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New NASA Administrator Named
CheshireCatCO writes "The Bush Administration has nominated Mike Griffin as the new chief administrator of NASA. Griffin currently heads the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University and holds degrees in physics, civil, electrical, and aerospace engineering and aerospace science, as well as an MBA. (How did he ever have time to do anything else?) He was also part of the Strategic Defense Initiative in the 80s."
What they should do is put a lawyer in that position - then maybe they can get the money they deserve!
or else!
How did he ever have time to do anything else?
Good question. You mean, like build stuff?
As a hiring manager, I would be automatically suspicious of anyone who spent that much time in school. Sounds like he's trying to avoid real work.
Why build a new one, when Russia already has one?
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
He was also part of the Strategic Defense Initiative in the 80s
Given how much of a waste of money the SDI program was (or should I say is), I hope his work at NASA is better. Otherwise, we might end up with an planetary defense system on the moon to protect us from Martian terrorists.
--
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Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
At least this guy hasn't bemoaned the very institution to which he's been assigned.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Actually, this is a Very Good idea for three reasons:
(1) the nominee is Not a Beancounter;
(2) the nominee is not an astronaut married to the Space Shuttle/Space Station welfare system;
(3) the nominee knws some science and engineering.
-- Jonathan Vos Post
Cool the Griffen Observatory - Mr Natural 4 president w00t
Press Release: http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/20
Does anyone know whether this means there's a chance for the Hubble? Maybe he will be more inclined to save it than the current NASA administration.
Well, he was part of the SDI...
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." - C.S. Lewis
I hope you don't think you're being funny or insightful. Really, give it a rest. Posts like yours are even stupider and less original than anything in the oeuvre of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh combined.
Can he understand his little brother, or what? And what's with the talking dog?
Nasawatch has great coverage of the nomination with some interesting quotes.
In synopsis, Griffin has been willing eschew political expediency and stand on principle.
Prior to being at JHU's APL for the second time, Dr. Griffin was also the "president and chief operating officer of In-Q-Tel, a private, non-profit enterprise funded by the Central Intelligence Agency to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve national security interests."
Some may be familiar with In-Q-Tel as the CIA's private venture firm.
He had just rejoined APL last April. He was with APL in the 1980s, and left to become the technology chief for the Strategic Defense Initiative.
To expand a bit on what the summary said, "in addition to a doctorate in aerospace engineering, he holds master's degrees in aerospace science, electrical engineering, applied physics, civil engineering and business administration, and a bachelor's degree in physics." He is also the president-elect of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
There's no question he is not only a skilled academic with a clear appreciation for space sciences, but a competent administrator and manager as well, and experienced with Washington politics to boot. Let's hope he does well for NASA.
Time for nasa to get off its scared little ass and start realizing that space is a new frontier and there will be accidents and mistakes.
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Go canucks, habs, and sens!
In the story, he looks a lot more like an MBA than a rocket scientist :(
I am so glad they nominated Mike Griffin, and I was rooting for him well before. Not only is he a scientist, he has an MBA and common sense.
:
:
:
Common sense is something missing from NASA and NASA's hiring practices, contracting rules, and even grant administration.
Failure plagues NASA ever since NASA embarked on an astounding gender and race based hiring and advancement program a few years ago. Many of the female led programs has had resounding failures, and the waste and delays from SBIR (ethnic third party procurement rules) and other racist programs have destroyed NASA in many ways.
There reason the MAJORITY of recent mars missions failed is gender and race bias in hiring and promotion against whites and asians.
Vital FACT! Nasa switched to forced female hiring in most of the recent Mars failures.
For the first time ever ONLY WOMEN called the shots on the largest mars mission that failed. read
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/ 04 1899nasa-women.html
(remove spaces if needed, Slashcode ads them)
for the first time ever all three KEY positions of the failed mars missions were female
Sarah A. Gavit = the mars project manager
Suzanne E. Smrekar, 37, the lead mars scientist
Kari A. Lewis= the mars project's chief engineer
Current hiring rules from the new top level NASA female administration dictate this new female forced hiring policy.
NASA has hiring policies that try to hire women DESPITE IQ or experience. In fact they now PREVENT job related award honors and bonuses based on how many females you hire and how many females and black contractors you hire!!! This is a fact!
NASA publicly has stated this from the woman in charge. I can't tell you about my own memos.
NASA is proud to boast 2% female active engineers minimum and that is WAY out of wack with societies norms.
The mars missions are even more than 2% female.
The average IQ of a Caucasian US Male holding a medical degree is IQ 124, but as the front page of the San Jose Mercury proclaimed in huge block letter headlines, and millions of IQ scores show (see the Bell Curve book data), the chance of a FEMALE obtaining a test score of 124 is EIGHT TIMES LESS LIKELY than an equivalent male. EIGHT TIMES LESS LIKELY. Conversely very low IQ people are almost always males. The average IQ is the same for both genders 100, but the IQ distribution bell curves are dramatically different shapes.
NASA boasts a female-minority web site documenting how not only are contractors hired by whether or not they are female or black but what state their small companies reside in! NASA apparently requires all 50 states to have minority participation in parts design and supply for the mars missions! REGARDLESS of competence! Sex and race are the prime criteria in current years. Check out NASA own detailed list of female and minority small contractors at : http://sbir.nasa.gov. SBIR is a euphemistic acronym for small business innovation research, but as you can easily see it is actually a gender and race quota based system spearheaded by the new women helping to run NASA now.
from the female mars leader
"Women have really added to the workplace because we do come at things from a different angle," she said.
"For the same reason that cultural diversity works, gender diversity is wonderful, too, especially when you're trying to do something creative."
Also from the female mars leader Gavit:
"The fact that we're women hasn't made a difference," she said. "It's not an issue here. But it's good that young girls see that engineering and technical fields are wide open to women. That's the good thing about saying it's a woman-led team."
The report in The Guardian (British) December 7th a couple years ago included the following comment: "The total launch and development costs of NASA's lost Mars spacecraft is put at $320 million.
At first glance, I thought that the story read:
... holds degrees in physics, evil, electrical, and aerospace ...
But I wonder if a degree in evil would be such a bad thing?
bash: rtfm: command not found
explains away his failures using women as scapegoats.
... as a man, that's gotta hurt.
Poor me! I'm a brilliant, accomplished white male but women are holding me down! But they are less intelligent! But I am hog-tied by them.
Sorry about your lack of balls
What happened to the real men? You know, the ones who got shit done. The ones who didn't complain that the reason they're not successful is because women are holding them down? You know, the men who made this country great. These Oprah-fied, Dr. Phil poor-me guys are even more pathetic than the liberals who dream up these sex-based affirmative action programs.
He was also part of the Strategic Defense Initiative in the 80s.
I won't go so far as to say that this should automatically disqualify him, only because he is a science/engineering geek and it is possible to live in that realm and not mix politics. However, the "Star Wars" initiative was a horrible idea. Now it has regained momentum -- 'National Missle Defense' under GWB, interesting how this choice to head NASA supported Reagan's SDI...Hmm...
The cold war is OVER. The best way to achieve nuclear disarmament or even come CLOSE is to give the impression at least, to other countries that you aren't preparing for an oncoming nuclear attack.
Mod parent down
OK I admit I'm a bit of a troll myself, but that's some ugly shit
Uses lots of words, says nothing... check.
Knows what the real purpose of NASA is... check.
Sounds perfect.
ha! censor EVERY fact you hate!
censor EVERYTHING that annoys your distorted views
CENSORING facts is no excuse for NASA's shameful trends
about oil discovery on Mars.
Oh, come on, Buckaroo Banzai was a hard-rocking particle physicist neurosurgeon who saved the world from invaders from the 8th dimension.
Mmmm... come to think of it, maybe they're both fictional. Say, I wonder if a fictional character's ever been confirmed by the senate before...
He was a nerd/geek. It's not like he was getting laid or being invited to parties or anything.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Were women and blacks responsible for the Challenger and Columbia launch decisions?
and millions of IQ scores show (see the Bell Curve book data)
using the above reference pretty much makes your argument a troll.
The arguments made in that book have been pretty well repudiated (Gould, Pinker etc).
As another reply has said, get some balls, and stop whining
While googling around for some background on Griffin, I found a rough transcript of a House Subcommittee hearing concerning NASA FY '93 appropriations on sci.space, which has an interesting exchange concerning a manned mission to the Moon and Mars:
Obviously, $400G is $400 billion, not $400 grand.
He goes on to champion the "lighter, cheaper, smarter" ethos, mentions nuclear propulsion as a possible option, and at that time regarded the recent collapse of the Soviet Union as presenting the sort of opportunity similar to the one that brought Von Braun to the US (acknowledging their current lead in heavy lift capability). He even says "I'm not too proud to ride a Russian vehicle if it gets us there".
As for Griffin's private sector experience, that's been the rule rather than the exception for NASA's ten former administrators. Frosch and O'Keefe came from academia, Truly from the military (and NASA). The other seven had served as either engineers or administrators for aeronautics- or space-related companies.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
IQ scores are gender neutral and prove beyond all doubt the fact that very few high scoring humans are female.
Refer to SAT scores, and other tests.
IQ tests are language neutral as well.
NASA is was destroyed by affirmitive action.
The public sector is mostly filled with people who want to get a nice cushy ride at taxpayer's expense (leaving aside the elected officials who at least are held accountable every 2 or 4 years). They get a whole bunch of state and Federal holidays, often work less than 40 hours a week and in many states their pension plans are obscene (BTW pension plans pretty much disappeared in corporate America 15-20 years ago).
Figures that you want one of those do-nothing bureaucratic jobs.
Right or wrong, the arguments in such a book will
be strongly opposed by the politically-correct
establishment. Those who fight against this sort
of book will do so with complete disregard for the
facts. If any sort of unfair IQ distribution is
proven, many people's worldview is threatened.
So the book is fought with the same intensity with
which people fight the teaching of evolution.
So I take your "pretty well repudiated" with a
40-carat grain of salt.
Is the percent of engineers really around 2%. I don't think you can blame this on gender lines then. It better take a much higher percent than that before any part can take down the whole. So, your argument seems to point to a structural flaw in how NASA checks for errors within its groups. I don't think this is true. NASA's designs are known for their redundancy. iF this has changed, then where the fault lies is known. And it's not what you posit.
Oh, wait. You referenced the Bell Curve. Hi Rush.
At least no one lost their lives.
Using such FU logic, we should shut down the gender that screwed those up, eh? Or maybe it's their race in this case? I'm sure you've got a good sterotype to entertain us with...
Here, have a quarter. Quit your whining and start doing something productive.
Not all IQ tests are language neutral...consequently tests such as the Raven have been developed.
Your thinking is narrow. If you're going to make an argument about intelligence and capacity you must trace the social and political pressures that impact on education. Why is it that anywhere from 30-50% of high school students are admitted to colleges and universities, and how does this impact the quality of education. Further, how does a reshaping of the curve affect the selection criteria used for relevant graduate degrees. Blaming simply on affirmitive action demonstrates your inability to address the problem at large.
rheayy... My spam doesn't fit in my sig... mrheahh
I know! I'll copy and paste it into each one of my comments. *wipes droool* Slashdot has so many visitors ny spam is bound to reach a wide audience. mhyeaah.
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Free iPod? Try sucking cock
Or licking the inside of an anus
Brown nose as proof
I really hate to have to ask this, but is Mr. Griffin a deeply religious christian like so many of Bush's appointees? I'm not trolling nor am I saying being a religious person is a bad thing. But a number of Bush appointees are very religious, and seem to have no problems pushing the christian agenda in their government jobs.
It's also far from clear that a person with a 150 IQ would make a better space administrator than someone with a 120 IQ. Take another look at the Challenger launch.
I agree that quota based hiring practices are bad, but I'm curious as to whether or not you have any examples of decisions made by those female leaders that lead to the failures of those missions. You also mention Bell Curve but if I'm not mistaken, it's analysis has been widely criticized as being severely flawed.
A history professor whom I highly respected said that during the cold war, the push to bring women into science and engineering began when some leaders in the scientific community observed that the Russians had a vastly higher proportion of female engineers and scientists. The concern was that we might not be making use of potentially gifted individuals among our population.
That said, I will agree that trying to institute social change through hiring practices is a folly. Changes must be made in the education system, if they are to be made anywhere.
Official announcement.
Griffin is currently the head of the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Previously, he was at In-Q-Tel, Orbital Sciences Corporation, NASA and the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization.
Can you provide a real reference for the IQ scores MDs? I wasn't aware that there was a recent large scale study on intelligence and medicine. BTW, any such study should have included a personality inventory (e.g., MMPI).
Some 35 years ago I believe a Bristish study surveyed a number of disciplies, administering IQ tests. However, since that time the nature of recruiting of medical students has changed dramatically where individuals are selected on attributes other than intelligence. It was only about how you scored/intelligence many decades ago. The effect is that the average IQ has dimished. In fact, your quote of 124 is lower than the old study (by approximately 0.5 standard deviations). I suspect that the same pattern of selection impacts on the female candidates. For example, in addition to social factors, imagine a system that is also biased toward appearance.
It's less about the underlying distribution and more about the selection bias that pervades society. That is, there is little stopping any agency from hiring equally qualified males and females. Address the social issues that lead to failures in implimentation.
BTW, 124 isn't very good or useful for creating knowledge! At 124 you're a marginal creating and scientific thinker. These people are less than 2SD above average.
These multiple mars failures are all clearly the "new female Regime" results. Or perhaps we forgot to put any heaters on the explosive bolts preventing cruise stage separation causing the DS2 and lander to burn up in the atmosphere on the previous joke-of-a-mission.
Of course, all missions went perfect, and no Mars-lander was ever lost until that darn women-law.
Seriously, more missions have been lost than there were successful missions. Now go find something else to blame women of!
Please have an honest debate and not knee jerk censoring. We are all adults here.
I'm not very sure of that..
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Afghanistan has held elections with US aid (hence by definition we are no longer at war with them).
The US is not at war, I don't know why intelligent people continue to say this.
Does he recognize that rocketry is inherently dangerous and that taking the safe road will leave us grounded for the rest of human existance? I hope this guy has enough balls to realize that we can't make spaceflight 100% safe and that it WILL involve risks.
Thank you. I'll be here all week....
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Actually, this appointment is irrelevent. As someone who works with people at NASA (on the science end), I have seen up close and personal the Bush strategy for NASA. A more telling story appears in today's Washington Post concerning NASA job cuts. NASA expects to cut 15% of its workforce by 2006. The excuse given is that they need to streamline to go to Mars. The real reason is that Bush wants to turn NASA and other government agencies into organizations which convert govt. funds into private contracts. So how do you do that? Cut the permanent staff and put all NASA projects up for bids. We are currently in the "passive cut" phase. NASA employees nearing retirement have been offered a $25,000 package to just go away. For some centers, most of the staff have been offered such a packacge. NASA/Ames for example had 1400 of its 1470 employees receive such an offer. Since you can't do science through bids to private entities, this means that NASA is done with science (and no...sending man to Mars has very little science associated with it). People bitch that NASA has had no direction for the past 25 years. NASA has been the crown jewel of US science from Hubble to Spitzer to Galileo but that is just not sci fi enough to capture the imagination of the American public. Almost all similar projects that were on the drawing board are now gone. What's left of NASA's staff after the passive cuts phase will be absorbed by universities as all NASA scientists must pay themselves (or at least justify) their salaries through their grants anyway at this point. NASA is fast becoming a 16 billion dollar kickback to Big Biz. They will not be going to Mars any time soon if ever.
What's so ugly about it? Is it because it smells like the truth? The truth hurts.
your posts are awesome [esp. MOD PARENT DOWN! PARENT IS A TROLL] ...classic. i don't think anyone else gets the humor
They were getting ready for the press conference but they really had nothing. One of the press people suddenly started looking around the room to make up a name. First, she looked at the microphone. Then a gryffin flew by.
I still want to know. Comeon, let's have a flame war right now. Prove to me that NASA really went to the moon and that it wasn't all just a Stanley Kubrick production.
The God layer never fails anyone.
It is the best shield that there is against all of the evils of the universe.
This guy is someone's pretty boy wasp fair haired son schooled to rule.
What a joke, another auburn haired wasp with fifty degrees and no real engineering done.
I bet this guy does do anything hands on and never did except sucking up to everyone at the DeMoley meetings or at the frat house.
American Power Mongers are a laughable herd of fools. No wonder they are hated world wide.
and terrifying ;-)
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
It's a problem, sure, but an engineering/physics problem that will have solutions. One such solution is dramatized in Kim Stanley Robinson's well researched Red Mars.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
The effect of having ruling power mongers run the world is tantamount to slavery and a much worse offense than affirmative action.
Everyone deserves a chance to do something good. It is only fair that the needy get a hand from the wealthy. This is called charity.
There is a proper role for government to provide for the people who do not have when a very small group takes over and owns most everything. You can't really believe that the super wealthy would want to bask in oppulance and ignore the suffering of the classes of people that their grandparents created to make the wealth that they made. Rulers who rule over the very poor are in a sense slavers if those rulers have a much higher life style and so it benifits the rich to help the poor and elevates both rich and poor. That way both groups benifit. Instead of spouting off about why no one should help, that there is some kind of injustice, why don't you visit a holucaust memorial or a slavery mueseum and see just how bad things can be. If you think that affirmative action is a form of tyranny then I suggest that your view of human suffering is immature.
In some jobs the qualification is that you are of the people and so there are some jobs where all groups of folks need to be represented. We do not yet live in a society where race and religion does not matter. Descrimination still exists and society, both rich and poor, are better when we do away with prejudice.
In Soviet Russia, Rockets Launch You!
Remember folks, slashdot doesn't have a -1 "disagree" moderation!
and how do you argue against the scientists who were suddenly changing their minds on issues having to do with the environment?
How do you argue for the tried appointments of people by the bush administration to positions when they came straight from industry lobbying positions.
People who are blind to *some* of the things that have been done through appointments of this administration should be shot.
the second sentance was a deadly serious question:
is he truely interested in science and exploration, or will he follow the corporate interests as some of the other bush appointments.
I don't understand, why is it surprising that a government organization is hiring based on race (afirmative action) and gender? and why is it surprising that hiring based on race or sex (instead of competence) results in more failures?
Come on, it isn't as though this is any different from education, the post office, or health care. If the government is involves, odds are it will fuck things up.
Here's a word to the wise, instead of reading a book with a political bent why not sign onto to the university library system and sample from decades of of peer-reviewed research on intelligence. Now, hopefully you're bright enough to dissect amateurish papers such as those of Phillip Ruston. Also try not to confuse the mass media talking heads with those silently publishing without a political agenda.
With respect to men and women, I've spent 1.5 decades testing for other purposes - I don't care about the intelligence debate - and have not noted any major differences between the sexes, other than in a few spatial tasks. When it comes to memory and learning there have been no real patterns.
An eminently qualified person gets appointed in the executive gov't, only to be ground to dust as the exec tries to push insane policy on everybody, and everybody (well, not everybody, but anyone who applies one point of IQ to the area affected by the policy) resists.
The Bush NASA policy shift is the crazy policy in this instance. During a war, when we have no money, we are going to embark on manned planetary exploration, taking money away from earth science, excellent unmanned planetary exploration, and civil aviation programs. Why? I have a funny, unserious answer which is troublingly plausible: Bush wants to ignore the global warming problem, so he starves NASA of all its earth science spending, getting rid of a large fraction of the data needed to characterize the problem! ;p
Seriously, Bush wants to save the 2 jobs (I exagerate) Kyoto or other more real action would take away from the current economy, even though the long term economic growth caused by increasing efficiency society-wide would be immeasurable! What a smart guy!
KLAATU, BORADA, NIh*ahem*
from Wonkette.com:
"A press release announces Bush's pick to head NASA. Michael D. Griffith "received a bachelor's degree in Physics from Johns Hopkins University; a master's degree in Aerospace Science from Catholic University of America; a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland; a master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California; a master's degree in Applied Physics from Johns Hopkins University; a master's degree in Business Administration from Loyola College; and a master's degree in Civil Engineering from The George Washington University." Yes, that's a B.A., a Ph. D., and five M.A.s.
An operative offered a shorter version of the story: "Bush Nominates Virgin."
With this appointment, Bush now has an apparatchik to put all militarization of space in the foreground, and all science that does things like disprove the Bible in the background.
Hm... I went through three rounds of rejected submission attempts earlier trying to submit this story, several hours before this version was posted. In any case, here's my version of the submission, which has many more links:
NASA Watch, New Scientist, and Space Ref report that Dr. Michael D. Griffin has been nominated as the next administrator of NASA, to replace Sean O'Keefe. As NASA head, Griffin will be tasked with implementing the Vision for Space Exploration. Griffin is currently head of the Space Department at the Applied Physics Laboratory at JHU, is president-elect of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and has a doctorate in aerospace engineering. He's noted for being passionate about space exploration and having strong management experience. His nomination has been praised by a number of groups, including the Planetary Society, the National Space Society, and House Science Committee Democrats and Republicans. In the past, Mike Griffin has testified to Congress on the future of human spaceflight, the vision for space exploration, and the danger of asteroid impacts. He was also rebuked in the early 90s for pointing out problems with the space station's review process.
As for my own thoughts, I think Griffin is an excellent pick. I'm amazed that they were able to find somebody with as much technical expertise as him who also has such a large amount of experience with managing large organizations. According to the space.com article, Griffin can be expected to make maximum use of the emerging commercial spaceflight industry.
In the past he's also said the following, which I approve of highly: "What is needed is to retire the Shuttle Orbiter, and its expensive support infrastructure," Griffin wrote. "It simply does not serve the needs of exploration and it is too expensive, to logistically fragile, and insufficiently safe for continued use as a low Earth orbit transport vehicle."
In the past he's been highly in favor of the government constructing a new heavy-lift launch vehicle, which I somewhat disagree with. Such an endeavor could easily end up being a bottomless money pit. Hopefully SpaceX's low-cost launches in the coming months will help raise awareness of frequently-launched smaller vehicles.
In congressional testimony he gave last year, Michael Griffin outlined a number of questions which he felt Congress and NASA need to ask. This list was pretty interesting, because many of them are the sorts of things which NASA is notorious for ignoring. It's refreshing to know that these questions are at least on the radar of NASA's new head:
(bolding mine)
# Why does spaceflight - human or robotic - cost so much more than other comparably complex human activities, and what can be done to remedy the situation?
# Is a serious program of human space exploration sustainable, given the "cost of doing business" presently associated with the enterprise?
# What incentives can be offered to proven and well-established aerospace contractors to devise innovative and cost-effective, yet safe and reliable, approaches to building a new human spaceflight infrastructure?
# Where and how does NASA intend to engage the entrepreneurial high-tech culture which has made our nation the envy of so many others, in so many areas other than aerospace? What can we do to bring the engine of capitalism to spaceflight?
# What is the proper role of prizes, or of pay-for-performance contracts, in stimulating and encouraging the high-tech community to devote its attention to aerospace?
# Can or should the Congress establish prizes for specific accomplishments in spaceflight, independently of NASA?
# What is NASA's proper role in the development of new space systems, beyond setting requirements to be met through competition in industry?
# What is NASA's proper role, as an agency of the U.S. government, in the conduct of future spaceflight operations?
# If the exploration of new worlds requires technologies and skills beyond those presently available within NASA - and it clearly does - how are the skills of other agencies and laboratories to be used effectively in the service of the larger mission? How will the overall effort be directed?
# Given that we as a nation will spend a certain amount each year on civil space activities, what would Americans prefer to see this money used for? What vision for space exploration excites people enough to cause them to believe that the money they spend on it is well spent? Can a reasonable consensus even be found? How do we know?
# Is the United States interested in leading an international program of space exploration? Which nations might be competitors, and which might be partners? How and in what role do we view our potential partners in the enterprise? What do our potential partners think about this? How do we know?
Read his resume - he's a lobbyist with a science degree. Does this amaze anyone?
But this isn't scientific news if you ask me.
Whatever NASA does in projects may be science news, but the name of a new whomever who decides what they do or how they do it certainly isn't.
All it can lead to is speculation regarding how this may impact NASA's general policy and decision making style. Sounds more like corporate analysis to me.
Of his credits already accrued transfer to other majors, so he actually may not have done squat to get those degrees after the first REAL degree. Have any of you gone to school lately?
And his name is root. :)
What would you do without a monitor? Sit and look stupid behind a keyboard and a mouse
Since Shuttle launches and servicing missions are disproportionately expensive compared to non-Shuttle launches, I personally would support the idea of building a successor to Hubble and launching it with another launch vehicle, such as the Delta IV Heavy.
I figure you could build a more modern telescope with the knowledge that we gained with Hubble. We could make the mirror larger in diameter to give it more light gathering capability, give it a more sensitive imager and sensors, and even use adaptive optics.
But whatever we do, we need to get something working (that operates in visible wavelengths)
This passage is pretty funny. While Griffin is strictly talking science and using sound logic, the other guy is just plain politicking:
Hall: Where are folks who did $400G estimate? Gone, in a nursing home?
Griffin: Different mission. I liked BMW a lot more, but Toyota gets me back and forth.
Hall: I'd prefer if you drove a Ford.
That's what kills our government. The entire process is stripped of logic and is replaced by emotional statements that don't get much done, but are effective at swaying public opinion. Seriously though, Griffin was trying to state factual arguments while the other guy was burning up my tax money thinking of something useless to say.
He hasn't had time to do anything else. He's a complete academic. His work in the Star Wars industry is the clincher: all he's good for is achieving budgets, not any actual mission success. He's the perfect shill for the Republicans' new increased NASA budget: another conduit for military contractor corporation handouts that produce nothing but disaster.
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make install -not war
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
Ever seen the satellite imagery of Energia's destrictive power when blows up on the pad?
Oy, those Rooskeys ain't brave... they CRAZY!!
And we complain about Shuttle safety. NASA PR needs to just start advertising Russian "safety" and people will lay off. Bigtime!
-Pie
1) You list two doublings of raw tax income increases across nearly twenty-five years. Are you factoring in combined inflation and currency (dollar) depriciation into your numbers?
2) As a percentage of GDP, how much more or less does the federal government take in through taxation between 1980 vs. 2005?
3) How much of the federal budget is used to pay interest on the debt vs. military spending vs. spending programs such as NSF, DOE, Education, HUD, Medicare/Medicaid, etc?
4) If one were to end Social Security, would ending the payrol tax be appropriate? If so, how would one pay for the military and service debt? Cut all social programs from the federal budget and there is still a significant shortfall. Or would you keep the payroll tax and end S.S. at the same time?
Curious,
--Maynard
Umm, were women and blacks responsible for the Challenger and Columbia launch decisions?
I rather like these quotes from Griffin:
... Can America, through its mastery of human space flight, have a similar influence on the cultures and societies of the future, those yet to evolve in the solar system as well as those here on Earth? I think so, and I think our descendants will consider it to have been worth twenty cents per day."
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=10683
"So, recognizing that others may differ, for me the single overarching goal of human space flight is the human settlement of the solar system, and eventually beyond. I can think of no lesser purpose sufficient to justify the difficulty of the enterprise, and no greater purpose is possible."
"What the U.S. gains from a robust, focused program of human space exploration is the opportunity to carry the principles and values of western philosophy and culture along with the inevitable outward migration of humanity into the solar system. Is this valuable? The answer must depend on one's worldview, I suppose. But consider a map of the world today, and notice the range of nations in which English is spoken as a primary language, and in which variations on British systems of justice, politics, culture, and economics thrive today. Was the centuries-long development of the British Empire, based upon Britain's primacy in the maritime arts, a misguided use of resources? I believe not.
"The necessary requirements of human expansion into the solar system cannot be met without a greatly increased program of unmanned scientific exploration. This can only be seen as a "win-win" for all those involved in any aspect of space exploration. In the end, it comes down to letting robots and humans each do what they do best."
"For interplanetary flight, something more than chemical propulsion is clearly needed for other than return to the moon or, possibly, the first expeditions to Mars. Nuclear propulsion makes the most sense to me; several options are available, including both nuclear-thermal and nuclear-electric concepts. We once had an operating, ground-tested (though not flight-tested) nuclear-thermal upper stage intended for use on the Saturn V. The program was cancelled thirty years ago, when it became clear that a Mars mission was not in the nation's immediate future. Numerous nuclear fusion concepts potentially applicable to space propulsion exist, most notably those involving electrostatic confinement of the nuclear core, but none of these is receiving more than token funding. There also exist a number of promising approaches to electric propulsion, notably the Vasimir engine concept. In the long run, some form of nuclear-electric propulsion is likely to offer the best combination of efficiency and packaging capability for interplanetary flight."
"I have alluded above to some of the technical hurdles that we face in a commitment to a permanent program of human space exploration. Broadly, the tools necessary for this enterprise include:
* Heavy-lift launch capability, in the 100 metric ton to LEO class or greater.
* Reliable, efficient, and cost effective transportation to LEO for moderate size payloads.
* Compact space qualified nuclear power systems.
* Nuclear and nuclear-electric upper stage vehicles for application to interplanetary flight.
* Space and planetary surface habitat and human suit technology.
* Technology and systems for utilizing the in situ resources of the moon, Mars, and asteroids.
* Reliable and routine Earth-to-LEO crew transfer systems."
"I will repeat only briefly my remarks above concerning ISS; we should do what is necessary to bring the program to an orderly completion while respecting our international partnership agreements, obtaining where possible as much scientific value as we can from the enterprise while accommodating ourselves to the fact that such value is inevitably limited."
"Regarding the Space
The "cheating" is the same as what software
developers do all the time. To test one part
of the system while the rest is incomplete,
you rig something up as needed. Thus the "ICBM"
gets a homing beacon, etc.
Building the whole system without first testing
the individual components would be foolish.
Problems are fully expected. If they were not,
we could just do away with testing entirely!
"Exploring the universe is an awesome challenge. Mankind is now in the first position to do so since God created it 6009 years ago."