During the election against Feeny, Kosmas didn’t run any ads that I can remember on Space. She talked about healthcare, bringing the troops home, and so on. But her tune has changed because she knows that in the next contest, one where she will face a strong candidate, unlike Feeny, Brevard will matter, so she needs to be on the right side of Space.

The idea of Majority Leader Reid reigning in Nelson is laughable. Nelson got Florida for President Obama and its bundle of electoral points by pounding into then candidate Obama that to win FL means turning away from his anti-Space stance and towards a pro-Space one. President Obama has enough headaches right now, so if Nelson doesn’t want Gration, then that’s that.

It is heartening to read that selecting the NASA Administrator rests not with the the Transition Team but with President Obama’s WH staff. As silly as Mike’s conduct might have been, the Obama NASA Transition teams conduct was worse; transition teams are not supposed to get criticized in Time magazine. Rather, they are supposed to work quietly in the background.

Dangle his career in front of his eyes and just watch how quickly he’ll confirm Gration then.

Good luck with that, Chuck…

One would like to believe that a White House that prides itself on openness and transparency, valuing communication and participation, would provide some early inkling of even a general level of commitment to space.

Right now, we’ve been through months of rumor and innuendo about the next NASA administrator (it even took a message from the last administrator to reveal that he wasn’t going to be the next one — thanks Mike!), and the blogosphere is rich with reads on likely presidential policy based on facial expressions and body language at the inaugural parade. Get real guys. Facial expressions and body language aren’t worth the time to post about them. The rover is an early concept that may or may not even happen, and while certainly “cool”, was an embarrassing token of an agency that can’t seem to come up with anything real to show.

By the way, it isn’t as if even the naming of an administrator would clearly answer these questions, as one might surmise by the rumors about Gration and his unidentifiable connections to space. It’s going to take more than that.

I’ve written a policy paper on these topics titled Aerospace Workforce Issues. While I wrote it for the Clinton campaign, I think the new Obama administration would find it perhaps more valuable given Obama’s inaugural address emphasis on finding real solutions to real problems.

I won`t attempt to guess what the man was thinking at that point (notice he was busy much of the time talking with the parade of high hats behind him) but I will take a guess at what the First Lady was thinking. If you watch a rerun of that piece of the parade what you will see as the rover approaches the reviewing stand is the First Lady focus on the rover (show interest) and then mouth the word “Wow” as the rover demonstrates what it is designed to do. Don`t forget that “behind every successful man stands a woman” and having the First Lady be impressed by what an agency is doing is no small thing.

Having an astronaut dismount, take Old Glory and move out in the direction of march was outstanding symbolism as well. Great move on the part of the NASA folks.

We shall see…

What do you call the multi-billion-dollar purchase of ISS cargo delivery services?

This is happening now, and we may be close to tipping point for “someday” to happen in a much larger measure.

While I’m a huge private space proponent, I don’t feel it is the be all end all solution, at least not now.

What do you mean by “be all end all solution”?

I am not sure what your concern is when you this.

We could do a LOT more private space, without it becoming the “be all end all”.

An expanded use of private space services can become a “Win Win” for both NASA and the private space industry. If you add the American taxpayers as a player (who care about growing good jobs), think of it as a “Win Win Win”.

FWIW,

– Al

I think it’s a wise move. The new appointees have a finite amount of time to make recommendations and then their mandates, and their jobs, dissolve. One cannot expect to go to the existing overlapped layers and ask them “which of you should be cut?”. That’d be a total waste of time. So long as the temporary examiners do their job well, make their recommendations and then go away, they will have left the President with the data he needs to take a scalpel to the agency.