Re: How will history view ...

rk <stellare@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:Xns96C6C1B4B3C53rk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

> Ten or twenty years from now, how do you think history will view Sean
> O'Keefe as NASA Administrator?

A mixed legacy. I suspect the overall assessment will depend on how VSE
turns out.

O'Keefe was picked as NASA administrator to try to clean up the financial
mess in the ISS program, which had dropped a "surprise" $4.8 billion
overrun into the lap of the incoming Bush administration. By and large, he
succeeded, and managed to keep NASA out of trouble with the OMB
(historically a sore spot with NASA). However, he left the work of cleaning
up the agency's overall finances incomplete. NASA has still not completely
integrated its financial management programs between the various field
centers, which makes it very difficult for large programs to track and
control their costs. NASA has also yet to pass a GAO financial audit. And
the implementation of full-cost accounting has had some unexpected side-
effects, such as the potential shutdown of many of NASA's wind tunnels.

O'Keefe's push toward a "US Core Complete" configuration of ISS resulted in
schedule pressure that the CAIB later cited as a contributing cause to the
Columbia accident. After the accident, to O'Keefe's credit, NASA was open
and cooperative during the investigation, in stark contrast to the
information lockdown after the Challenger accident. However, his lack of
technical background led him to accept all of the CAIB's recommendations as
requirements sight unseen, which made the subsequent return-to-flight
process more difficult and expensive than it should have been. He also made
a very unpopular decision to cancel the final shuttle servicing mission to
HST.

O'Keefe enjoyed closer ties to the White House than any NASA administrator
since Webb, and NASA greatly benefitted from this. The NASA budget was
increased every year of O'Keefe's tenure, which is rare. In FY2005, NASA
was one of only three federal agencies (the others being DoD and DHS) to
get a budget increase. O'Keefe also won administration support for the
Vision for Space Exploration in the post-Columbia accident environment. He
was the right administrator at the right time to get approval of the VSE,
but he was not the right administrator to implement it. That job will fall
to Mike Griffin and the administrators that will follow him.


--
JRF

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