News
NASA needs direction? Call Norm Augustine!
Fox News.com's Taylor Dinerman (5/10), in an article tiled, "NASA Approves Partial Privatization of the Space Program," wrote, "For the first time, after nearly a half century of building its own rockets and orbiters," NASA "has approved the outsourcing of some of the equipment that enables its manned space missions to private contractors." Last week, acting administrator Chris Scolese testified to Congress that NASA "plans to give $150 million in stimulus-package money to private companies that design, build and service their own rockets and crew capsules -- spacecraft that could put astronauts in orbit while NASA finishes building the space shuttle's replacements." Dinerman adds, "On Thursday, the White House ordered a top-to-bottom review of the entire manned space program, one that will be led by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, long considered a friend of private space ventures. Both developments show that the once-reluctant space agency and the Obama administration are ready to support commercial human spaceflight. It's a dramatic change, one that could reduce America's dependency on Russia for the next half-decade after the space shuttle program ends, and one that could kick-start a space program that some see as having stalled for 40 years." Marshall Acting Director Lightfoot Optimistic About White House Spaceflight Panel. The Huntsville (AL) Times (5/10) reported, "Robert Lightfoot took over as acting director of Marshall Space Flight Center after Dave King departed last month. Lightfoot has two decades of experience with NASA, chiefly in propulsion. Huntsville Times aerospace writer Shelby G. Spires recently spoke with Lightfoot about the future of Marshall Space Flight Center and its Ares rocket development program." Asked for his "take on the panel the White House established to review NASA's spaceflight program," Lightfoot said, "It's a wide, far reaching review. It will cover the next 30 years of NASA and chart that course. I feel it will be a very fair study. We are fortunate in the fact that Norm Augustine is leading it. He's one of the most experienced leaders and managers in the aerospace community."
May 11, 2009