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.

FMI: www.nasa.gov