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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.
Joel Osteen to head committee on Evolution?
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/...
After some thought, I think that would in fact be better than Ted Cruz. All we would have to do was tell him the commies are building X and we would get funding to build X twice as big.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.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.
As most people don't realize that Muslims have contributed extensively to the sciences during the medieval age.
NASA also has a hand in a variety of satellite projects which, while pretty uncontroversially 'space', mean that NASA data, if not necessarily scientists they directly employ, end up in terrestrial research fairly frequently. Lots of neat stuff you can efficiently keep tabs on from orbit, especially if you have coverage in a suitably broad assortment of wavelengths.
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?
> Corporatocracy (tm).
We _already_ have a word; plutocracy, and/or oligarchy
There is no need to coin a new word -- although yours isn't bad.
Talk is cheap and even the summary pointed out that Ted Cruz has voted to cut NASA's budget in the past. Follow the actions of politicians instead of their words because they have a reputation for speaking out of both sides of their ass.
Unfortunately this is one of the reasons for all the cuts. Allowing NOAA and other agencies to commit heretical measurements whose results contradict both Industry and God is one of NASA's crimes, with their "satellites" and their "high altitudes" and their "data".
Plutocracy is the better term. Oligarchy simply refers to few ruling many and can include any structure where a small number of people rule the masses. The USA is a plutocracy, which is rule by the wealthy elite (and, by definition, one form of oligarchy).
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.
Well, seeing as 50% of all people are below average, that sounds about right...
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.
"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
It should be pointed out that SpaceX has a huge presence in Texas, with the Texas state legislature doing some rather recent.... enticements as it were... to get SpaceX to spend a few hundred million dollars more in their state.
In other words, Ted Cruz would be crucified in his home state and would even hurt his future presidential ambitions if he were to be in public opposition to SpaceX as a company. I certainly expect to see him show up at the ground breaking when SpaceX starts to pour concrete at the Brownsville spaceport that is being built.... in Texas. For that matter, I wouldn't put it past him to show up at McGregor for an engine test or a test flight of the Falcon 9-R. A great photo op and with his dual hat as the chairman of this committee it is going to be an extra reason to appear for stuff like that.
As chair, he will also get a good insight into space policy issues, which I think will be a good thing too. Somebody with presidential ambitions would be good to become educated on those issues too.
I voted for Kodos.