WITH the US space programme billions of dollars over budget, it’s not
surprising that the new chief of NASA is a finance expert. But while many think
Sean O’Keefe is the ideal man, some NASA employees may be less enthusiastic.
O’Keefe is number two at the White House Office of Management and Budget,
which scrutinises NASA’s accounts and has criticised overspending on the
International Space Station.
After his nomination last week, O’Keefe said his main task was to impose
financial discipline on the ISS, to free up resources for other programmes. “The
station must live within its means,” he says. “Over the last 10 years, it is
hard to know how many new opportunities for space exploration may have been lost
due to the year-to-year struggle of adding funding to the station.”
Advertisement
Sherwood Boehlert, chairman of the House of Representatives science
committee, praised the appointment, describing O’Keefe as an outstanding
manager. John Logsdon, director of George Washington University’s Space Policy
Institute, agrees: “This is the person who has been spearheading the effort to
get the station costs under control,” he says. “I view this as an appointment to
go fix that part of NASA.”
But Logsdon predicts that the appointment will be unpopular with
rank-and-file NASA employees. “This is a guy coming from the enemy, the place
that’s put the budget limits on,” he says. “I don’t expect the NASA troops to
stand up and cheer.” However, he adds that awareness of the agency’s problems
seems to have persuaded most employees to swallow whatever bitter pills O’Keefe
prescribes.
