Stern But Kind at NASA

Abstract

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has found a new chief for the agency's beleaguered earth and space sciences program, insiders say. Griffin has been introducing S. Alan Stern, executive director of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, around NASA's Washington, D.C., headquarters as a successor to Mary Cleave, who announced last September that she would leave this spring. Stern, a planetary scientist, is the principal investigator on NASA's Pluto-Kuiper belt mission and an advocate for lunar exploration—music, no doubt, to Griffin's ears. His challenge will be to preserve the agency's $5.5 billion commitment to science projects in the face of a flat budget and the growing appetite of NASA's human flight program. Stern did not return messages, and a NASA spokesperson declined comment.