Charles Bolden: The man who could lead NASA

[Political Tiger]

As President Barack Obama meets with http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/bolden-cf.html">Gen. Charles F. Bolden, Jr. Monday at the White House, speculation rises that Bolden, a former astronaut, might be selected to run NASA.

Bolden, 62, is a former shuttle commander and retired Marine major general who has flown in space four times. Bolden also flew more than 100 sorties into North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from June 1972 to June 1973.

If selected as NASA Administrator, Bolden would take over the $18 billion agency, at a time of transition in the nation's space program. The agency operates with 18,000 employees and a significant number of contractors.

Bolden would be the first black person to hold the top job at NASA.

http://thedailyvoice.com/voice/2009/05/charles-bolden-the-man-who-cou-001900.php

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. I can read the headlines now.

"Bolden to go where no black man has gone before."

[lapfog_1]

2. What's his science background?

I have no problem with former astronauts running the agency, but I have a little bit of problem with former military people running things (they are big on structure and formality and not so much on dealing with creative science nerds).

I would prefer a scientist be in charge, the military (ex or not) runs plenty of shit in our government.

[Political Tiger]

3. Here's his bio:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/bolden-cf.html

[lapfog_1]

4. That's what I was afraid of...

great guy, his resume makes him qualified to be Director of Flight Operations or probably a Directorate Chief or possibly even a Director of a NASA base (Houston, Kennedy, possibly Marshall).

But it's not a science background. Quite a bit of NASA is not even involved with space exploration, much less flight ops for human flight. NASA needs a scientist at the helm. Just like Obama did with the DOE.

[shireen]

5. he does not need to have a science background to support science

Bolden was involved in a past Hubble servicing mission and has been very supportive of space sciences. I think he'll make an excellent administrator.

[lapfog_1]

6. I worked for NASA for 10 years (the nineties).

And it would be better for the Administrator (and the Directorate Chiefs) to all have a science background, imho.

NASA should be more about science in the future, and not so much with manned space flight missions...

After all the money was spent on the ISS (and arguably, the Shuttle program)... what do we have to show for it so far?

The ISS was mostly to have a destination for the Space Shuttle. And the Space Shuttle was kept going (too long... as it was really a prototype) just to get people up to the ISS (the Russians ship up most of the food and water and stuff, using unmanned transport).

Why should we even send people to Mars when the rovers are doing so well... lasting far far longer than anticipated, doing a good job of getting around, and if they conk out... well, they did their job and then some.

And we pretty much aren't ever (at least for another 100 years) sending people to anywhere else in the solar system, not unless there are some really huge breakthroughs. OTOH, NASA excels at remote sensing and climate studies, things central to life on THIS planet.

People worry that unmanned missions won't capture the imagination like the Apollo days... and that's true. Nothing will likely capture the imagination of the kids today like Apollo did when I was small. Even a manned mission to Mars won't do it (BTDT... at least with robots).

However, we need NASA working on the climate crises and the energy crises... a lot more than we need people in space. Robots in space, sure... send a dozen missions to Mars in the next 5 years. But scrap the Shuttle and, sadly, junk the ISS as well. They are both money sinks. (As will the Apollo like replacement for the Shuttle, which is really a step backward as far as space flight goes).