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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.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 05 2017, @02:52AM (1 child)
Well, September 12, 1962 to July 20, 1969 is a bit less than a decade. W might blame BHO for not following through on his vision, but that's a bit disingenuous when W himself wasn't able to provide any more backup for return to manned deep spaceflight than Trump has demonstrated for getting his wall built.
I assume by "equal" you mean 0 = 0, I think we're better than that - not anywhere near what Stephen Hawking and I want, but better. I think what got Apollo done was Sputnik and the continued threat of Russian nukes raining down from ICBMs - we needed to demonstrate launch reliability and payload capability, and we did, in spades, and that backed up the MAD doctrine for the next 20 years.
Oh, I heard we're invading Afghanistan, again. Doesn't anybody pay attention to history? Afghanistan, more than any one other thing, is how the USSR lost the cold war. If we're struggling so with our economy, do we need to go in there and stabilize the Afghan political/economic situation so we can get their minerals on the world market, or are we just stupid? 10% of Gulf War II's funding would have put men on Mars and returned them safely to earth, I'm sure when the final bill comes in for this Afghanistan adventure, it will be enough that it could have accelerated Constellation's timetable by years and also established a lunar settlement.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday September 05 2017, @05:26AM
We never fully pulled out of Afghanistan.
Maybe there is a way to combine the missions and put Afghanistan on the Moon.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]