The New Administrator

Well, this is terrible, if true.

Hard to imagine a worse pick. He’s the father of the mother of all Big Monster Rockets. His astronaut nickname was “Ballast.”

[Tuesday noon update]

The politician who said that politicians shouldn’t run NASA wants to run NASA.

16 thoughts on “The New Administrator”

  1. I keep learning that sometimes the best way to predict the future, especially in this Biden administration, is to imagine the stupidest possible idea.

    I knew we’d miss Bridenstine, but maybe the only person stupider than Nelson would have been Shelby.

  2. Wow, this won’t even make the commie space nerds happy. It is probably a good sign for BO. Let the pork flow.

  3. Well he doesn’t need to buy votes any more if that any solace. And sounds like NASA knifing SLS anyway.

    1. They’d better hurry, once Nelson gets in perhaps only Earth study missions will be able to use commercial rockets. Oops my bad, that implies post-Nelson there ARE any non-Earth observation missions. As Biden’s no more America First agenda, maybe Bill can snag a rental room for NASA at the ChiRusCom’s Not Artemis lunar base?

    2. Something else to take comfort in, he is in his 80s and wont have the job more than a few years. Will he make it farther than Biden?

  4. Nelson is an excellent green pick. He tore Bridenstine a new one on climate change during his confirmation. Maybe NASA can finally get back to it’s primary purpose – reducing global CO2 levels to 50 ppm.

  5. Short of Richard Shelby, you could not find a more devout promoter of SLS and traditional cost-plus procurement for NASA.

    1. Well, he defended the Constellation program, and in retrospect cancelling Constellation and switching to SLS wasn’t the big programmatic fix that NASA needed because it didn’t solve the problem. Constellation was behind schedule, overbudget, and in 2010 they said they were cancelling it because it wouldn’t be flying missions until the mid-2020’s. Well, SLS doesn’t seem to be a bit better on those points, and it doesn’t have the payload capacity of the Ares V.

      I would argue that keeping the Constellation was the right call because it would’ve looked better on paper, employed just as many people in key districts, had the same lack of purpose, and perhaps more importantly for Biden upon program cancellation, could’ve been blamed on Bush instead of Obama. But until then, at least it could deliver an Orion directly to low lunar orbit, probably with a lander, too.

      My question, and I haven’t paid attention to Bill Nelson to know, is whether he took his position because he felt that the SLS wasn’t fit for purpose, or whether he was defending Constellation because he’ll defend any pork project NASA comes up with.

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