Sen. Nelson's Effort To Undermine NASA
NASA has gone a year without a formal leader–with no end in sight, Ars Technica
“Five months ago, the Trump administration finally put forward a nominee for the post of administrator, Oklahoma Congressman and pilot James Bridenstine. Although he was confirmed along a party-line vote twice during Senate confirmation hearings, he has yet to receive a vote before the full Senate. Increasingly, it is obvious that the White House does not have the votes to confirm Bridenstine in a Senate where Republicans hold only a narrow margin. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, has led opposition to Bridenstine, saying he is too politically polarizing a figure to lead NASA. Nelson has convinced his fellow Floridian Senator, Republican Marco Rubio, to oppose Bridenstine as well.”
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He must know he’s not helping, right?!
I wonder whether it is better to not have an Administrator, or to have an Administrator who isn’t a leader, or maybe worst, an Administrator who is a leader who makes poor decisions because he is uninformed.
Ever wonder why the search is limited ‘to Congress’? “there are likely few people in Congress more qualified to lead the space agency”
Bridge to nowhere stein has already demonstrated he is not qualified for an entry level position with his inability to understand the basics of climate change and policies that will cost us $Ts. A deep state based on carbon interests has national security interests that dwarf ‘favors commercial’ and SLS whatever that means.
We have a subprime carbon bubble “the carbon assests are becoming stranded–the world can’t burn two thirds of its oil and gas reserves due to climate change.”
“Mr. Speaker, global temperatures stopped rising 10 years ago. ….changes, when they exist, correlate with Sun output and ocean cycles.”
The toe of the hockey stick is best explained by subtracting out solar, El Nino, and volcanic activity (See Fig 3) to arrive at the human contribution: temp. is increasing and at faster rate.
“During the Medieval Warm Period from 800 to 1300 A.D.—long before cars, power plants, or the Industrial Revolution—temperatures were warmer than today.”
Well, Temp is Beyond Those of the Medieval Times
nasa doesn’t make policy on climate change they just observe/study and inform the public/president/congress on the results. it is up to the president and congress to make policy, regulations and incentives to spurn innovation to fix the problem.
NASA won’t determine national policy on global warming, it will be determined by voters. If we want better policy, we need to electg a better Congress.
At the risk of topic change…NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Now if someone were to appoint a climate denier to NOAA, then I’d have a problem with that. A NOAA administrator should be open-minded on the topic…not a denier.
They nominated a climate denier to run Earth Sciences, a group that is critically needed for both the nation and the world.. Will congress change NASA Space Act to cater to carbon interests?
“The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space”
“monitoring of the phenomena of the upper atmosphere so as to provide for an understanding of and to maintain the chemical and physical integrity of the Earth’s upper atmosphere”
Climate & Radiation: Mission
“We investigate atmospheric radiation, both as a driver for climate change and as a tool for the remote sensing of Earth’s atmosphere and surface.”
NASA, NOAA Data Show 2016 Warmest Year on Record Globally
I don’t see the words “do NOAA’s job for it even though they can commission and launch their own satellites these days for a heck of a lot less money” anywhere in those quotes.
NASA’s mission – overtly stated in its founding act include understanding the Earth; it IS NASA’s job. BTW – the 1956 Act made no mention of human exploration.
I know that, but as I’ve said here before I think the particular degree of hand-holding that NASA still does for NOAA is ridiculous in a decade where even high schoolers are building satellites.
NASA even operates it’s own climate science research vessel in the North Atlantic for crying out loud.
I don’t recollect seeing, at least from the outside looking in, that position ever being more than a PR and Government “networking” job anyway. Appointing a politician only recognises and emphasizes the obvious.
The General thinks that the primary mission of the Administrator is to ‘take care of the people’ working at NASA.
A throwaway comment that reveals an awful lot: either, on the one hand, a simple acknoledgement that someone else drives NASA; or, on the other hand, the laying down of a man in a position where he could have actually done some real good.
“Taking care” of the people at NASA doesn’t mean making sure that people keep jobs, like so many love to believe. It’s making sure folks have the resources to accomplish the mission given to us by the folks in that big building in DC who can’t seem to agree on much of anything these days.
It can mean that. But in that case, it isn’t the “[f]irst and foremost… job of an administrator,” which is what he said. By your interpretation, accomplishing the mission would be the first and foremost job (which I agree with) and “taking care” of people would be a means to accomplishing that end. I’d also agree with that. My concern is that the actual quote places the people ahead of the mission.
It’s clear from his public remarks that Nelson wants the SLS/Orion pork to keep flowing and is skeptical of the “commercial crew” effort.
In reality, I think he fears that commercial crew and upcoming launchers like Falcon Heavy, New Glenn, BFR/FBS, and New Armstrong will eventually result in the cancellation of SLS/Orion and the elimination of a lot of pork spending in Florida. There are signals that the Trump Administration is very supportive of these sorts of commercial efforts so it looks to me like Nelson is “circling the wagons”.
in theory wouldn’t commercial provide more throughput for KSC from launches to payload processing? I don’t understand how one SLS launch at most a year is more work/pork for KSC than multiple commercial crew and all the hardware for boots to the moon.
That is of course true. The SpaceX launch rate is going through the roof. Unfortunately legislators do not actually serve their districts, they serve whatever lobbyists have made the most extravagent promises.
Those folks doing the work at KSC don’t work for NASA. They work for SpaceX, ULA, and whomever else.
But what of the rest of us? What will all the Plan, Train, Fly people do?
Another wasted generation of engineers..
They plan, train, fly and go to the Moon not just for flags and footprints but to stay, explore and live. From first footprints in 2024 to a moon village like ESA wants and eventually onwards to Mars in 2040
While true, eliminating the SLS pork means NASA wound’t have much use for pad 39-B, the VAB, and etc. This would be very painful for KSC.
Nothing preventing 39-B from being used by Vulcan or New Glenn or someone else. More payload processing of all those lunar surface operations hardware can offset stacking in VAB.
SLS will require nearly the same staffing (and paychecks) whether they fly twice a year or once every other year. It’s not like you can put people on months of unpaid leave and expect them to stick around. So SLS flight rates are largely irrelevant to the amount of government funding the program spends in Florida.
With growth in commercial launches, SpaceX and others might well bring more money to Florida than SLS. But that isn’t certain and isn’t something a Senator can control or influence. SLS funding is something a Senator can control or influence, and as long as he can, it’s a sure thing.
Where the workers involved is also an issue. How many live in Florida? How many live elsewhere and just fly there for the month or so they are needed for a launch campaign? I suspect it’s a higher percentage of people (and in state voters) for SLS than Falcon 9.
I’ve avoided responding to this because I think Bridenstine is not as bad as his opponents make him out to be and he’s a lot better than most of Trump’s appointees. But I hate seeing Nelson Trash talked on this site – he has done more for NASA – including supporting commercial space development in Florida – than anyone seems to remember. Even if you disagree with him, there is no reason to be disrespectful of a great public servant; Lightfoot is doing just fine in the interim.
When it comes to “great public servant[s]”, I have far more sympathy for the underpaid ones with thankless jobs, and who didn’t get paid on January 22nd. Calling people who (as a group) can’t manage to do one of their most basic jobs, “public servants” is a bit insulting to the people who really are.