In this case it was the chief scientist Bushnell who put him up to it and is one of the reasons it has gone this far. Bushnell's background is in aerodynamics and fluid mechanics. I saw a website where he advocates blowing up the Yellowstone caldera to prevent global warming. There is a 2010 presentation by Zawodny where he advocates things like zero point energy generators, etc.
Here is a link to a NASA site where they appear to be looking for people to develop software for LENR/cold fusion.
http://open.nasa.gov...software-model/