NASA in dire need of an administrator.

From AP by way of Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/04/22/ap6325119.html

NASA is facing a critical deadline to make its biggest decision in a generation: whether to go forward with plans to retire the space shuttle fleet and replace it with a new mode of space travel. But the agency still has no chief to make the $230 billion call.

NASA seems so far off the White House radar, said one presidential expert, that it might as well be on Pluto.

"As each day goes by, the need for these decisions becomes greater and greater, and the absence of an administrator becomes more and more an issue," said John Logsdon, a member of the NASA Advisory Council who also advised President Barack Obama's campaign.

Obama's science adviser has said that crucial decisions on the shuttle and a new spacecraft to carry astronauts back to the moon will not be made until NASA gets a new administrator. In an interview two weeks ago, John Holdren did not know when that would be.

A key deadline is April 30, when a congressional rule governing the shuttle's infrastructure expires. After that date, NASA will be free to start taking apart the shuttle program if it chooses.

But some in Congress want the shuttle to fly longer because retiring the fleet would force the U.S. to rely on Russia for trips to space for nearly five years. Obama has said he wants at least one more shuttle flight beyond those already planned.

And that's not all. A Congressional Budget Office report concluded that NASA cannot carry out its current plans on its existing budget. The report outlined options that include delaying the flight of the new spacecraft, spending more money to meet the current schedule or drastically cutting back on science.

NASA also has an extra $1 billion in stimulus money, but little direction in how to spend it.
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I'm unsure of what's taking the President so long to pick a new NASA admin. I thought he was just taking his time and was going to unveil some new space initiative, but I'm starting to worry that NASA is going to just be shoved into the background. I was hoping that after decades of neglect the agency would get a much needed boost.

If anything I think NASA needs to have an idea what direction they're going to be headed in.

should be razed to the ground and rebuilt. Orion really isn't a good idea. They've essentially abandoned the aeronautical field. It's just a mess.

has already been spent and Orion is almost ready for it's first test flight. I'd rather go with that less that perfect design (understatement) and replace it later than have another decade-long delay in spaceflight.

What I really just want to know is what the heck is going to happen. The suspense is killing me.

Why spend so much time and money on X-43 if they weren't looking into hybrid jet-rocket staging? It hurts to think how much further along we'd be in hypersonics if we hadn't abandoned that field. And they really have. I worked in the R/A at Dryden in '05 and aside from fond memories and some bragging, there was nothing related to high-speed flight. I recently heard they're thinking about just tearing down the big tunnel at Ames. I'll admit to bias toward the aero side of aerospace, but I think they've made a mistake.

I agree with you on...they should have gone with a space plane. Back in the early 90s I remember them saying that the X-43 would be up and running by now. Instead they just went back to the 60s. I know that there's an amazing (and practical) design out there created by Alan Bond, called the Skylon, but it's not receiving the funding it needs. Sad state of affairs.

Where next for NASA?

22 April 2009 by David Shiga

THE US risks losing its edge in human space exploration and faces the humbling prospect of relying on outsiders to put its astronauts into space. Battles are brewing over the direction the agency should take, and decisions made in the next few months may shape US spaceflight for decades to come. So where does NASA's future lie?

In July NASA will celebrate the 40th anniversary of humanity's first steps on the moon. But 2009 sees confusion over the agency's next "giant leaps", and its planned return to the moon is in the balance: the space shuttle fleet is set to retire in 2010, although the shuttles' troubled successor will not be ready until 2015 at the earliest and many space commentators, and even some NASA employees, want to scrap it and start over. Despite safety concerns, there are calls to extend the shuttle's life rather than hitch rides with countries such as Russia. Other groups are pushing instead for NASA to start paying for their astronauts to travel on commercial spacecraft.

The entire future of US crewed space flight is in question but events are coming to a head: a new NASA boss is to be appointed, possibly in the next month, there are highly anticipated rocket flight tests later this year, and a tightening of purse strings is set to force some difficult decisions.

The stakes could not be higher, says Howard McCurdy, a space-policy analyst at the American University in Washington DC. NASA can no longer afford the spiralling costs associated with expensive disappointments like the space shuttle, which added up to many billions more than planned, he says. "It will kill the human space flight programme."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227054.100-where-next-for-nasa.html

I love NASA, but damn, the place is dysfunctional. Some of this is 8 years of neglect/animosity from the * regime, but some is institutional. It is going to be a Herculean task to clean things up there.

Leaving NASA hanging with no idea what the hell is going on is just making things worse. Some critical decisions need to be made right now. I mean...if they can't find a new admin, the current temporary guy can be made permanent. I've heard that he's done a decent job, considering the mess on his hands.