This is exactly the wrong person to chart a needed new course:
- Kshatriya worked within JSC’s mission operations directorate, climbing the ladder from robotics staff to robotics operations lead working on ISS systems.
- He then served a stint as a Mission Control flight director, where he oversaw cargo and crew missions to the ISS, before becoming deputy manager of the ISS vehicle office.
- In 2021, Kshatriya moved to Washington, DC, as assistant deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development for the SLS, Orion, and Exploration Ground Systems programs.
- In 2023, he became deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars program.
In other words, despite concerns expressed yesterday about China in the Senate clown show, business as usual.
[Afternoon update]
Sorry, first link was wrong, fixed now.
[Update a few minutes later]
(Depressing) thoughts from Bob Zimmerman.
We need to keep Indians out of any leadership position in government or business. They will take over NASA as they have many other organizations.
The “Hindu Peril,” eh? “They” have already “taken over” the FBI and, for my money, it’s working a lot better now than it has been under the last several Democrat-stooge white guys.
Kshatriya is a poor choice for NASA Admin because he’s a NASA lifer and establishmentarian, not because he’s Indian. Fortunately, as I have long maintained here and elsewhere, who is running NASA is becoming steadily less important because NASA is becoming steadily less important.
But, but, but. Who will certify that the SpaceX HLS actually made it to the lunar surface and back if not NASA?
Without that imprimatur, how can we consider any space efforts legit let alone diverse, equitable and inclusive?
That he is Indian is the least of the issues with this selection.
Rand, both links go to the same web page. Was this intentional?
‘From Sanskrit क्षत्रिय (kṣatriya, “(the warrior or military caste or a member of this caste”), from क्षत्र (kṣatra, “rule, dominion, authority”).’
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/kshatriya
It’s his dharma to be Associate Administrator.
I think NASA has kicked the can down the road (SLS) so long that they cannot really change course and are destined to fail, like a company that sticks with a losing product strategy in a changing market.
They have no alternative to the SLS/Orion/non-existent lander architecture, other than to lose to whatever Elon Musk and the Chinese end up doing. The SLS can’t do a simple lunar mission because the total impulse is too low. It can’t do a complex lunar mission because its flight rate is too low. NASA can’t change course because that would be admitting not just defeat, but that their whole plan was doomed from the start, and they’ve wasted the past twenty years.
An article about him illustrates a major reason I don’t think it will work out.
https://www.alumni.caltech.edu/from-moon-to-mars/
If you want to expand people’s brains, go work in a brain expansion lab somewhere. If you want to make sure the program aligns with democratic values, go write essays that nobody is going to read.
He’s already out in left field, in chakra land, on the goals. Millons of people around the globe could’ve done that in the 60’s. But we got to the moon because we had NASA leaders who were focused on questions of mission mode, hardware, and the development programs to figure out what we need to know and needed to have.
Basically, they need someone like Elon Musk who can manage very large, complex, fast-paced projects, which is a very rare skill.
The most vital reason to go to the Moon is the same reason humanity has always headed over the next hill: more energy and resources.
The NASA circus is going the way of… the real circus. Soon to be part of the past.
Duffy said that the President’s Budget Request for FY 2026 is the NASA budget
I wonder how serious he and the administration are to make that be the case.
What happens if a CR is passed?
I was baffled by the number of people I knew who welcomed his appointment. Apparently, the mere fact that the guy could spend more time running NASA than Duffy was to them a positive.
My reaction was: yet another catastrophe. Someone whose major experience includes running SLS, Orion etc, will keep running the place just as the no-progress, delusional-when-not-lying bureaucracy desires. Because he is one of them and will only double down on the insanity.
That certainly seems to be the percentage expectation. Perhaps he will surprise us all. But in the far more likely event of continuing business as usual, we at least have the comfort of knowing that the lunar program of record will inevitably be shouldered aside by SpaceX – and even by Blue Origin – in just a handful of years.
I just hope that becomes the case before Congress passes a law requiring a NASA appointed astronaut/scientist (read “political officer”) accompany any and all lunar missions… Of course they’ll do that as the stick portion of the funding carrot, as always…