The Top Ten (continued)
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Augustine | |
3. Norman R. Augustine -- The former Martin
Marietta CEO was one of the dominant forces in the aerospace industry during the
1990s and played a central role in reshaping the U.S. aerospace industry after
the end of the Cold War. Augustine snapped up GE Aerospace and the launch
services business of General Dynamics, then worked with Lockheed Chairman and
CEO Daniel Tellep on the merger that created Lockheed Martin, the world’s
largest defense contractor and second largest space company. Augustine also was
at the helm when the company bought Loral’s defense business. Augustine served
on numerous advisory panels and commissions including the Defense Science Board
and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He is best
known in the space industry for one that is still cited today: the Advisory
Committee on the Future of the U.S. Space Program or as it came to be known, the
Augustine Commission. In 1990 the Augustine Commission recommended that a
reinvigorated space program would require real growth in the NASA budget of
approximately 10 percent per year through 2000, reaching a peak spending
level of about $30 billion per year. The commission also recommended that NASA
maintain a strong balance between its manned and unmanned programs. The
charismatic Augustine also was well known for his book “Augustine’s Laws,” which
included: “One-tenth of the people involved in a given endeavor produce at least
one-third of the output, and increasing the number of participants merely serves
to reduce average performance.” He also was fond of saying that the record of
defense contractors in the 1990s who tried to move into commercial businesses
was “unblemished by success.”
4. Adm. Harold W. Gehman -- When the retired Navy
admiral was asked to chair the Columbia Accident Investigation Board most people
in the industry expected a tough and straightforward report about the technical
cause of the accident and the steps that would be needed to make shuttle flights
safe again. The CAIB delivered that, but under Gehman’s guidance they also
delivered a blunt and detailed analysis of NASA’s failings as an institution and
the flaws in the agency’s work culture that played a role in the accident. “Most
accident investigations fail to dig deeply enough into the causes beyond
identifying the actual physical cause of the accident; for example, the part
that failed and the person in the chain of command responsible for that failure.
While this ensures that the failed part receives due attention and most likely
will not fail again, such a narrow definition of causation usually does not lead
to the fixes that prevent future accidents,” Gehnman said in written testimony
for a Senate hearing in September 2003. NASA officials have promised to follow
the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board to the letter,
including changing the agency’s culture. If they are successful and that change
is a lasting one, Gehman and the members of his commission will have made an
extraordinary contribution to the future of spaceflight. The work of their
commission should be a model for all accident investigations whether space
related or not.
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Rumsfeld | |
5. Donald Rumsfeld -- In the four years before he
was named secretary of defense in 2001, Rumsfeld chaired two landmark
commissions that changed the priorities, focus and organization of U.S. military
space programs. From 1998-1999 Rumsfeld chaired the Commission on the Ballistic
Missile Threat to the United States, which refuted an earlier CIA assessment
that the ballistic missile threat to the United States was not a near-term
threat by pointing out progress being made by North Korea, Pakistan and Iran in
the development of ballistic missiles. In 2001 the U.S. Commission to Assess
National Security Space Management and Organization -- known as the space
commission -- made space control a national issue with the warning that the
United States was vulnerable to “a space Pearl Harbor” if the country did not do
more to protect its space assets. That commission also recommended changes in
the way the U.S. Defense Department was organized to design and build future
spacecraft. While the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United
States shifted Pentagon spending priorities and stalled implementation of
some of the recommendations of those commissions, they remain the blueprint for
future military space capabilities. In a place like Washington that produces
hundreds of commissions and reports each year that do little more than start
gathering dust the week after they are delivered, that is no small
accomplishment.
6. U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) -- Whether
her party is the majority party in the U.S. Senate or not, the junior senator
from Maryland has tremendous influence over the NASA budget. Mikulski, who
currently is the ranking Democrat on the House appropriations VA-HUD and
independent agencies subcommittee, is known as a fierce defender of programs in
her state, which hosts a large number of facilities such as Goddard Spaceflight
Center, the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University’s
Applied Physics Laboratory. NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe ran afoul of her
when he announced that he was canceling plans for another space shuttle mission
to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope. Within days, Mikulski was speaking to
standing room only audiences at the Space Telescope Institute and vowing to
fight to keep Hubble operating. The issue was particularly acute for the
institute, whose employees would have nothing to do if Hubble stops operating
before it is replaced by the James Webb Telescope early in the next decade. NASA
has since promised to try to use a robotic spacecraft to refurbish Hubble,
prolong its life and add new science instruments. One industry official said
Mikulski’s reputation for protecting Maryland is not the full story. “She cares
deeply about NASA,” the official said, “and she will fight for it.”
7. U.S. Air Force Gen. Thomas S. Moorman --
No career space officer has ever risen as high in the Pentagon hierarchy as
Thomas Moorman, who served in his last post before retirement as vice chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Throughout his career, Moorman has worked to give
the United States the best military space capabilities in the world. As
commander of U.S. Space Command from 1990-1994, Moorman played a crucial role in
making sure that U.S. and coalition forces in the first Gulf War had access to
DoD space assets. Those efforts were successful enough that Operation Desert
Storm became known as the first space war. It was the building block for a major
shift that made military space assets a routine, essential part of major
military operations in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, prompting Air Force
Secretary James Roche to comment that space played as crucial a role in those
operations as air power. Moorman also played a key role in the development of
the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, which gave the Air Force two
options for launching critical payloads. Moorman also served with Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the U.S. Commission to Assess National Security Space
Management and Organization.
8. Romain Bausch -- Since joining SES in
1995, Bausch, now president and CEO of SES Global, has built an international
powerhouse. The company likes to point out the footprint of its constellation of
commercial communications satellites reaches 95 percent of the planet’s
population. Those satellites provide broadband communications services, audio
and video broadcasting, feeds for cable networks, Internet trunking and
corporate communication networks. Its companies include SES Astra, SES Americaom
and partnerships in Asiasat, Nordic Satellite AB, Nahuelsat, SatOne, Satlynx and
Worldsat.
9. Prof. U.R. Rao -- The former chairman of the
Indian Space Research Organisation is widely regarded as the man who guided
India to the status of major space power. During his tenure India developed its
own communication satellites, weather satellites, high resolution imaging
satellites and a polar satellite launch vehicle. He also brokered a deal with
the Russian trading company Glavkosmos that helped India develop its own
cryogenic upper stage and eventually a geostationary launch vehicle. Joan
Johnson Freese, an analyst of Asian space programs and chair of the department
of national security decision making at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.,
said one of the testaments to Rao’s skill is that he built such a robust space
program in a Democratic country, which is much more difficult than in countries
with autocratic rulers. Throughout his career Rao emphasized the importance of
keeping the space program focused on technology that would aid the country’s
development such as imaging and communication satellites. Today, with a maturing
space industry, India is planning a science satellite and even discussing the
possibility of human spaceflight in a few decades.
10. Rupert Murdoch -- Long before his
purchase of DirecTV, the leader in the U.S. direct-to-home satellite television
industry, Murdoch was a pioneer in the development of Europe’s satelite
television market, turning BskyB into a major player. “Early on, nearly 20 years
ago, he understood the power and reach of satellite television and has been
indefatigable in pursuing that vision,” said one industry official. “He had been
trying since the mid-80s to get into the satellite television business in the
United States and had the door slammed in his face three or four times before
the DirecTV deal. You have to credit him for having a vision to see how
satellites can be used for one particular, very powerful, application.” With
DirecTV now firmly in his grasp, Murdoch’s News Corp. has a satellite television
business with global reach, providing service to North and South America, Europe
and Asia, including a major push in China.
Next page: The Corporate Chieftains
