Air Force fighter pilot could become next chief of NASA
Published 10:18 pm Wednesday, January 14, 2009
WASHINGTON — A highly decorated fighter pilot, close to President-elect Barack Obama but almost completely unknown to the space community, has emerged as the top candidate to run NASA, sources close to the Obama transition team said Wednesday.
Retired Maj. Gen. Jonathan Gration traveled through Africa with Obama in 2006 and served as a military adviser to him during the campaign. He spoke at the Democratic National Convention, recalling his early life as the son of missionaries in the Congo. He said of his trip to Africa with Obama, “In the shadow of Nelson Mandela’s prison cell, I saw a leader with the understanding to build new bridges over old divides.”
Sources said the selection is not a done deal, but a formal announcement could precede Obama’s inauguration. Gration, who retired from the Air Force in 2006, could not be reached for comment. His possible nomination was reported Tuesday night on the Web sites NASA Watch and Space.com.
“He’s not at all known to members of the space community,” said industry analyst John Logsdon.
Gration may not know a lot about the space program, but he understands high-risk operations. He flew 274 missions over Iraq during and after the Gulf War. He was in command of a unit at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia when terrorists struck in 1996. He was on duty at the Pentagon on 9/11.
Gration would likely be the first NASA administrator who speaks Swahili, but he would not be the first person from outside the space community to assume control of the agency. James Webb, who shepherded the Apollo program, was a lawyer with no space experience before taking over, for example. And Gration would give NASA a closer personal connection to the White House than it has under current administrator Michael Griffin.
Griffin has been a fervent advocate of an ambitious human spaceflight agenda that includes a return to the moon by the end of the next decade. Griffin has bristled at signs that the Obama transition team is open to the idea of scrapping the Ares I rocket under development by NASA and replacing it with an existing military rocket.
“If either White House staff or Congress starts to get into the launch-vehicle design business, we’re doomed. This is what NASA does,” Griffin said this week.
