Outgoing NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe blasted the US space community and Congress in a passionate final public speech at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics space exploration conference in Florida last week.
Addressing an audience of NASA personnel, industry executives and academics, he said President George Bush's space exploration vision must be the industry's focus or the return to the Moon would never happen. Contractors must not encourage politicians to back ideas just because they were "really cool", O'Keefe warned. He pointed to 150 space-related projects costing $150 million that are in NASA's budget for 2006 and are unrelated to the exploration vision.
The NASA chief also criticised US Congress, referring to Washington DC as a "17 mile logic-free zone" and warned of politicians that were ready to fight to take NASA's money away if the US space community did not succeed. "The biggest problem is right in the mirror, it is ourselves. The only way we fail is if we fail to keep focused on the objectives [of the space exploration vision]. It could easily collapse if we become [divided]," said O'Keefe, who will leave the agency this month to become chancellor of Louisiana State University.
Advocating the transformation agenda as a perpetual source of creativity for NASA, O'Keefe said anyone who disagreed should leave the space agency and get a job at the US Postal Service.
Despite the harsh words, O'Keefe says NASA will get an increase in the president's budget for 2006, which was due to have been made public on 7 February.
Source: Flight International