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NASA Appoints New Chief Scientist
SchrodingerZ writes "Planetary Geologist Ellen Stofan, expert in the terrains of Venus, Mars, and Titan, has recently been appointed the Chief Scientist for the space agency. Stofan will act as the top adviser for Charles Bolden, NASA's current administrator. Beginning August 25th, Stofan will be Bolden's head adviser for NASA's project planning and investments. She will replace former chief scientist Dr. Waleed Abdalati, who left his position to be the director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado. Stofan has both a masters and doctoral degree of geological sciences from Brown University, and is known for her involvement in the Applied Science Laboratory's project to put a boat on Saturn's moon Titan, as well as a member of the radar team for the Cassini spacecraft. Though she'll be joining in a time of large budget cuts, Bolden explains that '[Stofan's] breadth of experience and familiarity with the agency will allow her to hit the ground running. We're fortunate to have her on our team.'"
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Bolden explains that '[Stofan's] breadth of experience and familiarity with the agency will allow her to hit the ground running
I predict that this will be the first replacement in a long line of many replacements. NASA is almost completely irrelevant in the modern world. There's bugger all that NASA has done with it's massive budgets and people continue to look to them for progress. Anyone with hopes for the US space program is just reaching for desperate idealism in the face of the nearly complete failure of human kind to do any sort of space exploration.
:- Not A Serious Agency
NASA
Bolden needs help with his top priority set by Obama for NASA: muslim outreach. It would be funny if it weren't true.
Enough of those who do not want to believe !! You can only find little green men through our Lord and savior !! AhMmm !!
Do you not WANT TO BELIEVE ??
The last Chief Scientist was a nut.
How can one claim expertise in a subject one has never experienced?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I am a scientist and I find the idea of calling our boss "chief" hilarious. Maybe I should try calling his boss "master chief" (and hope he doesn't know Halo...)
Another Warmist then?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
How sickening. I'm sure it's completely an accident that she is a woman, no social engineering here. What a joke it all is.
just keep killing astronauts till you achieve your goals... killing astronauts isn't bad... governments aren't like criminals... you just can't compare the two
demand for national pride and political supremacy is far more important than the supply of astronauts
I find it sadly naive that this article is tagged with "science" rather than "politics".
As a libertarian who loves science and technology, the most alieniating aspect of talking to others about science and technology is how much they look to the state to push progress forward.
The state is not a scientific institution. It is the antithesis of science -- it is merely the organized used of force to dominate a population. The government in all its forms is merely a manifestation of the threat or actual use of violence, which is anathema to free thought and inquiry.
State involvement in science will continue to bite us in the ass. I just hope some of you start to rethink your core assumptions as the private space industry continues to pave the way at an accelerating rate -- if the government doesn't grind it to a halt with regulations and subsidizing of inferior alternatives... like NASA.
So we sent Alan Stern to be NASA science administrator, Abdalati comes here to work at CIRES to get away from NASA project management and do some science, and NASA slots in a replacement very friendly to future robotic exploration missions who is well known around the valley. It's a good day for space science!
No, not Brown!
How did they manage to land so many men on the moon with an entirely WHITE workforce? What about the 'benefits of diversity' that we keep being told are making our (white) lives 'better'? (LOL).
This woman was hired because SHE IS A WOMAN, for no other reason. Just as the head of NASA was hired because he is 10% black, or however much it is, and LOOKS 'black'. More Jew Frankfurt School bullshit - are you sick of it yet?
You're not a libertarian. Those have some vestige of rationality and at least a vague grasp on certain aspects of the real world. You're an anarchist who finds it convenient to use the label "libertarian" because it sounds much better and some people can't tell them apart.
Pro-tip: the part that gave you away was the following line: "The state is not a scientific institution. It is the antithesis of science -- it is merely the organized used of force to dominate a population. The government in all its forms is merely a manifestation of the threat or actual use of violence". I just read the rest of your posts before responding.
The state is an institution of leadership, instituted by any and every non-trivial-sized human community ever. The difference between a tribe led by family elders and the government of a superpower is mostly one of scale and environment, not of purpose, method of coming into existence, or means of sustaining itself.
One of the roles of a leader is arbitrator. Another is defender. These are the ones you seem to think are all that matters, and I bet you reject the arbitrator and would like to think you could get by without the defender (hint: just because you could get by without some of the things they do does not mean you would make it without them at all). Other roles of a leader: guidance (which includes the promotion of science), provider (public services to avoid tragedy of the commons, public funding to ensure that things like science actually happen, etc.), caretaker (seeing to the well-being of your people - welfare being a part of that - and ensuring they can get what they need), and ambassador (interfacing with other states, other leaders). Every single one of those things requires wealth (although they either produce more wealth than they consume - yes, even welfare, go read some real economic and sociological studies - or they are necessary for the protection of the value of peoples' wealth). Therefore, the state must fund itself and - again, to avoid the tragedy of the commons - this funding is mandatory.
Note that I make no attempt to claim that every state actually embodies these leadership characteristics. For example, corruption and accumulation of personal wealth is contrary to the roles of caretaker and provider. There is probably no non-trivial-sized (for modern values of non-trivial; more than a few dozen people is unlikely, more than a few thousand impossible) example of an ideal state in existence anywhere today, or in modern history. The USA certainly isn't, and never was; there were deep flaws in the original government, many (but not all) of which have been fixed but replaced with new ones.
NASA is not the state doing the right thing, overall, by any means. However, it is a part of what doing the right thing would be. It is giving a many-times-over growth in wealth on an investment that individuals typically do not choose to make, and also returns other benefits leading to improved military (defender) and higher standard of living (caretaker).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...