Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Bridenstine's background as an administrator is running the Tulsa Air and Space museum (I am not making this up), and running it badly. But, as befits someone popular with Trump, he managed to spend museum funds to benefit his won company.
Yup, just the guy we need to oversee 18.4 billion of our tax dollars.
NASA is barely a shell of its former self thanks to Obama.
Somewhere along the way NASA stopped being about space and gained new directives
* climate change
* re-inspire children to want to get into science and math
* expand our international relationships
* 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 ... and math and engineering
Surface ripples - although monitoring climate change from space is a logical mission, no? And there's nothing wrong with channeling the excitement to get kids into math & science, either. Also, it is the "National Air and Space Administration" - space is sexy, but NASA as a mission in the atmosphere as well.
Anyway, as always, follow the money. When the first manned SLS mission takes off in 2021 (if we're lucky), NASA will have spent 40+ billion on developing that heavy lifter. Completely disproportionate. Why is NASA so obscenely expensive? Because every congressman with a widget factory in his district wants a slice of the NASA budget, and so if NASA wants to build rockets in-house, they have to be cobbled together from politically selected widgets.
The Obama administration (and I know you hate the guy, but he got this 100% right) decided to farm the journeyman work of getting payloads to LEO out to the private sector at fixed-price contracts, and that worked very well indeed. The taxpayer gets more mass to orbit per dollar, the US space industry benefits from NASA development to refine their designs - that's the point of NASA, pretty much - and private payloads go to orbit at lower cost. That's intelligent harnessing of the power of free enterprise.
Everybody wins except for Shuttle hardware suppliers and the ULA, but they have had it very well on our dime for way too long. And they fought the idea every step of the way.
Last edited by Dane_in_LA; 04-23-2018 at 10:56 AM..
Republicans love ignorant people with little education. Without them, they would not exist.
Pretty stupid comment given the fact that we are talking about Jim Bridenstine, who is a graduate of Rice University, with majors in economics, psychology and business and an MBA from Cornell.
Real quick on the last is that there were a number of trained USAF officers to fly the shuttle out of Slick 6 at Vandenberg but the Challenger disaster put an end to that program.
Real quick on the last is that there were a number of trained USAF officers to fly the shuttle out of Slick 6 at Vandenberg but the Challenger disaster put an end to that program.
First, I think we can generally agree that when we are talking NASA, we are talking military to some degree?
Secondly, when we are talking Rice University, we are talking about some pretty smart stuff.
Not sure what your point is, truth be told. Also, did you mean James Webb?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
