_Astronaut tipped to lead NASA science division
John Grunsfeld, an astrophysicist and astronaut who fixed the Hubble Space Telescope, may be chosen to lead NASA’s science mission directorate, as outlined by several sources with knowledge of the selection.
Astronaut NASA
Grunsfeld is currently deputy director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, which operates Hubble. Although replace Ed Weiler, who resigned his post as NASA associate administrator in September.
“John is a very capable guy,” says Weiler. “He knows both the human and robotic sides. He’s a very solid citizen.”
Both have known each other for decades. They first met inside the mid-1970s when, as a teenager in Chicago, Illinois, Grunsfeld attended science workshops taught by Weiler on the Adler Planetarium. Grunsfeld went on to study physics on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, before undertaking a PhD in high-energy astrophysics on the University of Chicago.
He became an astronaut in 1992, and found themselves flying on the space shuttle 5 times. Three of those missions were to fix the Hubble telescope. This can have helped him to obtain the nomination - NASA administrator Charles Bolden is himself an old shuttle pilot, and possesses shown an interest in fellow astronauts. “Clearly, he’s Charlie’s pick,” says anyone with knowledge of the choices. NASA spokesman Trent Perrotto says no appointment has yet occurred official.
Positive experience
Grunsfeld would appear to have the ideal background for the task of managing the US$5.1-billion science budget at NASA. First, he is a scientist - one of the few astronomers to get both touched Hubble and used data from this. Grunsfeld also has knowledge of NASA bureaucracy, i have worked in Washington DC advising the administrator because agency's chief scientist from 2003 to 2004. In 2004, he was put in the awkward position of getting to defend then-administrator Sean O’Keefe’s decision to cancel Hubble’s final servicing mission (that was later reinstated, and found themselves going ahead in 2009).
Since leaving NASA during 2009, Grunsfeld has been practising his management skills, looking after the approximately 500 employees in the Space Telescope Science Institute. He even is skilled with NASA's next flagship astronomy mission: the $8-billion James Webb Space Telescope, which, after it launches following the decade, is likewise managed by the Baltimore institute. Because of this, Grunsfeld has had to develop a relationship with some of Webb’s defenders on Capitol Hill, among them Senator Barbara Mikulski (Democrat, Maryland). Just yesterday, as part of the Senate’s powerful appropriations committee, Mikulski helped to feed legislation that steers $530 million to Webb in 2012 alone.
But one scientist familiar with the pick says that NASA-funded scientists who work outside astronomy - in Earth science, planetary science and heliophysics - could question Grunsfeld's leadership. “His entire reputation will depend on fixing space telescopes,” says the scientist. “I think it'll be a real tough slog for him.”
Yet Weiler says that he himself faced similar prejudice when he began his first stint as leader with the agency’s science division in 1998, after having been Hubble’s chief scientist for quite some time. “Clearly this Hubble astronomer would do terrible circumstances to planetary,” he says sarcastically. Ultimately, Weiler feels which he did not neglect planetary science - the truth is, he was among the Mars programme’s biggest defenders. “I just ensured my decisions were depending on peer review and competition. That’s what John will need to do,” he says.
Astronaut NASA
