Slashdot Mirror
Ted Cruz To Oversee NASA and US Science Programs
romanval sends word that U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) will become the new chairman of the subcommittee that oversees NASA and government scientific research. Cruz has both spoken in favor of NASA and attempted to cut its budget, but he's most notable for his opposition to the science supporting climate change. From the article:
His vociferous opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and his support of extreme budget cuts could spell trouble for NASA's less prominent programs, such as its own climate research and sophisticated supercomputers. His role on the front lines of the 2013 government shutdown, which critics say had lasting negative effects on public safety, NASA research and EPA scientists' ability to visit contaminated sites, also suggests at best a narrow focus on NASA's largest projects and at worst a disregard for agencies that require science funding.
Hello pork projects for Boeing.
This is what democracy is all about.
If this wasn't so sad, it'd be funny. NASA's new prime directive: find evidence that God created the Earth 6,000 years ago. :(
Why do we keep putting people who have a history of being enemies of the scientific community to the scientific subcommittees in Congress? This does nothing productive except give people like Jon Stewart more material.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
> Also, explain to this Canadian why NASA is researching climate.
Studying climate generally requires lobbing things into the sky.
That's covered by the ASA part of NASA.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
A head of NASA who thinks his agency's "foremost" task is to make Muslim's "feel good"?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/7875584/Barack-Obama-Nasa-must-try-to-make-Muslims-feel-good.html
But we see yet again that the ignorant, superstitious, anti-science, theocratic throwbacks are concentrated in the Republican party, and have driven everyone with an IQ over room-temperature out. "Conservative" is clearly a subset of "stupid."
As most people don't realize that Muslims have contributed extensively to the sciences during the medieval age.
Who amongst us is the biggest bible thumper?
That would be Ted Cruz..
Good, he has the job.. Now we can blame all of the stuff Nasa doesn't do on Obama in the next election and cut Nasa funding at the same time!
But wait, you say, This is Obamas last term, he can't run again..
But you also forget, Jeb Bush is going to try to run for president so the republican mandate is to screw up as many things as they can while Obama still is president so the right wing can do what it has been doing since 2008, which is to blame anything and everything on Obama.
It does not matter that anything remotely scientific is so far out of Cruz's wheelhouse to be ridiculous.
I want out of this idiotic country!
To the average American, NASA is just a huge portion of the budget (Billions! of dollars) spent to put some clown in orbit a couple of times a year. This is, in fact, exactly what they want based on their knowledge of what NASA does. All the technology gained by what NASA has learned over the decades by doing the hard and impossible things is entirely lost on Joe Sixpack. And, unfortunately, government / private interaction is not an efficient (in the economic sense) sense, so that the effects of cuts won't be felt where the average person lives for 20 years. It's our own damned fault for living in a country filled with morons.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Space flight happens because we want to study things from space. NASA is the "host" for principal investigators who often work outside of NASA. In fact, a major NOAA installation was constructed right across the street from NASA - Goddard (in Greenbelt, MD) to allow closer interaction between the two because their missions are so closely aligned.
The aeronautical and aerospace research NASA does isn't in a vacuum; it's meant to ultimately serve a useful cause, and that includes studying the planet. It does do wind tunnel research; it does explore other planets; it does advance optics, and thermal management, and fluid flow, and all the myriad pieces which go into spaceflight and airborne hardware requirements. And much of it happens to flow down to terrestrial uses.
And this is more about Ted Cruz, who doesn't believe that they do anything useful, in charge of their mission. Imagine if they put Aunt Jemima in charge of the Canadian strategic maple syrup reserve. Yeah, it's that crazy.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Ever wonder why people who say climate change is not happening are so hell bent on making sure no one studies it? If they are right, the science would back them up. Clearly the only logical conclusion is that they know they are wrong.
As most people don't realize that Muslims have contributed extensively to the sciences during the medieval age.
And so did the Catholic church. Between the two of them Muslim scholars and Catholic monks are pretty much single handedly responsible for salvaging much of the collective knowledge of the classical world.
For the most part, the private sector only cares about products and services that can make a profit within the next few quarters. That is not and never has been the purpose of government research. Government research is often done in areas where there is no immediate path to profitability, but the results of that research can be used to generate lots of money depending on what we learn from the experiments.
We used to have a good balance of public and private research in the U.S. but now public research is considered vile and to be avoided at all costs. People honestly believe that the private sector alone should be responsible for performing all research tasks despite its unwillingness to take on big projects that will greatly advance our understanding of the universe such as the large hadron collider. I'm not too worried since other countries seem content with the decline of U.S. research and are using a combination of the public and private sectors to pick up our slack, but as an American it was nice when we had the courage to invest in our future using both sectors to become the leader in scientific research. Maybe we'll eventually come to our senses, but based on the current cynicism against all things government, I'm not holding my breath for that to happen anytime soon.
That's the funny, yet totally brain-dead part of this anti-government argument. Rather than having citizens have input into the process, they would prefer that the 1% should simply own the process. Instead of trying to make America better, they are keen to make either smaller or private. How is a smaller and more privately run America better for the average American?
For the most part, the private sector only cares about products and services that can make a profit within the next few quarters.
I can't think of a single large corporation to which that kind of thing actually applies to what they do anymore. These days most companies are run by people that don't give a fig about profit directly. All of them are jostling now for long-term positions.
In space that is DOUBLY true. No company right now is angling for immediate profit, they are about building a private space platform for the future which has incalculable long-term benefit.
Government research is often done in areas where there is no immediate path to profitability
And yet it's private industry that is almost landing rocket boosters and actually planning manned missions to Mars instead of just thinking on napkins.
We used to have a good balance of public and private research in the U.S. but now public research is considered vile and to be avoided at all costs
That's because it's become bloated and wasteful for the most part. Lots of stories now about absurd things being funded with federal research money.
Business R&D can be very far reaching, but is generally less wasteful, or has a point to it at least.
As an American it was nice when we had the courage to invest in our future using both sectors to become the leader in scientific research
I think if we cut government R&D AND corporate taxes substantially, then we'll return to a healthy mix of public/private R&D.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Saving?" They didn't just save, they actively advanced. Who do you think was at the forefront of medical, technological, scientific, and mathematical research in the middle ages? Who was it that was actively trying to understand how nature worked, because they believed it to be the way to get closer to god?
weinersmith
The only reason I voted for President Obama twice is because as a moderate conservative I couldn't vote for either John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 because they both pandered to the right wing extremists and made bad VP picks. Surprisingly, President Obama was the best moderate conservative that the Democrats ever nominated.
I find that very hard to believe, especially given the obvious focus of hte USGS on studying geology, not the climate.
Did the memo say that non-climate change programs were candidates for having budgets cut, or was that the office scuttlebutt?
Did the memo go out to all of the USGS or just the library?
What happened afterwards - did all non-climate change programs have their budgets cut? Most? More than average?
Or is it possible that some climate scientists wanted to know what input the USGS could give to their work and sent a memo around to get an idea what was out there?
In the USA, we like to vote in people who assert that Government Doesn't Work. Then they proceed to make it so.
Kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy, No?
they make it work for the people that fund their campaigns
it's a false narrative: people believe government is an impediment
of course government and bureaucracy can screw things up, but lack of government is far worse, and a corrupt government that serves plutocracy is far, far worse
the idea should be to treat the sick patient that is government by removing the corruption. but too many morons think killing the patient is a viable option. weaken government and that simply means the power vacuum is filled by the very forces that are corrupting government. works for them: less effort to get what they want at your detriment
government is not the problem. corruption is. of course corruption will always be a problem. the idea is to minimize it. but currently in the usa, we have legalized corruption: revolving door employment between regulator and industry. corporations openly buying candidates in election campaign funding. these are our real problems: corruption. not government itself
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That's what you get when you elect a man with three Muslim names. His middle name is the best, though: "Hussein". I love saying that! "Hussein". It drives the lefties into a rage!
You know why it tweaks people? Because the only reason you use it is because you consider it an insult. You're so insular and so fucking isolated from the rest of the world that you can't imagine someone else also having that name, or it actually being a popular name in the rest of the world.
So let go of the childish antics and grow the fuck up.