NASA Administrator Quits Post to Launch Career As Academic

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Tony Reichhardt,Washington ASA The future of the US space programme N faces fresh uncertainty this week after Sean O’Keefe quit as administrator of NASA to take up a lucrative academic post. O’Keefe resigned on 13 December to pursue a job as chancellor of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, which had aggressively recruited him and offered a reported $500,000 salary. The move came as a surprise to many in the space community, who had hoped that, before he left, O’Keefe would clear up some of the more pressing problems that arose during his tenure. A former Secretary of the Navy, O’Keefe was widely credited with addressing cost overruns on the International Space Station after his appointment in Decem- ASA ber 2001 — albeit by eroding the N station’s technical capacity. But after the loss of the space shuttle Columbia in February 2003, Hubble trouble: working out a fix for the telescope has been a headache for Sean O’Keefe. O’Keefe became an enthusiastic cheerleader for President George the report, other than to say that and manned spaceflight are breaking down”. Bush’s ambitious ‘Vision for NASA is still studying the robotic O’Keefe also began another, less heralded Space Exploration’, including a servicing option,which comes up transformation at NASA by filling many top return to the Moon. for a technical review in March. agency positions with former military offi- In an important victory for Many observers now see cials, many of whom had no previous space O’Keefe and the White House, NASA last O’Keefe’s insistence against sending astro- experience.Jobs ranging from chief financial month obtained nearly its full 2005 budget nauts to fix Hubble as a significant blunder.It officer and general counsel to the head of the request of $16.2 billion from Congress. Yet underestimated public support for the tele- new exploration programme — retired Navy the future of the ‘vision’ is far from assured, scope, they say, and alienated influential Rear Admiral Craig Steidle — have gone to space analysts say,and NASA’s financial trou- politicians such as Senator Barbara Mikulski people with Pentagon backgrounds. This bles are by no means over. The shuttle has so (Democrat, Maryland), whose state is home partly reflects O’Keefe’s work experience,but far cost $750 million more to fix than was to Hubble’s control centre. also signals the Bush administration’s inter- anticipated.And a public dispute over how to est in fostering a closer relationship between save the ailing Hubble Space Telescope — Taking flight military and civilian space programmes. which may need as much as $2 billion that Although many scientists respected O’Keefe’s The use of military expertise extends to NASA doesn’t have in its budget — has been management style and sympathized with his outside advisers, such as retired Air Force a mounting headache for O’Keefe. attempt to give the astronaut programme a General Lester Lyles, a former head of the US A National Academy of Sciences panel fresh direction, the potential dominance of Missile Defense Agency,who has been tapped released a report on 8 December that directly the Moon mission and the Hubble contro- to head NASA’s oversight committee for the challenged the administrator by calling for versy made others fret that science had lost Moon mission. In a speech to the Air Force astronauts to repair the telescope as originally its pre-eminence at NASA. Space science had Association last month,Lyles praised O’Keefe planned. A proposed robotic servicing mis- been largely insulated from budgetary prob- for “getting to an organization that looks very sion would be too risky in the near term, said lems affecting the space shuttle and station in much more like the Department of Defense”. the panel,and sending astronauts to Hubble is the past decade. Now, says Jonathan Lunine, That trend may continue after O’Keefe’s not significantly more dangerous than send- a planetary scientist at the University of departure. Rumoured successors include ing them to the space station — despite Arizona in Tucson and a frequent member several military men,among them retired Air O’Keefe’s protestations to the contrary. The of NASA advisory committees, “some of Force General Ronald Kadish, who recently administrator made no official response to the virtual firewalls between space science led the US missile defence programme. ■