The Washington Post reported that NASA Administrator Michael Griffin intends to get rid of about 20 officials by sometime in August. Two of the people to be ousted are leaders of the space shuttle program.
NASA’s budget has come under a great amount of pressure with the program, and Griffin has to do something to keep things balanced. Apparently if that means getting rid of some people, then so be it.
Senior NASA officials and congressional and aerospace industry sources said yesterday that Griffin wants to clear away entrenched bureaucracy, and build a less political and more scientifically oriented team to implement President Bush’s plan to return humans to the moon by 2020 and eventually send them to Mars…
At the same time, the sources said, Griffin wants to restore NASA’s glamour, reasserting the engineering and science leadership that has been eroding since the Apollo era. To this end, the sources said, he is willing to oust as many as 50 senior managers in a housecleaning rivaling the purge after the 1986 Challenger explosion.
In related news, NASA’s head of Exploration Systems, Craig Steidle sent a memo around to employees, saying that he is quitting at the end of this month. He was hired only last year.
“When an organization gets a new leader, it is usually customary for that leader to bring in his or her own management team and this is what Dr. Griffin has decided to do,” wrote Steidle. Griffin offered Steidle a different job with NASA, but he passed on it.
Chris is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest ebusiness news.
