Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories
Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories
Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories
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<strong>Tombrello</strong>–224<br />
no strategy.” I’m not a sweet person; he has every reason to dislike me. But that’s fine. What<br />
worries me is, I think people tend to mistrust strategy—or not understand what strategy is. They<br />
want it simple. The current PMA chair, Tom [B. <strong>Thomas</strong>] Soifer [professor of physics], is a very<br />
fine man. He’s a fine scientist. He’s a fine person. But I think he feels very uncomfortable<br />
about raising money. Why would he feel uncomfortable about raising money? Because he was<br />
running the Spitzer Science Center, which at its peak was probably spending about $150 million<br />
a year. Hey! Donors is donors. His donor happened to be called NASA; and you have to still be<br />
the performing seal for NASA. And to be perfectly honest, I was talking yesterday to a woman<br />
in the director’s office at JPL. We were talking about NASA administrators, and she said, “Has<br />
there ever been a good one?” I said, “Not for a really long time, Nora.” I mean, OK, you’ve got<br />
to sell things to somebody like Sean O’Keefe [NASA administrator 2001-05]? I mean, come on.<br />
You’re talking funding <strong>with</strong> Gordon Moore, who’s a giant, and then you’ve got to sell a space<br />
mission to Sean O’Keefe?<br />
ASPATURIAN: Actually, Sean O’Keefe turned out to be better than what came after, I think.<br />
TOMBRELLO: [Laughter] Yes.<br />
ASPATURIAN: I think O’Keefe came in <strong>with</strong> a mandate to be hard-edged about JPL, but then he<br />
got seduced by planetary exploration, as many do.<br />
TOMBRELLO: He became more enthusiastic. I think Charles Elachi had something to do <strong>with</strong><br />
that. Charles is always a performer and always had a good program at JPL. I worry about JPL,<br />
but I worry most about this Mars Science Laboratory, which is a bet-the-lab-on-a-mission that’s<br />
way over budget and way overtime.<br />
ASPATURIAN: They’ve done so well <strong>with</strong> their Mars program in recent years. That would be a<br />
pity.<br />
TOMBRELLO: That’s one that got out of hand. They did well <strong>with</strong> the Mars program because<br />
they kept them relatively small. More robust than they expected.<br />
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