POLL: Best NASA Administrator in the Last 30 Years

[19 Orionis]

I haven’t seen any way to add the poll details for some reason.

 I was wondering what others impressions were for their favorite.  Especially with some mention by one YT video suggesting Griffin as one who could return to the NASA administrator role. 

Apologies for the longer rationale.

So I gather your interest in membership feedback for NASA Administrators during the last 20 years as well as some rationale for their selection.   Is this list of NASA Administrators sufficient?  This list doesn't include interim positions.  If you are satisfied I'll publish the poll.

Daniel S. Goldin   4/1/1992   11/17/2001

Sean O'Keefe   12/21/2001   2/11/2005

Dr. Michael D. Griffin   4/14/2005   1/20/2009

Robert M. Lightfoot Jr.   1/20/2017   4/23/2018

Jim Bridenstine   4/23/2018   1/20/2021

Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Charles F. Bolden, Jr.   7/17/2009 – 1/20//201917

Bill Nelson   5/3/2021   Incumbent

Tony

Looks good.  Maybe add “other” for nostalgic perspectives. 

Can sense that a “worst administrator” poll might be therapeutic for some to relieve their dark energy, but I will let someone else start that. 

[catdlr]

Poll establish - 30 day limit.

[eric z]

 What happened to Webb? Or is he in the Jimi Hendrix category where comparisons don't make sense?

[Stan-1967]

Looks good.  Maybe add “other” for nostalgic perspectives. 

Can sense that a “worst administrator” poll might be therapeutic for some to relieve their dark energy, but I will let someone else start that.

I thought seriously, for at least 3-4 seconds, of starting that "Worst Administrator" poll.  Then I remind myself  "what is the naming of this website again?"  NASASPACEFLIGHT.COM !!

Don't forget that people!  Let's not directly disrespect & insult the agencies leadership as the primary topic of a thread.  It's fairgame in policy discussions I think.

So far I am not surprised Bridenstine is leading ( too early to tell) but I do think given the memory span we all have it will be between him & Bolden.

[Robotbeat]

I voted Goldin. His reforms of NASA worked.

More recently, I’d have to say Bridenstine although his tenure was short.

Bridenstine was responsive to things that needed to be changed. I believe he was a good leader. I’m someone who started as a very strong Bridenstine skeptic but was won over. He consistently made the case that he could be a leader for all NASA, every time addressing climate change (as he had previously been climate skeptic as a politician) when he spoke, in order to make the case to a skeptical workforce that he was a capable leader that wasn’t going to play politics with their science. He also fixed other issues as he found them and was responsive to outside ideas.

Of course he also oversaw commercial crew coming to fruition from SpaceX, and pushed SpaceX to focus on delivering crew (safely and while NOT undercutting the company… a perfect balance IMHO). He also laid the groundwork for CLPS and HLS, a really radical solution to the budget reality which seemed to show no money for a lander without cutting Congressional priorities.

I voted for Goldin because he gets a bad rap by some, but he really laid the groundwork for COTS and a series of NASA’s successes on Mars without which Mars would seem far further away than it is today.

[Robotbeat]

It’s kind of too bad that Bridenstine didn’t stay on like Goldin did, but it kind of makes sense given the turbulent political situation. Then again, I feel like Nelson is not the right choice…. Although the Biden administration did something great by embracing Artemis in spite of the crazy deadline (and the usual tendency of administrations to change programs from their political predecessors).

[Stan-1967]

When I try and think through what I think each administrator's greatest contribution is, I come up the following subjective :

1.  Dan Goldin:  Transitioned NASA into a post Challenger agency that had to let go of the illusions of STS being the next great step forward after Apollo, and the budgetary reality that followed that fact.  Faster, better, cheaper may not have worked out to expectations, but it set a new realistic fiscal tone.

2.  Sean Okeefe:  Can't say he was an exciting administrator, but he did seem to institute fiscal discipline.  I actually remember him most for his enthusiasm & American flag shirt during the landing of the MER rovers. 

3.  Michael Griffin:  See my previous posts on not going through with a "worst administrator" poll.  I will compliment him for thinking big.  Big rockets, big science, big budgets, big profits to contractors.

4.  Robert Lightfoot:  He kept Bolden's chair lukewarm for Bridenstine?

5.  Charles Bolden:  How can anyone not like this guy?   Wonderful personality & genuine leadership qualities.  I do think that his contributions were to make NASA more accessible & relevant to the average citizen, and I think he started the shaping of NASA into an international organization that was open to non-US peoples.   Opponents shrieked at this "Muslim outreach".  Shame on them.    This, I think, set the stage for the greatest accomplishments of his successor in the Trump administration.

6.  Jim Bridenstine:  Has many of the same personal qualities as Bolden.   I think he was the most enthusiastic of any administrator I recall.  He was an effective leader & he overcame serious political controversy of his appointment by just sticking to the vision of what path NASA needed to take.  Specifically integrating the commercial partnerships into NASA operations, then most importantly, getting Artemis moving, and getting partners signed up.   Artemis is not without it's flaws, we all know them.  However I see Artemis has the potential to be the international "umbrella" that will outlast many future administrators & will hopefully have amazing accomplishments well into the 2040's.   His legacy is still in the making I think.

7.  Bill Nelson:  He hasn't screwed up what Bolden & Bridenstine got started.  i.e Artemis & the expansion of international partnerships in space exploration. I don't find him like-able & he lacks in charisma, but that doesn't make him a bad administrator. 

[Athelstane]

This is really a poll for best NASA Administrator of the 21st century, yes?

Because otherwise, Jim Webb should win this one going away.

[Coastal Ron]

Of the choices presented, I chose Daniel S. Goldin, specifically because he instituted the "Faster, better, cheaper" philosophy, which TRIED to address the cost growth with space programs.

My second choice is Charles Bolden, even if I didn't like his enthusiasm for the SLS. If you look at the NASA OIG reports for large programs, he was able to make huge improvements on cost and schedule growth compared with Michael Griffin, which is why I prefer NASA Administrators to have a demonstrated management background. If you don't have a management background, like the last two NASA Administrators, then that makes it harder to see thru all the BS being presented as fait accompli, whereas a real manager knows better.

And I'm not 100% cost focused, as I think both of the above also did good PR for NASA, but what is the use of having a budget and schedule if you can't manage them good enough to accomplish anything? Just look at the Artemis program today, with the totally made up 2024 human landing date - that has probably cost the U.S. Taxpayer $Billions already in misspent money, and unfortunately both Bridenstine and Nelson are on the hook for that.

[Eric Hedman]

And I'm not 100% cost focused, as I think both of the above also did good PR for NASA, but what is the use of having a budget and schedule if you can't manage them good enough to accomplish anything? Just look at the Artemis program today, with the totally made up 2024 human landing date - that has probably cost the U.S. Taxpayer $Billions already in misspent money, and unfortunately both Bridenstine and Nelson are on the hook for that.

What manned program other than Apollo has hit its original schedule?  Apollo did that with an unlimited budget to attack the unknown unkowns that every large scale development program runs into.  The Shuttle was years behind schedule and way over budget when it finally flew.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_design_process

The development of space Station Freedom that evolved into the ISS changed and morphed several times during development because no one in the US had designed a modular station and understood  everything involved before they did it.  Starship is already way behind the original schedule when Musk announced it.  Vulcan took a few years longer to develop than the original schedule before its first flight.  New Glenn is way behind schedule.  Just look at the fantasy that was the budget and schedule for the Webb telescope.

The spacecraft that hit on time and within the original budget usually do very little to push technology.  Artemis and all these others get a budget and schedule based mostly on the known issues.  As soon as you push the envelope, any target date and budget is aspirational only.  If you only expect on time within budgets, you will get very little advancement.  Not too many people bring up how badly the Webb telescope blew past its budget and schedule projections anymore because the results have been so spectacular.  Congress is rarely surprised when large Defense Department projects like the F-35 go way over budget.  They usually keep funding them.

Commercial Crew, especially Starliner, is way behind on its original schedule.  Since most programs, NASA and commercial, never hit their aspirational target date, why does the 2024 date that most people knew would never be hit bother you so much?  You mention it frequently.

[Robotbeat]

Of the choices presented, I chose Daniel S. Goldin, specifically because he instituted the "Faster, better, cheaper" philosophy, which TRIED to address the cost growth with space programs.

My second choice is Charles Bolden, even if I didn't like his enthusiasm for the SLS. If you look at the NASA OIG reports for large programs, he was able to make huge improvements on cost and schedule growth compared with Michael Griffin, which is why I prefer NASA Administrators to have a demonstrated management background. If you don't have a management background, like the last two NASA Administrators, then that makes it harder to see thru all the BS being presented as fait accompli, whereas a real manager knows better.

And I'm not 100% cost focused, as I think both of the above also did good PR for NASA, but what is the use of having a budget and schedule if you can't manage them good enough to accomplish anything? Just look at the Artemis program today, with the totally made up 2024 human landing date - that has probably cost the U.S. Taxpayer $Billions already in misspent money, and unfortunately both Bridenstine and Nelson are on the hook for that.

my unpopular opinion is I think the 2024 landing date was a good one because there’s no chance NASA would’ve taken the risk they did in picking Starship (and later Blue’s second bid) over a traditional lander with a less aggressive timeline.

2028 would’ve meant even more misspent money.

2028 was too far away and abstract. 2024 makes obvious that you have to change things pretty drastically to have even a prayer of it working.

Bridenstine considered even more aggressive approaches like the Bridenstack (Centaur on top of Falcon Heavy to push Orion through TLI), among a few other options. Congress prevented him from trying any of the alternatives, but HLS survived._

[eric z]

 I understand why Griffin inspires such dissing, but I think that is too simplistic. He almost has to be viewed as 2 different guys in one. I think he did a great job keeping the 2nd Shuttle RTF on track, as did O'Keefe at first and then Griffin did well keeping the focus when everyone knew the end was in sight. The architecture part was bad - few deny that. A number of people object philosophically to his pro-government leadership of space exploration, and I feel that colors their views of him. Inexcusable to even float the sinking of ISS to save the budget curve!
 The caretaker or "Gap-filler" appointments all did well, IMO.
  Webb towers above everyone, but now the poll-choices seem to be contracted down. Of who is left I would probably have to go with Goldin. All had good and bad points. Jim B. was a pleasant surprise, but I think he is over-rated for the same reasoning in reverse that Griffin is under-rated.[Political].
 The 2024 thing was embarrassing and ridiculous. But something had to be done to get the Moon return jump-started once and for all and it did serve that purpose. I'm glad President Biden kept it going, though this administration hasn't sunk any political capital into it. {Another thread.}
 I can't get behind Bolden, either, a few good things but a lot of pure floundering.
Funny story - a guy at NASA TV/Select once told me there was a HQ bathroom brawl between a Goldin fan and a O'Keefe fan. At least they were passionate.

[Todd Martin]

I voted for Bridenstine, who was the only Administrator from the list who moved human spaceflight schedule to the left under his tenure and made the majors contractors jump.  Goldin's Faster/Cheaper/Better was not successful, O'Keefe's budgetary improvements was not as exciting to me as advancing human spaceflight.  Lightfoot, Bolden & Nelson all left HSF to drift on cost and schedule.  I wish Bridenstine would re-consider and take up the role again.

[laszlo]

This may be the mostly deeply flawed poll ever on this forum (Hey! We could start a poll on that). The idea that a "Best NASA Administrator Ever" poll would not include every administrator, especially Webb who got Apollo to the moon is beyond astonishing. It's insulting to the Space Race generation. The choice of candidates is like starting a similar poll on the Best US President Ever and limiting the choices to the last 2.

[Coastal Ron]

And I'm not 100% cost focused, as I think both of the above also did good PR for NASA, but what is the use of having a budget and schedule if you can't manage them good enough to accomplish anything? Just look at the Artemis program today, with the totally made up 2024 human landing date - that has probably cost the U.S. Taxpayer $Billions already in misspent money, and unfortunately both Bridenstine and Nelson are on the hook for that.

What manned program other than Apollo has hit its original schedule?  Apollo did that with an unlimited budget to attack the unknown unkowns that every large scale development program runs into.  The Shuttle was years behind schedule and way over budget when it finally flew.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_design_process
...
{lots of other examples of programs that went over their schedule and budget}

Yep, space hardware is hard, no doubt, but I'm not someone that thinks we should just throw up our hands and say "Yep, space is hard, give us more money and we'll see what we can do!". That just rewards bad behavior.

For instance, I would have been fine with the cancellation of the Webb Telescope program back during the Obama Administration, because I think it would have put fear into the minds of other program managers. And fear is a powerful motivator.

There are two basic measures for NASA programs, Average Cost Growth and Average Launch Delay. In May 2018 the GAO released its Assessments of Major Projects (see attached chart), showing the time period of 2009 (Michael Griffin legacy) thru Charles Bolden, and into Jim Bridenstine's time. I consider the 2012 data on the chart part of Charles Bolden getting everyone to revise what Michael Griffin was hiding, and to be more realistic, and it shows a HUGE jump in both cost and schedule. But over the years Bolden was able to push down the cost growth and schedule creep, which then jumped during the Trump Administration.

So for all the opinions about Charles Bolden from a personality standpoint, I think he was an experienced manager that instituted serious changes to how NASA managed programs - for the better.

Commercial Crew, especially Starliner, is way behind on its original schedule.  Since most programs, NASA and commercial, never hit their aspirational target date, why does the 2024 date that most people knew would never be hit bother you so much?  You mention it frequently.

Commercial Crew is a Firm Fixed Price contract, so NASA should only be paying for completed milestones. However even without bribing Boeing to stay in the program, late schedules do affect NASA spending, so being late does have overall cost consequences.

However contrast the Commercial Crew program to the SLS and Orion MPCV programs regarding cost and schedule, and you'll see that NASA is far worse with its own programs than contractor Firm Fixed Price contracts.

The bottom line though is that NASA is spending taxpayer money, and we have to look at the ROI for what they are doing. That is the job of the NASA Administrator, even though they are political appointees, but if they are not responsible for running NASA in a responsible way, who is? What other MEASURABLE metrics are more important?

So for me, how well they manage taxpayer money has to be a primary measurement of how well a NASA Administrator does their job. Everything else is secondary.

As for the 2024 return-to-Moon date that V.P. Pence announced in 2024, that wasn't based on any study anyone did - there was NO FACTUAL BASIS for that date. And sure, maybe they were hoping for a Kennedy type response from Congress as to funding, but they had no expectation that would happen. Plus there was no national political need for that date, so they were not able focus all of the major players to support that date.

All fake dates do is reduce the trust anyone has in anything NASA does. And don't you think that is a bad thing?

[19 Orionis]

Updated the name of the thread to limit to the last 30 years.

Once entered a building at a NASA building that still had its carpet probably from the 70s.  Think it was updated to something modern after I described the Class A facilities at some of the new space companies that are attracting young talent.

Total cost cutting and keeping a 60-70’s style Feng Shui really doesn’t work in this  age.  So another reason I voted for Charlie Bolden.

[catdlr]

This may be the mostly deeply flawed poll ever on this forum (Hey! We could start a poll on that). The idea that a "Best NASA Administrator Ever" poll would not include every administrator, especially Webb who got Apollo to the moon is beyond astonishing. It's insulting to the Space Race generation. The choice of candidates is like starting a similar poll on the Best US President Ever and limiting the choices to the last 2.

Laszlo,

The thread has been rename to limit the poll to the last 30 years.  You are now open to creating a Poll for all NASA Administrators ("For All Time") if you care to.

[Eric Hedman]

All fake dates do is reduce the trust anyone has in anything NASA does. And don't you think that is a bad thing?

I have had plenty of experience developing software.  I think all target dates are fake by your definition for any development that pushes the envelope on what has been done in the past.  They are just educated guesses when you do something new.  And if the project has any level of complexity, the specifications change along the way.  I don't care what study you have done, you don't know for sure until you do these projects.

I remember early in my career, I did a project for a customer that was a very large Fortune 500 company.  I got it done under budget and two weeks ahead of schedule.  The guy I was dealing with was very upset.  He said it was the first project in the fifteen years that he had worked there that had been done on time and within the budget.  He said his boss would probably expect future projects to be done on time and within the budget.  He said that was extremely unlikely to happen.  He wasn't happy.

I'm currently working on a software project that has around 8 million lines of highly integrated and inter-dependent code.  It really does push the envelope.  There are parts that were easy to estimate.  But there were parts that were very hard to define until development of the guts were well under way.  Experience has taught me to treat target dates and budgets as an educated guess at best.  We don't sell our software until it does work.

Several years ago there was an article in one of the trade journals that said that more than seventy percent of software projects are canceled along the way mostly because of cost and schedule growth.  I don't know what the figure is now.  But if you don't take risks on engineering projects with high levels of pushing the envelope, very little progress gets made.  I for one assume that every project has a risk of blown budgets and schedules.

[Coastal Ron]

All fake dates do is reduce the trust anyone has in anything NASA does. And don't you think that is a bad thing?

I have had plenty of experience developing software.

I would agree that software is far less able to be forecasted than hardware. Service contracts have similar challenges. However...

I think all target dates are fake by your definition for any development that pushes the envelope on what has been done in the past.  They are just educated guesses when you do something new.  And if the project has any level of complexity, the specifications change along the way.  I don't care what study you have done, you don't know for sure until you do these projects.

Most of my background is doing hardware production management, including being a factory scheduling manager for consumer products. There are entire industries that rely on engineering meeting deadlines in order to meet manufacturing and marketing deadlines. Including entirely new products.

And yeah, NASA is always building new hardware, and projects like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are pushing the limits of the available technology. But the JWST is also a poster child for a number of issues, including scope creep, congressional acceptance of budget and schedule slippage, and the lack of a firm manager to focus the program. And ultimately that comes down to the NASA Administrator, regardless who started the program.

Remember the SR-71? It was an evolution of the A-12, which Lockheed received a contract to build in late 1959, and they did their first test flight in April 1962 - less than 3 years later. The A-12 was truly revolutionary, and still is to some degree, and it shows what a well led team can do.

SpaceX certainly embodies a lot of the right characteristics for efficient product development, but there are plenty of companies that can also do that. But unfortunately I wouldn't put Boeing in that group, and they publicly stated they would not bid on Firm Fixed Price contracts anymore, which kind of tells you that they don't think they can bid and manage programs very well.

I worked for a government contractor once that lost a lot of money on a large contract, and you know what they did? They tightened up the review of their bidding process so that they could ensure that they truly understood what the requirements were, and how they were going to meet those requirements. And it worked, they stopped losing money on Firm Fixed Price contracts.

NASA has no shortage of programs that are over schedule and over budget. The SLS Mobile Launcher (ML) 2 is a great example of this, where Bechtel bid a $383M Cost-Plus contract for delivery in March 2023, but now the contract value has skyrocketed to $960M, and it won't be ready until October 2025. Oh, and an independent review team thinks the cost will go up to $1.5B, and it won't be ready until November 2027.

By my count SpaceX will have built, and made operational, no less than THREE launch platforms for their Starship during that same amount of time, and I'd wager they will spend far less than $1.5B per launch mount - even though the Starship is far larger, and the launch mount is also a landing platform.

There are competent engineering teams out there who can produce pretty accurate estimates, but that is because they are well led teams. And NASA Administrators are the top managers at NASA, and they enforce management discipline down into the organization. Of course unrealistic due dates and clueless Congressional mandates don't help, but that is also why a NASA Administrator has to have the ability to push back on unrealistic goals.

And we did see Jim Bridenstine try to do that with the return-to-Moon program (not sure it was Artemis then), when he threatened to not use the SLS. But the Trump Administration didn't have his back on that, so he backed down.

But the biggest reason you don't start with a "uninformed" date is that it KNOWINGLY wastes money. Because some parts of a complex program CAN make that date, but then they are sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for everyone else, where they could have done something else instead. And waste is NOT good.

So if the NASA Administrator is not the person to be in charge of reducing waste at NASA, who is? No one? We should ignore it? Because that would sure seem like it would be encouraging institutionalizing bad behavior...

[sdsds]

In June 2019, NASA awarded a cost-plus contract to Bechtel for ML-2. Bridenstine was NASA Administrator from April 2018 to January 2021. So who let the ML-2 debacle play out the way it did?