Administrator Being Aggressively Recruited By LSU
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe will leave the space agency in
the coming week, perhaps to be replaced by the one-time director of
the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, according to an
authoritative South Florida newspaper.
Florida Today reports O'Keefe is being aggressively recruited by
Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge to become the school's
chancellor. But even before O'Keefe announces his departure, the
White House is reportedly looking for someone to replace him.
O'Keefe, a New Orleans native, formally applied for the LSU
position on Saturday, according to the South Florida newspaper, but
only after he was heavily pursued, according to Louisiana State
University System spokesman Charles Zewe.
"They are doing a full-court press to get him," Zewe told
Florida Today. "LSU considers O'Keefe an extremely strong
candidate. He brings a vast amount of political, academic and
management skill. He has been a fixer for the administration and he
has done a marvelous job in a difficult and emotional times."
Indeed, O'Keefe presided over the space agency during one of its
darkest hours -- the re-entry disintegration of the space shuttle
Columbia, an accident which cost the lives of seven astronauts and
has grounded the shuttle fleet since February, 2003.
The Pool Of Possible Replacements
Who, then might lead NASA in the
wake of O'Keefe's departure? Florida Today reports there are a
number of candidates on the short list. At the top, USAF Lt. Gen.
Ronald Kadish, who retired three months ago as head of the US
effort to develop a credible defense against ballistic
missiles.
There are three former astronauts among the four other
candidates, according to the Florida newspaper. They are Robert
Crippen (right), Charles Bolden and Ron Sega. The final candidate
is former Congressman Robert Walker.
Of those candidates, Sega is reportedly considered to be on the
inside track, just behind Kadish. He's now an R&D director at
the Pentagon and helped draft the president's Moon, Mars and Beyond
policy.
Crippen, the very first pilot aboard Columbia, has retired since
his 1981 flight and now lives in Florida. Boldon was a member of
the panel established by the National Academy of Sciences to assess
the possibility of a mission to rescue the soon-to-be ailing Hubble
Space Telescope. Boldon and the rest of the committee favored a
manned shuttle mission to save the Hubble, against O'Keefe's
preference for a robotic mission. Without O'Keefe, the manned
mission stands a much greater chance of being launched.
Walker spent 20 years as a congressman from Pennsylvania and is
now a member of the new Presidential Commission on Implementation
of United States Space Exploration Policy.