[FPSPACE] Buckaroo Banzai for NASA Administrator

[Jonathan McDowell]

>  Jonathan McDowell for NASA Administrator

I don't think so, somehow... maybe in the Jesse Jackson Administration,
but I can't see myself getting a phone call from Bush. And the job
of NASA Adminstrator is not to excite the public, but to schmooze with
Congress. I'd have to cut my hair and wear a tie. That doesn't sound
like much fun... 

There *does* need to be a separate NASA planner/cheerleader position
to be a public face to get people excited. I don't think the Administrator
has the time to do this right. And I'm not sure how to give such a person
the power to shake things up without getting in the way of the Administrator,
who has to be a political type from the way that Washington is structured
(at least if he/she is to be effective). Just another 'outreach' person
isn't enough, because they must have the power to force the NASA system
to be more accessible to the public, and have the access and the background
to be able to listen to the engineers at the coalface about what *they* need
to make NASA more effective.

For what it's worth, my platform:

 - separate clearly in the public mind the goals of (1) science and (2) exploration
 - the long term goal of exploration is the colonization of the Moon and Mars
 - public support, however, is not there yet for the outlay it would take, even
   for the new 'cheap' approaches.
 - therefore, an agressive automated lunar and mars exploration program focussed
   more explicitly on technology development for human exploration, 
 - while keeping astronauts in LEO for now (perhaps with some thought for
   experimental missions to GEO and/or NEO); we've spent so much on Station 
   we should complete it, but we need to think of ways to keep long term
   operations costs lower
 - strongly support the X-38 program and investigate the possibility
   of being able to launch it on an expendable (e.g Ariane 5) as a backup
   human access to space should Shuttle and Soyuz be unavailable
 - maintain collaboration with and limited support for Russia, but ensure
   they are not in the critical path for Station. However, find ways to
   help their space infrastructure survive - I do believe the Russian economy
   will get healthy again a few years down the road.
   This is a tricky one - we can't see Energiya go down the tubes (Krunichev
   is OK because of Proton) but we can't get messed around by the Russian govt.
   in the way we have been. Maybe the attitude is, no more loans but we'll
   buy stuff to own and *control* ourselves.
 - revisit the advanced launch program, in particular review the X-33
   (I don't have the knowledge to say now that it should be cancelled, but I
    am skeptical of the program). We need cheaper access to space, not fancier.
   We need a Shuttle replacement, we need to learn lessons from Shuttle, but
   we should be building a vehicle with more margin, not one closer to the cutting
   edge, as our prime replacement. The fancy X-33/DC-X/whatever experimental
   spaceplane should also happen eventually when we have the money, but the key
  for now is getting humans to space cheaply  (and for human spaceflight, I
  don't believe the commercial world will do the trick).
 - accelerate efforts to move as many functions of Mission Control as possible
   onto the spacecraft itself, with the MOCR moving more to a backup role for the
   next generation of human spaceflight.
 - for science missions, increase the ratio of data analysis money to mission
   development money, at the cost of fewer new starts. It's silly to throw away
  a working spacecraft because you don't have 1 percent of its cost to continue
  operating it, or to gather all the data and then not have any postdocs to
  analyse it. Since it always takes about 5 years to fully understand the calibration
  of a scientific space mission, shutting the team down after 2 or 3 years is
  never a good idea.
 - maintain a mix of SMEX-type small missions and a few major missions. There
   are some things small missions just can't do, but you do need a reasonable
   flight rate to keep teams from stagnating or dispersing.
 - Pluto now; Europa's cool, but it will keep, while Pluto's atmosphere won't.
 - HQ vs the centers: I think HQ is now actually *under*staffed. But HQ
   must give programs as much autonomy and responsibility as possible.
 My impression is that too many trivial things need multiple approvals and
 signatures... I don't know how much of that is NASA and how much is federal
 govt. requirement.
 - aeronautics: I don't know enough to say what should happen, but we either
  need to make the aeronautics part much more visible, or give it to someone else.
  Langley should be (1) researching only things that commercial aviation won't do
  and (2) providing a set of resources and facilities to the aerospace industry.
  The NACA heritage makes a strong sentimental attachment to Langley and Lewis/Glenn;
  but it's not clear to me how strong the practical tie is between the aero side and
  the space side these days - do we gain by having them both in NASA, or should
  we give aero to some other agency, would they do better if they weren't space's
  unloved junior partner? Alternatively, are there obvious aero things we should
  be doing that we're not that could be an important chunk of NASA?
 - anything that industry can do well, should be contracted out. But for things
   that industry has turned out to be poor at, we need the in-house expertise
  and experience (one thing that comes to mind is certain kinds of software,
  where contracting out has often led to disaster).
 - I think there are certain centers where there's still a lot of dead wood to be
   cut. I'm not going to name names, though, because it's not fair to trash people
   based on relatively superficial impressions. There's a lot too much of that on
   the net. 


  There, now at least you know what you're voting for. I'd be a terrible NASA
 Adminstrator.

 > Carolyn Porco

 I don't know Dr. Porco, but I've heard good things about her. I wouldn't wish
the job on her either. We need someone with political savvy. I had suggested
Keith Cowing, but now I'm leaning towards Dwayne...  (I forgot to mention
in my platform that I'm against monkey missions). 

  - Jonathan