Earlier today President Trump announced that Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy will now be performing double duties as he takes on the temporary leadership of NASA. This follows the dropping of Jared Isaacman as the next NASA administrator earlier this year.
This is not good news for NASA given that (1) a permanent leader seems to be farther away now and (2) Secretary Duffy will be busy with two roles, thereby giving only half his attention to NASA. NASA deserves better as it faces big decisions regarding budget cuts. Fortunately, some of the proposed cuts were reversed in the budget bill signed last week.
Is Duffy the right guy at the moment? Some wonder how he even became Secretary of Transportation, with one editorial noting:
…what should be a concern is that Duffy’s resume doesn’t include experience relevant for running an organization as large as the U.S. Department of Transportation, which has with 55,000 employees, or for overseeing the nation’s roads, airfields, rail system and shipping ports.
The editorial goes on to state that Duffy’s main quantification appeared to his “visibility on Fox News.”
Great. We know how well that is going for the Department of Defense.
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