhaps this cleaning of the administration is being done in order to facilitate a more military-centric NASA. There has been much speculation (see References) that the US military will begin to weaponize space. A NASA that is less interested in scientific discovery will of course be beneficial to the Pentagon, as they have the capabilities and know-how to design, implement, launch, maintain and control this upcoming space-based weaponry.
e =technologyNews&storyID=8522373 0 0000e2511c8.html
References: http://www.reuters.com/audi/newsArticle.jhtml?typ
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a4a4e198-c8cf-11d9-87c9-
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7896613/
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Sorry, there is no payback in this. It's not like a class action suit, where you put up $1-$2M in real money with a pretty good chance of getting back 20-30X your investment. Space exploration really is hard, and bigger projects are very unpredictable. Nobody is going to spend $100-$500M on a project, possibly competing with several other companies, for a $200M prize (or even $1-2B prize for that matter). These things take years, and Wall Street is going to expect some returns buy the end of the fiscal quarter.
No, those prizes are for rich folks with nothing better to do and corporations who have a few million in pocket change they'd have to pay taxes on, so they "fund a team" and hope for some good press.
NASA needs to go back to its roots. If you look at the real technical departments at Goddard, some of the smart folks are still there. So is the atmostphere. That spark thats left is going to need a lot of oxygen and some carful tending to earn back NASA the "rocket scientist" moniker, but I think it can be done, and I think Griffin has a chance.
By the way - Griffin has been a Mars mission fanatic for a LONG time. Heck, it was part of the final he gave when I took my graduate class in space vehicle guidance an navigation from him a decade ago. He's one smart guy (and a PITA as a professor, though a nice one). Given enough time, I think he's got a good shot at turning NASA around. If he can't do it, there's not much chance of it happening.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
First of all, Bush isn't defunding NASA. He is, infact, doing the opposite. He increased NASA's budget 5% last year, and plans 2 more 5% increases in the next 2 years. Far more than Clinton can claim.
Bush's budget request for Project Constellation, the product of his "brave speech," is $6.6 billion over the next 5 years.
The CEV, part of Project Constellation, will have the concepts from the major contractors completed and sent to NASA by the end of this summer.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-01-13 -bush-nasa_x.htm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/14/tech/mai n593063.shtml
I would like you see your source on that these men were engineers and that they're being replaced by businessmen. I would find it hard to beleive that a man with a doctorate, 5 masters, and 1 bachelor degree in sciences and engineering would purposely sabotage NASA.
I recommend you get your news from a source other than democraticunderground.