Update: Sources are reportedly saying that President-elect Obama has asked Air Force Major General Scott Gration to head NASA. Gration was an early campaign supporter and has been advising Obama on the military and foreign policy.
This will likely be the last week on the job for the current administrator of NASA, Mike Griffin, Florida Today reports, despite a plea from his wife urging the new administration to keep him on.
Though there is a chance that President-elect Obama will decide to keep him on, Griffin himself said that is unlikely, and he is set to leave his post January 20, as the new president is sworn in.
"If he determines I’m his person, that’s just fine. But it’s not something I expect,” the Orlando Sentinel reported Griffin saying Tuesday.
Speculation abounds as to whom Obama might pick to head the space administration. The list of possible contenders includes Charles Bolden, a former astronaut who would be NASA's first African-American administrator, and Sally Ride, the nation's first woman to fly in space.
Bolden, a four-time space shuttle flyer, is a likely choice, some say. He flew aboard the mission to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as the first joint U.S.-Russia space shuttle flight. Ride worked on the teams that investigated both the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters, and supported Obama during last year's presidential election.
Other candidates might include Earth scientist Charles Kennel of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, former NASA space science chief Wesley Huntress, NASA Mars scientist Scott Hubbard, and, interestingly
planetary, scientist Alan Stern, who quit his job as NASA Associate Director in charge of missions under Griffin after just one year.
Obama's choice of NASA administrator will have major repercussions on the direction of America's space program, as well as the vast work-force it employs. Soon after he takes office next week, Obama must decide whether to keep NASA on its current path building the Constellation program to succeed the space shuttle and take humans to the moon and Mars. Current administrator Griffin, a Bush appointee, is a staunch supporter of the Constellation plan, but it is unclear which way Obama is leaning
See Also:
- NASA Needs a New Direction, Says Independent Review Panel
- Obama Sends a Shot Over the Bow for NASA
- Obama Pits Human Space Exploration Against Education
- Bringing Hope and Change to NASA
*Image credits: Shuttle launch: *NASA/Regina Mitchell-Ryall/Tony Gray; Mike Griffin: NASA/Renee Bouchard
