Comments on: Unnecessary plane flights

By: David Davenport

David Davenport — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 01:16:25 +0000

O’Keefe made a TV appearance last Monday night during half time at the LSU-Tennessee football game, looking hearty and chipper in an LSU sweatshirt and cap.

I didn’t see Keith Cowing at his side.

Sean’s sort of your flexible upper level functionary. Space agency or big state U. head? Privately, he probably doesn’t give a flip or a rip as long as the pay and bennies are OK, including plenty of junkets on taxpayer-funded airplanes.

The former NASA Administrator’s side lost the game. After being down 21-0 at the half, the Vowels ultimately prevailed, as God certainly intended.

Tennessee would probably win even more football games if they stopped teaching evolution and once again made daily Christian prayer mandatory in all Tenessee schools.

By: Greg Zsidisin

Greg Zsidisin — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 00:22:27 +0000

Maybe someday NASA will get slapped for making unnecessary *space* flights, using its own fleet instead of commercial offerings…

By: William Berger

William Berger — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 21:50:36 +0000

Don’t worry, O’Keefe has Keith Cowing to defend him.

By: Greg Kuperberg

Greg Kuperberg — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 17:26:23 +0000

It’s interesting that this is linked to Sean O’Keefe, Mr. Bean Counter. Managers who have entirely the wrong perspective, in this case counting beans instead of engineering, often also screw up the very things that they think are important.

By: billg

billg — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 16:27:29 +0000

This is a well-polished baseball bat used to bash any agency that flies its own planes. In the distant past when I was a DoD employee, the Air Force maintained a smalt fleet to shuttle folks between D.C. and major installations. Did it waste money? Well, that depended on what the airlines happened to be charging that year. One year’s stats might show waste, the next year’s might show savings (assuming anyone bothered to look).

The real question about these in-house airlines is whether they need to exist at all, not if they’re more expensive than commercial carriers.