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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: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Tuesday September 05 2017, @06:01PM
I'd say it's important because he's a Republican. Remember, they're the party of social conservatives, and are generally opposed to homosexuality, so when they turn out to be closet homosexuals, like Senator Larry Craig, it exemplifies their hypocrisy.
For Democrats, it wouldn't be a big deal, because as a party they never have anything bad to say about homosexuality. But strangely, they never seem to be outed as homosexual either (except for the ones who are openly gay of course).