Political Commentary, Space

Is Bolden Off The Reservation?

10 Comments

I cannot imagine what he thinks he’s doing. He seems to be defying no only the likely chairman next year of the appropriations committee, but the White House as well. He may be a short timer in that job, and it’s hard for me to feel bad about that. The question is, who will they find to replace him that they can get confirmed in the new congress?

10 thoughts on “Is Bolden Off The Reservation?”

  1. Reading the article, I immediately thought of Tom Lehrer’s “Wernher von Braun” lyrics:

    You, too, may be a big hero
    Once you’ve learned to count backwards to zero.
    “In German oder English, I know how to count down,
    Und I’m learning Chinese,” says Wernher von Braun.

    Heh. ..bruce..

  2. I find it hard to believe that Bolden would be doing anything that the White House absolutely didn’t want him to do.

  4. Eh, I don’t really care what Bolden’s up to. I’d much rather have Lori making the big decisions and talking to the press, anyway.

    Plus, I get a kick out of the way she drives the shuttle-derived people crazy.

  6. It would seem that Bolden is acting like the Lone Ranger here.

    The question is whether Bolden is coordinating his activities with anyone else in the Administration. As SecDef Gates is about to restart military-to-military contacts, and as Obama had talked about space arms control, you have to wonder whether the Administration is pushing some kind of back-door approach to the Chinese for limiting space militarization and weaponization.

    On the other hand, you also have to wonder if the Chinese aren’t going to be expecting Bolden to show up w/ nice gifts, whether it’s the lifting of the Tiananmen technology sanctions, or access to US space technology and a revocation of ITAR.

  8. Well consider … Bolden’s under a batch of constraints. He can’t promote his own philosophy for operations a la Dan Goldin’s “better, faster, cheaper”. He doesn’t have the freedom to shake up space agency administration that Sean O’Keefe was expected to exercise. He can’t design his own set of rockets and chart a future program as Mike Griffin did. He’s a figure head, an “administrator” for a space program where all the important decisions are made by the White House and Congress.

    What can he do? Twiddle his thumbs, collect his pay checks, follow orders, take the abuse when layoffs come, pretend his job matters — and protect the US space program from fading into irrelevency by cementing relationships with as many other nations’ space programs as possible, even if it did make the politicians choke.

    I think he’s doing what he can, as quickly as possible. And if I saw General Bolden walking down the street, I’d get in front of him and make sure I gave him my very best salute.

  10. Ok, let’s try again. Keith regularly claims to have “sources” which tell him things that *never turn out to be true*. As a result I can’t help but think that maybe these sources are just the voices in his head.

    Bolden is doing what the White House wants him to. If he wasn’t he’d be dismissed.

Comments are closed.