Uncertainty Plagues Johnson Workforce As Key NASA Posts Go Unfilled For Months
The federal government is betting that a huge storm won’t hit Johnson Space Center head-on, deciding to pay for repairs in the wake of Hurricane Rita but not to provide much greater funds that would be needed to prevent staggering damage in a future big storm, Michael Coats, Johnson director, said.
Coats, responding to a question from Space & Missile Defense Report, said the center is going to receive the $90 million to repair damage that Rita inflicted, but the government won’t lay out the $350 million that would be required to build protections that would prevent devastating damage in a future dead-on major storm, he said.
“If we get a storm surge of more than 12 feet, we’d be out of business for a long time,” he cautioned. Underground tunnels in the Johnson Space Center complex would flood, knocking out systems, in a huge storm.
Coats spoke after he addressed the Space Transportation Association at a breakfast in a Senate office building.
Separately, Coats said that uncertainty is unnerving employees at Johnson, who don’t know what lies in their futures, as President Obama continues to avoid selecting top-level NASA officials.
The last NASA administrator, Mike Griffin, resigned Jan. 20, and after two months and counting, Obama hasn’t picked anyone to succeed him, though many names have been floated as possible choices.
Also, Obama recently released an outline of the federal government budget he soon will propose for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010. While total numbers for NASA in fiscal 2010 and soon after seem adequate, later years show a budget squeeze that could be tough on programs such as the Altair lunar lander development effort, Coats said.
Myriad questions as to funding for various programs will have to wait until Obama releases his detailed fiscal 2010 budget plan next month.
And as to when he will name top people to the agency, that is an unknown as well. Chris Scolese is acting administrator, but “Chris is kind of in a tough spot right now,” with the deputy administrator and other positions unfilled. “They need some help over there,” including the naming of a new administrator, deputy administrator and some direction as to what will happen to various programs, Coats said.
“The uncertainty is driving folks crazy” at Johnson, Coats said. The workforce is “concerned.”
Coats argued that if Obama wishes to stimulate the economy, investing in the space agency would be an excellent move.
“If you want to stimulate the economy, this is a good place” to start, he said.
The uncertainty about funding and uncertainty about leadership questions adds to concerns that already exist because of the looming half-decade gap when NASA won’t be able to send just one astronaut to low Earth orbit, because the space shuttle fleet retires next year and the next U.S. spaceship won’t execute a manned flight until 2015.
During that five-year gap, the only way an astronaut could fly on a shuttle is to go to a Washington-area airport and head off to New York.
That, in turn, creates another problem, where NASA won’t be as readily able to inspire young people to take difficult science, technology, engineering, mathematics and other majors in college — just as huge numbers of NASA and contractor employees are reaching retirement age.
“I’d like to minimize that gap as much as we can,” he said.
A career in space “won’t intrigue young people as much” as it does while shuttles are flying, he said. Starting in 2011, “they know they won’t fly the shuttle.”