A few new matters relating to the NASA Administrator or, more specifically, the lack of one. Apparently, this is causing problems at NASA. Meanwhile, the top Democrat in the House heartily endorsed one rumored candidate while a leader of the NewSpace movement floated the name of another.
The Guardian reports that the lack of a replacement for Mike Griffin is causing a lot of angst at the space agency:
Barack Obama’s failure to appoint a new chief to run Nasa is fostering an atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty at the US space agency, a leading industry figure has told the Guardian.
The space agency, which is facing one of the toughest periods of its 51-year history, has been without a chief administrator since Michael Griffin stepped down in January, amid newspaper reports of heated arguments with the transition team, which Griffin denied in a memo.
The state of limbo could not have come at a worse time, with Nasa facing fundamental questions about its future. With only eight space shuttle flights left on the books, and a retirement date for the entire fleet penned in for next year, it is not clear how the world’s leading space agency will get its astronauts off the ground once the shuttle has been mothballed.
Meanwhile, mum’s the word from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on whether NASA should continue flying the shuttle beyond 2010. Her silence comes amidst efforts in Congress to keep the program alive and reports of massive cost overruns and schedule delays for its successor Ares rocket and Orion spacecraft.
However, Pelosi did have good things to say about former U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, the Texas Democrat who once represented the Johnson Space Center area and has been mentioned as a candidate to become the next NASA chief under Obama.
“I think he is a great person for it. I really know Nick Lampson. I think he would be fantastic,” she said. “He was a champion for NASA.
Lampson is either still in the running or has been nixed for some unknown reason, depending upon which rumors one believes.
Another name that has surfaced is NASA Ames Director Pete Worden. It’s not really clear whether the maverick Worden would take the job. He seems rather happy at Ames, and he’s quite a connoisseur of the Bay Area’s many fine wineries. (Yes, Virginia has wineries, but they’re not quite on the same level. Trust me. I know this from experience.)
Worden would certainly bring a lot of change to NASA Headquarters. And Obama Administration ran on bringing change to Washington. So, maybe it would be a good fit.
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Jim did not say that. He said that he thought that he might get a promotion (for various values of “promotion”).
The chances of Worden being administrator in this administration are vanishingly small.