NASA To Get History-Making New Leader

(CBS)  You name it, Charles Bolden has flown it. The former astronaut, combat fighter pilot and Marine Corps general will try to guide the space agency, when it's supporters say it most needs a skilled high flyer.

"He is going to face budgetary constraints, technical issues, the remaining shuttle launches and pending retirement of the space shuttle," said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

NASA faces $3 billion in possible budget cuts, reports CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier. The White House is reviewing NASA's entire manned space program, and may substitute something cheaper for the Bush-era rocket system currently planned to replace the shuttle.

The 62-year-old Bolden has faced tough fights before. If he's confirmed, he will be the first-ever African- American administrator.

"Charlie grew up in segregated South Carolina, couldn't even get an appointment to the Naval Academy and they had to work it out with a Congressman from a different state," Nelson said.

When he got to Annapolis, Bolden was promptly elected freshman class president.

"He knows how to motivate people," said CBS space consultant Bill Harwood. "Most folks think he will protect manned space flight in this country and try to move it forward."

In the meantime, NASA is eking out eight more missions with its three-decades-old shuttle craft.

This week, the Atlantis crew made its last repair visit to the Hubble Space telescope - Bolden commanded the shuttle mission which carried the Hubble into orbit in 1990.

NASA's next launch system, a combination of manned and unmanned rockets, was designed with one mission in mind: carrying astronauts and payloads to the space station, or the moon. It can't carry out drive-by repair missions, like the shuttle.

That's prompted criticism even within NASA.

"It just makes me want to cry to think that this is the end of it," said NASA scientist David Leckrone.

And there's a five year gap between the shuttle's last mission, and the new system.

"U.S. astronauts are having to hitch rides on Russian Soyuz rockets, and if they are any delays, of course that gap could get even bigger," Harwood said.

Inside NASA, most believe Bolden would not have taken this job, unless the White House was committed to keeping Americans in space. The president's stated goal is reaching the moon by 2020.

[roach9703]

He seems like a great pick. We all wish him well!

[brianbwb-2009]

" Why does every time a black person does something for the first time we have to have headline news about it? Does the media realize (obviously NOT) that this constant separation of races just perpetrates more racism?" Posted by YCantWeAllGetAlong

No it doesn't, it just rankles those intransigent racists whenever we announce and celebrate another brick being knocked from the wall that they and their forbears spent so much time building and trying to maintain.

Those who don't want to hear about it, and join in the celebration are free to not read the article.

[ToolMangler1]

I'm not being racist. I want to know why we're militarizing Space and will force other countries to as well.
Posted by beach671 at 4:16 PM : May 24, 2009



Because everyone else is already doing it. The sad part is you don't know it.

[YCantWeAllGetAlong]

Why does every time a black person does something for the first time we have to have headline news about it? Does the media realize (obviously NOT) that this constant separation of races just perpetrates more racism?

[beach671]

A Retired Marine Corps General taking control of NASA pretty much tells China and Russia we're militarizing space.

The General flew combat aircraft firing weapons to kill and led the Marines.

I fail to see the Science or Exploration potential for a Marine to take control of the Science Exploration Agency. The mans retirement check is larger than what most of you make yet he's going to be making even more money heading this Agency?

Why not put a career scientist in charge of a Science organization?

I'm not being racist. I want to know why we're militarizing Space and will force other countries to as well.

[brianbwb-2009]

"Maybe that's the real reason they landed in their liberal homeland...California." Posted by TryTakingMyMoney

So had they died trying to land in "conservative" Florida during a storm, that would have been more to your liking?

Pictures? Only those incapably of understanding science would only see the "pictures", this comment reveals much about your education level, or lack thereof.

"Yeah...no skills required...just black..." Posted by TryTakingMyMoney

Seeing as how Bolden commanded the shuttle mission which carried the Hubble into orbit in 1990, your assertion that he has no skills is obviously something you pulled from places best left unmentioned.

Btw, You won't be cutting jack, as you and your ilk are now the political minority, and growing closer to extincton daily.

[Libertarian1776]

Strike-Hold,
Check out your history.
Bush wanted him to lead NASA.

[Libertarian1776]

It was NOT mentioned in this story that Bush wanted him to lead NASA.
However, the Pentagon said he was too valuable to them...

[brianbwb-2009]

" This is racism.
Posted by grabandgo at 7:00 AM : May 24, 2009
Yes, it is.
Welcome to the Obama nation." Posted by weedapoopl

Even if it is, so what? You neo suckers don't have any problem with it when it goes the other way, as it has ever since America became a nation, so why complain about now, about what you so ignorantly perceive to be the same thing, but in reverse??

[FauxNews]

He has a technical degree and experience at NASA, unlike the professional bureaucrats of the Bush Administration who announced the deaths of our astronauts wearing their golf shirts.