NASA transition sparks sharp talk

[Celebration]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28185106/

A firestorm of words has erupted over an Orlando Sentinel report about NASA Administrator Michael Griffin's relationship with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team.

The Sentinel reported Thursday that Griffin was "not cooperating" with the transition team. The newspaper said that "Griffin is scripting NASA employees and civilian contractors on what they can tell the transition team and has warned aerospace executives not to criticize the agency's moon program."

"Griffin's resistance is part of a no-holds-barred effort to preserve the Constellation program, the delayed and over-budget moon rocket that is his signature project," according to the Sentinel report, written by staff writers Robert Block and Mark K. Matthews.

[amdezurik]

1. so many will be disappointed here on DU

they are so heavily invested in him being a demon who eats babies and picks his teeth with puppy dogs. Of course no mention before of any emails or statements were forthcoming in the straight on hatred pouring out in the previous thread.

[Posteritatis]

10. The whole situation bothers me

A lot of people on this site would be too happy to see NASA's budget zeroed out entirely because they consider it intrinsically Republican or anti-knowledge(!) or some other such bullshit, and that's not even taking into account the "zomg too expensive" people who couldn't tell you what its budget is without scurrying off to Wikipedia first. (I'm still depressed at that study done a year or so ago that showed how many people thought NASA's budget was somewhere between $200 billion and a trillion or so.)

Anything that might smooth over the clash between Griffin and the administration - if indeed there is one, going from NASA's reaction to that article - is as likely as not to be ignored in favor of that. Me, I'd be happy to see its budget get a huge, Luddite-enraging spike after cutting one or two boondoggles from the defense budget, but it looks like Bush has thrown just enough rhetorical support (and very little else) behind NASA that people are likely just going to want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[Orrex]

11. The main problem with NASA is that it's so hugely over-funded

Why, its $17B budget for 2008 would pay for a whole month and a half in Iraq. :sarcasm:


I'm not a particular fan of manned spaceflight, but NASA has done so much remarkable work that I'd be content to hand about 90% of the defense budget over to NASA.

On edit: I'm mortified to admit that I included an errant apostrophe somewhere in that first sentence. Please don't hate me.

[Birthmark]

2. Hmm...what to cut out of the budget...

...to pay for healthcare reform? Anyone?

[HeresyLives]

3. War, not space.

[Phoonzang]

5. Yes, lets crush humankind's future to pay for healthcare

when there's plenty of other, truly wasteful programs to cut.

[Birthmark]

6. Sooo...

...space is going to disappear in the next five or ten or twenty years? If so, what's the difference? If not, then you have no point.

[Phoonzang]

7. We've already done nothing for 40 years....at some point you've got

to stop procrastinating and get to it. One of Obama's big platforms is getting the US up to speed with math and science so they can compete with other countries...I'd say a strong space program would definitely help. Other nations are going full speed ahead with their space efforts.

[Birthmark]

8. I agree. Stop procrastinating.

...the moment we can afford to do so. That moment is many years in the future.

[Posteritatis]

9. How about $100-$200B of the defense budget rather than the trifles given to NASA?

But no, that'd get in the way of the "we must establish a utopia on Earth before we do anything else" argument that people tend to euphemize on this site when space comes up.

[Cobalt-60]

4. A Bushnik being a Dick? that could never happen

His attitude won't last any longer than about January 20.