On Thursday, our division is abandoning the office for a golf tournament in honor of our retiring division chief. George, Matt, Rich and Gavin are one foursome, and Becca, Jen, Buzz and I are another; there are apparently 29 foursomes in all and the eight of us are certainly the worst golfers of the bunch. Seriously. We are really bad, and we know this.
So I would write about how our assistant division chief came into our office this morning and told us, in a very non-direct way, that we suck at golf and he’s worried that we will be too slow on Thursday and hold everyone else up (which is definitely a possibility), but Becca has already described the conversation pretty well. It was obvious that he wanted us to be aware that we should try to play fast, but he didn’t want to come right out and say it. It was funny.
In other news, Sean O’Keefe is resigning as NASA Administrator as explained in his hand-written letter to the President. I have mixed feelings about his leaving. When he was first named Administrator three years ago, we were all worried because he was coming from the Office of Management and Budget, and come on, a budget guy in charge of NASA? It seemed obvious that he was only sent to get costs under control, which didn’t bode well for having any sort of future vision. But I ended up liking him. He seems to have the political saavy for the job, while recognizing that he might need to defer to others on very technical matters. It’s unfortunate that his term will likely be remembered primarily for the STS-107 accident, because I think he’s done a good job, and I’m extremely worried about who might be selected to replace him.
The leading candidate, according to the news anyway, is Lt. Gen. Kadish who formerly headed the Missile Defense Program. UGH. I can hardly think of a worse candidate for the job. I feel strongly that NASA, as the country’s civilian space agency, should not have a former general who headed Missile Defense (and headed it badly) in charge. At first I thought it was the military thing that bothered me, but after talking at dinner last night I realized that a lot of the good candidates are former military men as well. The worrisome part is taking someone who ran Missile Defense and putting him in charge of a program that should in no way be defense-oriented. I’m hoping for Charlie Bolden, a former astronaut, although I don’t know what his chances are.
I’m planning to go for a run tonight, and it’s going to be cold out. Yes, in Houston. It’s supposed to dip below freezing tonight, rather amazingly.