Richard M wrote: “It is clear that he made up his mind long ago that *nothing* was going to change Congress’s parochial management of NASA HSF programs, and the best thing he could do was try to make some lemonade out of the lemons congressional funding directives gave him. That a minimally useful and super expensive Gateway and super heavy launcher were better than the nothing NASA might get if NASA decided to Fight The Man.”

This is one of the things that I mean when I say (perhaps too often) that Congress has squandered the skills, talent, and knowledge at NASA. Somehow Congress managed to turn an innovative can-do organization into a no-can-do organization. Manned space gets most of the attention, unmanned exploration occasionally gets some attention, and aeronautics (said to be the little “a” in NaSA) gets virtually no attention at all. (Does anyone know whether there is any aeronautics going on there anymore?)

Thanks to the skills, talent, and knowledge at NASA, several commercial companies are beginning to do what we expected of NASA four or five decades ago. Launch costs are falling, satellite costs are falling, and private exploration is beginning. Dr. Alan Binder tried to do private lunar exploration with a lunar orbiter, but when he ran out of funding he had to turn to NASA to complete the mission. What a disappointment. Fortunately, modern attempts are beginning to pay off.

Thank goodness that NASA is losing its monopoly on American space access, exploration, innovation, and usage. Comsats were about the only commercial satellites, but Ikonos changed that, two decades ago, with commercial Earth observation. Several people got weary of waiting for Congress and NASA to do something worthwhile in space, and now some of those people are finally succeeding at doing their own worthwhile things.

At last, we have innovative entrepreneurs making more than just lemonade, they are making lemon meringue pie. Others are finding cherries over at NASA and are making cherry pie. Soon we may even have Moon pie and Mars pie, too. It isn’t just that we finally have an expanding pie, we now have a choice of pies.

Unfortunately, for the next decade or two we still need NASA to help with the expansion and the additional choices. Fortunately, we may get a new NASA management that is eager to help with and to sample these new and larger commercially-made pies.

Richard M: Of course this change was driven by the White House. I think they suddenly realized, after seeing the nasaspaceflightnow story I highlighted on July 9 that the promises they had been getting about launching SLS in 2020 were simply not true. It is likely they confronted Gerstenmaier or Bridenstine, found out the truth, and demanded change.

“End of an era & big shoes to fill. Whatever your view about @NASA human SpaceFlight over the last 15 years – Gerst held the reigns. He was reluctant to embrace commercial crew, but we knew it would be successful when he finally did. Guess Artemis/2024 was a bridge too far.”

https://twitter.com/Lori_Garver/status/1149157308938764288

You know, there was little for me to like about the Obama Administration. But Lori Garver really was one of those few exceptions. The success of COTS and Commercial Crew to date owe her no small debt.

I guess we will find out in due course.

At least two House Democratic leaders have already voiced displeasure with the removals – so expect this to at least complicate the effort to get House approval for supplementary Artemis funding.

I don’t think Gerst is a bad guy per se – he knows his stuff, is respected in the industry and NASA centers, and is clearly dedicated to NASA, and perhaps in more than just a Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy kind of way. It is clear that he made up his mind long ago that *nothing* was going to change Congress’s parochial management of NASA HSF programs, and the best thing he could do was try to make some lemonade out of the lemons congressional funding directives gave him. That a minimally useful and super expensive Gateway and super heavy launcher were better than the nothing NASA might get if NASA decided to Fight The Man.

There’s an argument for that, though I don’t think it’s a terrible convincing or edifying one. But even setting that aside, it’s also become clear – as Lori Garver confirmed yesterday – that too often he was a skeptic and opponent of trying new and more innovative forms of procurement over the old fixed cost NASA model, especially Commercial Crew. That alone really required moving him out of his senior role at NASA.

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/756161main_Gerstenmaier_Presentation.pdf

What we need is for an HEOMD director who will actually put all options on the table for consideration by the top NASA leadership — and that includes things like a FH-based lunar architecture, XEUS, & Starship.

So setting aside Gerst is a necessary step in the right direction but not sufficient to get us where we need to go. The sufficient step would be to completely rethink architectures without presuming that the Default Plan (i.e. SLS, Orion, Gateway) is the only way to get to the lunar surface in a sustainable manner. For Pete’s sake, even OMB recognizes that missikns to the lunar surface are possible using rendezvous without needing a Gateway.

“Do you all make fun of his name?”

“No, Tim.”

“Why not?”

“He’s the commander.”