Meeting the New NASA Administrator

Sean O’Keefe tours NASA Centers around the country and talks with the press

by Michelle Evans

Sean O’Keefe, the former Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was sworn in as the 10th Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on December 21, 2002. At 46, he is the youngest person to take the helm of NASA.

His first act as Administrator was to tour the NASA Centers throughout the country to get a feel for NASA and its employees. In late January, Mr. O’Keefe arrived in California to tour the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Dryden Flight Research Center, and Ames Research Center.

Since being nominated for the post last November, most of us in the space community have wondered what type of person he is and what his agenda will be for NASA and the future of space exploration. I believe it is much to his credit that Mr. O’Keefe made certain that at each stop on his tour, he not only met with and answered questions from NASA employees, but also made a point to meet with the media and answer our questions as well. Myself, and other members of the press, were able to catch up with him at Dryden on January 31st. The following is an edited transcript of that media interview.

* * * * *

Sean O’Keefe: I am flattered you would all find the time to be here. I’ve had a fantastic day here at Dryden. It’s really been an exciting opportunity to spend time with folks from the [NASA] Centers to kind of feed off the energy, enthusiasm, and excitement that comes with every one of the Center opportunities. Certainly, Dryden is no exception to that and, indeed, is a very clear example of the amazing capabilities we have here at NASA. [They] do the essential part of the mission of this organization, which is to think big, think outside the parameters and limitations we think exist, stretch the edge of the envelope in technology. So just the opportunity to meet the folks who make up the great capacity we have here at NASA to do these amazing things and a chance to be part of, at least for a day, a little bit of the activities of each of the Centers, is a lot more fun than being in Washington, D.C. I can assure you it’s a real treat to be out here.

Jim Skeen (L.A. Daily News): I was curious if whether or not you’ve formulated any priorities for aeronautics research, or how you’re going to go about formulating those priorities, and how Dryden will fit into that?

O’Keefe: Well, the first step in that will be on Monday [February 4], when the President’s budget will be released. There will be certainly a more visible array of how those priorities for NASA will be displayed, for aeronautics and all the other elements of what we’re engaged in, in the pursuit of exploration and discovery.

Suffice it to say, I think we’ve got a resource base in this coming year that will be adequate and very impressive in order to carry out the task that we’ve been assigned to do. I think the larger question you’re raising, is to develop a strategy, which I think is going to be based on the exploration and discovery objectives in the areas of science and technology, for aeronautics as well as space exploration, and a range of other applications that are selected, prioritized and focused. And in doing so, I think we’re going to maximize our ability to do the kinds of things that this agency is so legendary for having accomplished.

Leona Bull (Aerotech News & Review): Do you foresee light at the end of the tunnel underneath this $4.8 billion dollar deficit [for the] International Space Station?

O’Keefe: I have had an opportunity to examine some of the issues surrounding that. Frankly I think the most poignant observation is this isn’t a severable program. It’s not off to the side, for which NASA does all these other things and oh, by the way, it does Space Station. It is inextricably linked to a lot of things we do throughout this entire agency.

Remember [that ISS is] nothing more than a means to an end. It’s a capability to do things that we couldn’t do in this literal atmosphere that we call Earth. So, if we didn’t have that capability, we’d have to figure out some way to get it there, in order to pursue some of the science and technology objectives we have, that can be advanced only because we have that kind of capability, that kind of infrastructure.

So, in my mind, it’s not a program that lays off to the side for which we all must figure out how to deal with it – it is inextricably linked to all kinds of other things that we do operationally; the shuttle mission, for engineering; objectives for systems integration challenges we’re in pursuit of, the science and technology agenda itself, which is the central part of what we’re supposed to be doing, which you get through all these things. It becomes an integral part of all of that.

I’m driven by two factors. The first one is that we have an obligation to three people that are in orbit right now, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, two Americans and a Russian, who are there for a purpose, to do some very specific kinds of things that couldn’t be done here. We’ve asked them to risk their lives, and to really dedicate themselves to living in a phone booth for several months at a time. We ought to be serious and as rigorous about how we select the things they need to be doing in that atmosphere. So I think that’s our first obligation. The second one is to make sure that we utilize that capacity in a way that is most responsible and most synergistic with all the other things we do throughout NASA. In doing that, it isn’t about a tradeoff, it then becomes a case of making choices about how we utilize that capability.

Jim Spellman (Channel 17 News/ NSS Western Spaceport): Are you actually prepared at this time to commit to completion of ISS – as per our International agreements with our other foreign partners – which means a crew compliment beyond the three right now as far as Core Completion?

O’Keefe: Well, certainly we are committed to Core Complete which is the essence of what we have in place right now. We're about 95% complete on the Core Complete initiatives. The hard part’s coming, which is the integration of all the modules. The International agreements [are] a collaboration among 16 nations. So the first thing I think we need to do [is confirm] what the size or capacity needs to be, to make sure we’re selective and prioritized about the science and technology agenda, to be sure that what we send them up there to do isn’t just driven by some artificial number of folks who we want to accommodate, or that we want to have be there for some symbolic purpose.

Part of what I think our responsibility needs to be able to do is to minimize the amount of effort that astronauts have to put through on a range of different experiments and so forth, so they can tend to the important mission that requires a human in spaceflight, as opposed to monitoring lab rats, okay? [We need] to minimize those kind of cases, that may not need their direct touch to it. So, I think that’s something that will evolve, and if there is a need to expand that capability, it’s something that we’ll pursue once we get the Core Complete and the fundamentals right.

Spellman: Does this also include being serious about considering a non-governmental organization possibly taking over the operation of ISS?

O’Keefe: I don’t know. Let me hold on that one. I haven't really formulated a judgment on that point as yet. I don't know.

Ray Waters (KLOA Radio Ridgecrest): We seem to sometimes have turf wars that go on between China Lake and Pax River [ed: Naval Weapons Center and Flight Test facilities on the West and East coasts]. How much is that happening within NASA, and what can be done to eliminate that?

O’Keefe: In my previous incarnation with the Navy Department as Secretary, I found the internecine challenges between and among the services, and disciplines, and communities, and all that, to be really quite interesting. Oh, and by the way, if that wasn’t good enough, let’s throw the Marines into the mix, too, just to make it really exciting! The nature of the challenge here is far less deep rooted and it’s one that I believe is driven by a management philosophy that has been organized around lead Center proficiencies and so forth. The approach I think we are going to be shifting to at this stage is collaboration. How do we maximize the opportunities that all Centers can have in order to participate in a large objective? Just like we talked about a minute ago with Space Station, it’s not a Center that runs that [program], it’s a lot of different things that participate in the support of it, and lots of different Centers are engaged in it.

Certainly Dryden has a very integral role to play in many different programs that are pursued and also participated in by lots of other elements of the other nine Centers around the NASA establishment. So, our effort, I think, in order rather to confront that question of how we integrate this is more to think about how do we collaborate on opportunities to get a result that is greater than the arithmetic sum of the parts. Because that’s what this agency is all about. That’s what we really do best is to figure out neat ways to employ technology for entirely different purposes and that requires collaboration.

Larry Evans (Mach 25 Communications/OCSS): Do you find space in general and NASA in particular a hard sell to the general public? And what do you anticipate to do about that? Everything seems to be geared toward defense, and space is sort of being left in the wake.

O’Keefe: First of all, the answer is, “Not at all.” I don’t think it’s a hard sell to the American public today. This agency embodies the frontier spirit. [We have] an attitude of discovery and exploration, a willingness to go and stretch the edge of the envelope, that characterized our earliest origins as a Republic. That said, a lot of us would sit back and also say, “Boy, am I ever glad they’re doing it, because that’s too hard!” Okay? So the main thing, I think, is a vicarious kind of treatment that we as Americans like to see, and I count myself in this group, because I’m not a technologist, or an engineer, or a scientist, or anyone [that has] the capabilities that really bring around these fantastic abilities here. My participation is simply in trying to channel that energy the way that yields a result that I think excites the American public. So, explaining that is our biggest challenge, and making it meaningful to what it is we do as humans and how we can advance the advantage to humankind I think is our greatest challenge. But it’s not a hard sell. And that’s something we need to capitalize on.

Evans: Do you see NASA to be cooperating fully with the press on these types of things and trying to get this information out to the general public? As an example I know that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has actually kept certain news media away from events at JPL and I find that not quite in standing with NASA’s policy of openness and working with the general public and the news media.

O’Keefe: I’m guided by a view of President George Bush, who has an attitude that whatever preceded, whatever the history is, that’s interesting for historians, and we are certainly informed by it, but let’s not dwell on it. Instead, time begins now. And the policy is openness and collaboration, not only among ourselves, but certainly to a wider audience to demonstrate our value to the American public.

Skeen: There’s been some debate going on between whether the next shuttle modification period will be done in Florida or done in Palmdale. Can [you] shed any light as to what’s going on with that situation?

O’Keefe: It’s a series of management challenges, of which that’s one. I wouldn't characterize it as any more or any less momentous or difficult than the other challenges we have to deal with.

[Editor’s note: Within days of this interview, it was decided that all shuttle modifications would now be done in Florida, thus closing the Palmdale facility. In addition, the Europa orbiter project was cancelled, thus carrying out Mr. O’Keefe’s mandate to scale back exploration of the outer planets.]

Allison Gatlin (Antelope Valley Press): Have you figured out a set of criteria yet that you’ll be looking at for meeting that kind of decision?

O’Keefe: The primary criteria, in a very general sense, is that NASA’s charter and mission, its very essence of what it is we’re supposed to do, is to explore technology and develop science in a way that, if we didn’t do it, it wouldn’t be done at all. Because no one else has the capacity to do it or the wherewithal or want to take the risk to actually proceed with some of these objectives. What are limitations to the technology that are currently extent that limit us in speed, distance, whatever else? What is the current capability, what are we restricted to? How do you think about what our objectives [are] that we think are loftier than we can attain today, then develop technology solutions to achieve that.

As part of what we do for example, in the space exploration business, is we’re limited right now, most profoundly, not by where you want to go, but by a clarity of what the science and technology agenda is that you want to do at some reach or distance. If we wanted to go to Pluto we could start right now and we’ll see [results] in 20 years. And that means we have to be extraordinarily patient, [jokingly] something the American public is well known for! So as a result, it’s something we really ought to be more thoughtful about, rather than simply [doing something] for the sake of exploration and discovery.

How do we go about looking at what the limitations are, the technology limits that have us in that condition? How do we overcome those in order to limit the amount of time, cut down the distance, literally, in doing so? And thereby find opportunities to expand the agenda in science and technology to achieve those discoveries in exploration [that] we’re after. So that’s the kind of approach I think we’ve got to take: being discerning in principle about how we select what it is we do and then make choices about where we go from there.

Bull: I’m wondering what science here really tickled your imagination? That was just an “Oh, gee whiz?”

O’Keefe: That’s an easy one. The one that really caught my attention was, and this speaks to my national security background, too, [is] the Predator which we have all read about that’s being used in Afghanistan. They use this for high resolution and visibility and situational awareness, and all those other defense buzzwords. [Predator] originated as a requirement here at NASA to figure out a way to loiter at a considerable altitude to examine the elements of what is contributing to ozone depletion. The Predator was designed for that purpose and I learned that just today. I was just stunned to find this out.

[Predator is] a perfect example of how we take technology and apply it to a lot of other things that have great benefits. That means we can also use it for the original purpose, which is to examine the same biological and physical research objectives it was created for, but also pursue it for all these other reasons that we’ve seen visually demonstrated to all of us as Americans, as a course in prosecuting the Afghan campaign. So those are the kinds of things we ought to do a lot more of, continue to be more energetic about, and think about how we can export that technology to its widest number of possibilities. Yeah, there’s a lot of things to get juiced up about, but that’s one that caught my attention that I learned just today.

Thank you all very much.