The Space Foundation issued a statement Saturday endorsing the nominations of Charles Bolden and Lori Garver to the NASA administrator and deputy administrator positions. “[T]he White House has demonstrated that it appreciates the importance of both of these key positions to the future of America’s space agency,” Space Foundation CEO Elliot Pulham said.
The Coalition for Space Exploration expressed a similar sentiment in its own statement endorsing the nominations. “We look forward to working with the new NASA administrator and his leadership team as we address the rapidly approaching human spaceflight gap following retirement of the Space Shuttle, the next generation Constellation program and full utilization of the International Space Station,” said Dean Acosta, chairman of the coalition’s public affairs team.
Any one any idea how they will “share” the work? What I mean is that it looks like the WH “insider” is Garver while she “only” is the Deputy Admin. So are we to assume that she will be the WH policy chief enforcer inside NASA? Is it not supposed to be the role of the Admin itself? Was the WH trying to come up with an “honest broker” for NASA Admin when it comes to enforcing the policy? Someone, Bolden, that would be difficult to question when tough times come? What happens to Whitesides and Ladwig if Bolden brings in his own management?
It seems a little unclear to me…