Was O'Keefe good for NASA?

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kdavis007

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steve82

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I think he was an excellent administrator. He inherited a convoluted ISS program fraught with mismanagement and waste and an agency still shell shocked from the psychopath who preceeded him. I don't recall him ever lying in public testimony-or at least allowing people to think things he knew to be untrue as some have. Cancelling the Hab module was the right thing to do. Some discipline had to be applied to the program. CRV might have been doable but it was still a hobby shop kluge and not a spacecraft. But whatever feelings there are about his program decisions, he was still the kind of leader that people follow out of trust and not fear.
 
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scottb50

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<<he was still the kind of leader that people follow out of trust and not fear.>> <br /><br />To their detriment either way. <br />Or was that supposed to be philosophical?<br /><br />He did what he was told to do, a good politicians. I would imagin we will see him somewhere, some day.<br /><br />The purge continues. Tow the line. O'Keefe seemed to keep a pretty low profile though, over all. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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najab

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He was good for NASA, at its worst of times. I shudder to think of what things would be like under another Dan Goldin.
 
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Swampcat

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<font color="orange"><b>Analysis: O'Keefe's Exit May Save Hubble</b><br /><br />The timing of NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe's sudden announcement Monday that he was resigning from the space agency to return to the academic world suggests his reasons were more complicated than he stated in public.<br /><br />Moreover, despite the overall excellent job he has done, O'Keefe's exit from NASA possibly is the best thing that could have happened for human space flight, for the Hubble Space Telescope, and for the American space program itself.</font><br /><br />Space Daily article...<br /><br />IMO, Mr. O'Keefe has done a decent job of getting NASA's accounting system under better control. I was disappointed to hear that he was leaving...until I read this:<br /><blockquote><p align="center"><font color="yellow">"He [O'Keefe] has described himself as an academic and a bean-counter, who was not part of the risk-taking space exploration community. More to the point, in his testimony to the national academies committee earlier this year he expressed a strong emotional reluctance about flying humans in space, resulting from his terrible post-Columbia accident experience."</font>/p></p></blockquote><br />Someone who has this attitude should NOT be leading NASA. An unwillingness to put humans into space is unacceptable. I kinda thought that his attitude toward shuttle Hubble servicing had some political purpose and that he would eventually decide to fly it. However, if this article is correct, it's clear that he has no intention of doing so and his reasons, because it isn't safe, just don't cut it.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="3" color="#ff9900"><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>------------------------------------------------------------------- </em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."</em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong>Thomas Jefferson</strong></font></p></font> </div>
 
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najab

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O'Keefe repeatedly said that they weren't ruling anything out as far as HST was concerned. The problem was that he didn't see how you could implement the CAIB report and still have a Shuttle mission to service Hubble.<p>As far as reluctance to launch humans, an administrator <i>should</i> be scared of doing it. Go-fever filters down and becomes known as schedule pressure at the lower ranks. Until we get more reliable and safer space vehicles, the administrator should always be asking: do we <b>have</b> to do this mission?</p>
 
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Swampcat

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:<font color="yellow">"...he didn't see how you could implement the CAIB report and still have a Shuttle mission to service Hubble."</font><br /><br />I agree that that was his reasoning, though I disagree with how he went about it. At any rate, it was his decision and, for whatever reasons, I respect that. <br /><br /><font color="yellow">"...an administrator <i>should</i> be scared of doing it."</font><br /><br />I don't know about "scared," but certainly every reasonable thing should be done to make human spaceflight as safe as possible. I wouldn't want someone running the show that disregarded reasonable safety, but I wonder if, post-Columbia, Mr. O'Keefe has the stomach for the smallest amount of necessary risk-tasking. It seems to me that making comments like "a strong emotional reluctance about flying humans in space" would make him a poor choice to run a manned spaceflight program of any sort.<br /><br />Hey, I don't mean to disrespect the guy. I think he did what he was sent to NASA to do. However, it seems to me that if you're going to run a successful human spaceflight program you need someone leading NASA who has the "Right Stuff" for the job. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="3" color="#ff9900"><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>------------------------------------------------------------------- </em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."</em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong>Thomas Jefferson</strong></font></p></font> </div>
 
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SpaceKiwi

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Unquestionably he was.<br /><br />He brought a sense of credibility to that part of the NASA organisation which Congress and the general public is always skeptical about ... the numbers.<br /><br />Coming from outside the space industry, he also had an ability to be impartial (IMO) and bring something of the "gee-whiz" back into NASA. The public persona was second-to-none, and I am reminded of his interaction with staff at the first Mars rover landing. The sense of wonderment and enthusiasm often in his face at public appearances encouraged a great amount of optimism in me that NASA was in sympathetic hands.<br /><br />As I have said previously around the SDC, there is something of everyone's favourite "Uncle Bob" about Sean O'Keefe. He inspires trust, and a belief that he genuinely cares about the organisation, the people within it, and the enthusiasm we all share here for space exploration. The ability to convey that to the general public will be so important as the Moon-Mars initiative moves forward.<br /><br />I fear for the direction NASA might now take under the next administrator. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em><font size="2" color="#ff0000">Who is this superhero?  Henry, the mild-mannered janitor ... could be!</font></em></p><p><em><font size="2">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</font></em></p><p><font size="5">Bring Back The Black!</font></p> </div>
 
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spacester

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Was he good for NASA? Yes, no doubt about it. To think otherwise IMO is to not remember what a financial and organizational mess he inherited.<br /><br />Was he good for Human Spaceflight? Not so much. His main contribution in that general regard is simply getting out of the way by resigning before holding all of us back via timidity. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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lunatic133

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He was not perfect but he was what NASA needed at the time. I think he was a good administrator. He could have done a lot of things better but all in all he had the right idea and did the right things for NASA. My problem with him was that he was too risk averse when it came to returning to flight, the hubble mission, and such. However a lesser administrator would have returned the shuttle to flight and simply pretended nothing happened, which would have also been bad. He helped to give the space program direction and got rid of that awful "faster better cheaper" mantra which gave way to "Slower, worse, and more expensive."He saw that it was time for NASA to move on and get rid of the space shuttle ASAP which I respected. However, if he was too afraid to fix the hubble, I had trouble imagining him leading the nation to the moon. I think it was time for him to leave but I sure hope they don't get someone stupid to replace him...<br />All in all, I will vote yes.
 
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steve82

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I kind of gathered from what I've read about him in books like Evelyn Husband's High Calling and elsewhere that he took the Columbia accident very personally. On the professional level it was on his watch and there's all that responsibility to bear, but having to face those 7 families is what really affected him deeply.
 
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googlenaut

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I think that Mr. O'Keefe did a remarkably good job under some terribly difficult circumstances. I am sure that the Columbia accident must have affected him deeply--who wouldn't be? I believe that he probably feels personally responsible--any good leader would. And this probably creates a dilemna for him--he may 'gun shy' about sending additional crews into space. But space exploration is a risky business: it always has been, and I wager it always will be. People WILL die again in future tragedies--we learn from the mistakes, we fix the problems, and then we move on. It has always been this way and will probably always will be with exploration.<br /><br />I would like to see NASA replace the aging space shuttles with something that is a little more 'astronaut friendly.' Something like an Apollo capsule with an escape rocket system is relatively simple, relatively cheap, and gives astronauts a fighting chance at life if something really goes wrong. <br /><br />A more expensive option would be to somehow eliminate the foam/ice problem on the ET and replace the thermal protection tiles with something tougher like a rigid, cell metal matrix panel. Undoubtably, such a system will be much heavier than RCC and borosilicate tiles.<br />
 
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