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President Trump Nominates Congressman Jim Bridenstine to Lead NASA

posted by martyb on Monday September 04 2017, @10:54AM   
from the up-in-the-air dept.

takyon writes:

President Trump has nominated Representative Jim Bridenstine as NASA's next administrator, to replace the acting administrator Robert M. Lightfoot:

Representative Jim Bridenstine, Republican of Oklahoma, will be nominated by President Trump to serve as NASA's next administrator, the White House said on Friday night.

Mr. Bridenstine, a strong advocate for drawing private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin more deeply into NASA's exploration of space, had been rumored to be the leading candidate for the job, but months passed without an announcement. If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Bridenstine, 42, would be the first elected official to hold that job.

[...] Although NASA has little presence in Oklahoma, Mr. Bridenstine, a former Navy Reserve pilot who is now in his third term in the House [of] Representatives, has long had an interest in space. Before being elected to Congress in 2012, he was executive director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum and Planetarium from 2008 to 2010.

[...] Mr. Bridenstine has supported a return to the moon, a departure from the Obama administration's focus on sending astronauts to Mars in coming decades.

Florida's Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson blasted the choice. Nelson said that "The head of NASA ought to be a space professional, not a politician."

NASA statement. NASA Watch analysis.

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Original Submission

• Re:Compare and Contrast Re:Compare and Contrast (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 04 2017, @02:08PM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 04 2017, @02:08PM (#563458)

  Mr Bolden said: "When I became the Nasa administrator, he [Mr Obama] charged me with three things.
  "One, he wanted me to help reinspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering."

  Yeah, clearly good ole' Obama clearly had NASA's best interests at heart, and advancing science and space travel were his top priorities. Obviously.

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• Re:Compare and Contrast (Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday September 05 2017, @02:39AM

  by khallow (3766) on Tuesday September 05 2017, @02:39AM (#563635) Journal

  It's a throw away comment, probably intended to placate some political request higher up to say something nice for his audience (Al-Jazeera viewers). It's quite clear that Muslim outreach was never a high priority goal of NASA, then or now. It's weird how much legs Bolden's comment has, but I suppose a single comment from 2010 is enough to prove anything these days for some people.

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