Re: NASA is responsible for it's budgets
What did Bridenstine do to fix the problem while he was head of NASA?
What about him? Sure, as Administrator, he's also partly to blame. But-
Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, also of Florida and a former Payload Specialist for NASA who flew on STS-61-C, said "The head of NASA ought to be a space professional, not a politician.
That would be the Bill Nelson, career politician and space tourist. Now of course NASA's Administrator. Why not make NASA's head a competent Administrator instead? At least Bridenstine had an MBA rather than a law degree.
But what about Charles Bolden, Obama's pick? He was at least career military, and got to spend more time at NASA managing their budgets and business. And one of his greatest achievements was-
On August 28, 2012, he was the first human being to have his voice broadcast on the surface of Mars. Although the rover has no speakers, it received the transmission of his voice and then beamed it back to Earth
In space, no-one can hear you meme. No speakers, no voice 'broadcast' on Mars, no real point to this 'experiment' other than it would have cost something to do. But Obama's era also resulted in a bunch of other strange decisions, eg deciding NASA should do climate change. Ok, it had already been doing that, and was prominently featured in Seinfeld. But is that something NASA should be doing from above Tom's Diner on Broadway? And isn't the weather NOAA's job anyway?
Meanwhile-
According to Weiser, the majority of NASA's 5,300 facilities are beyond their designed lifespan and while maintenance costs are climbing, budgets aren't.
Again this seems to be NASA's problem. And as the article points out, NASA perhaps doesn't need 5,300 facilities, could close some, consolidate, and flog off the land to raise costs & reduce cash. But Weiser's making much the same point. The NASA Administrator isn't allocating enough budget to his division to do FM fundamentals. Perhaps NASA doesn't actually need more money, it just needs to spend it's money more wisely?