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Does Obama Have a Problem At NASA?
MarkWhittington writes "Has NASA become a problem for the Obama transition? If one believes a recent story in the Orlando Sentinel, the transition team at NASA, led by former NASA Associate Administrator Lori Garver, is running into some bureaucratic obstruction." Specifically, according to this article NASA Administrator Michael Griffin made calls to aerospace industry executives asking them to stonewall if asked about benefits to be gained by canceling the current US efforts to revisit the moon; we mentioned last month that cutting Aries and Orion is apparently an idea under strong consideration by the Obama transition team.
Here's the thing. The economy ain't so hot (I gno, rite!) so how does it make sense to employ a relatively small number of people at a relatively high salary when that money (one BILLION dollars!) could go to some other project that could influence thousands more workers?
Especially in tight financial times, I can't see the relevance of a moon mission, and I'm a huge space supporter. (I like my space, mmmkay???)
Wait for the economy to turn around, then talk about this. Oh - and un-retire the shuttle.
Then don't be one.
*--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
"My dear brothers, never forget, when you hear the progress of enlightenment vaunted, that the devil's best trick is to persuade you that he doesn't exist!"
Michael Griffin is the best thing to happen to NASA since the Apollo program. If Obama cans his ass, he will have lied about everything he said about maintaining the space program.
Griffin is 1000% correct here. Ares and Orion are the correct solutions to a NASA that has been traveling down the wrong technological path for nearly 30 years. Any interference should not be tolerated by NASA short of disbanding the space program all together. And any attempt to disband the space program would leave America at a severe technological and infrastructural disadvantage. (Many area of scientific tracking and computation have been consolidated under NASA over the years. Killing off the space program would have a cascade effect into these programs. Many of which rely on NASA's space access.)
I would hope it would also be a public relations nightmare as well.
So in short: Go Griffin!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Do we really need NASA to do anything but put satellites up there. They need to keep our GPS and cells working, but the moon seems kind of stupid. Can we forgo national pride in favor aid in light of these economic difficulties? I think that someone needs to take a great big hatchet to the NASA budget, it would free up between 6 & 7 billion dollars
Not to mention, If you had a pie chart of the current budget, NASA's slice would be so thin as to be invisible, just a line.
We spend more in one day for Welfare than NASA spends in a year. (probably slightly exaggerated)
Ho Hummm
Barack BinLaden Obama
suckers put him in power now suckers start to pay the price you have been warned prepare for America to become the second Africa
The USA defeated the communist Soviet Union by outspending them in the specific industry of aerospace technology.
Wait, what? Did I miss a piece of history somewhere along the way where the Soviet Union was "beaten", rather than fizzled out?
What you missed was the widespread mainstream American adoption of the section of Republican talking points in which they yelled 'pwned!' after the Soviet Union tripped over itself.
'Toeing the line' refers not to conformity, but rather stretching the boundaries of what you should be doing. If he were against Bush, he would be 'toeing the line' to do things that Bush might not agree with. It's a sports reference, to someone who just toes the line, avoiding going out of bounds, but only just so.
However, what the GGP said was 'towing the Bush line.' Far from trying to stretch the boundaries of what is acceptable, he was actively aiding and abetting the Bush administration.