…and Roger Pielke’s response.
It’s shameful the way that scientific societies have become politicized.
Lori’s Speech At NewSpace
She raised a lot of eyebrows in the audience a week and a half ago when she called some on the Hill “porkers” in public. It occurs to me this morning that now we know why. She was FIGMO.
[Update a few minutes later]
Over at Space Politics, DBN points out the real failure of the administration on space policy:
I’m no fan of the NASA workforce, but if you’re right and Tip O’Neill’s maxim that “all politics is local” is what’s driving the repeated failures of the Administration’s civil space initiatives, then the Administration is to blame for never making the local argument about how their initiatives would maintain NASA employment by shifting workers from Program A to Programs X, Y, and Z. We never saw that kind of argument, commitment, or the workforce numbers to back it up when the Administration rolled out its Constellation replacement programs, and we never saw it earlier this year when ARM was proposed.
I don’t lay this failure at Garver’s doorstep because we don’t know who did what in the Administration and White House before these initiatives were rolled out. That decision process is embargoed, and for all we know, Garver was pounding her fists for a sane workforce transition plan instead of the vacuum that ensued. And maybe the hyperpartisan environment on the Hill would have rendered even Tip O’Neill’s maxim useless. But the fact that the Administration never got to square one on the politics 101 topic of workforce redistribution is not Congress’s fault. As venal and stupid as Congress is, at some level their rejection of the Administration’s civil space initiatives is just them doing their job under the Constitution and protecting their constituents’ local interests. In the absence of any workforce argument, commitment, or plan from the Administration, it’s hard to see how the key members in Congress could have reacted differently. Even a workforce commitment and detailed plan might not have been enough to get the Administration’s civil space initiatives off the ground, but the Administration also didn’t even bother to try.
That’s because space policy wasn’t important to them. That was good, in terms of their willingness to leave it more to the commercial sector, but bad in that they made no effort to implement their good policy on the Hill. Of course, they’ve been pretty incompetent at dealing with Congress in general.
Larva Breeders
Ummmmmm…no. Just no.
Though they might be useful in space.
Fort Hood Was Islamist Terror
…not “workplace violence.”
I signed the petition.
One Cheer For Mike Bloomberg
Senator Leahy says that he actually hurt the gun-control cause. So, sometimes bad intentions can have good results.
Baghdad Bob At The White House
What in the hell does “the core of Al Qaeda” even mean?
It’s a de facto “core” even if the administration doesn’t want to call it that, just as there’s a de facto U.S. retreat is in progress even if the administration doesn’t want to call it that. After all, the evacuation of personnel and the closure of diplomatic missions are physical acts involving actual people being transported thousands of miles. They are actions in which real concrete and steel buildings are being shuttered, at least temporarily. Set against these tangible events are Carney’s word games about the core and the periphery.
This is nothing except a pathetic attempt to continue to maintain the campaign lies of last year.
Randall Munroe’s Time Comic
The back story.
This is something that used to concern space activists even in the seventies:
“In my comic, our civilization is long gone. Every civilization with written records has existed for less than 5,000 years; it seems optimistic to hope that the current one will last for 10,000 more,” Munroe told WIRED. “And as astronomer Fred Hoyle has pointed out, since we’ve stripped away the easily-accessed fossil fuels, whatever civilization comes along next won’t be able to jump-start an industrial revolution the way we did.”
You could think of fossil fuels as the yolk of an egg. If we eat it up, but fail to hatch and get into space, then this planet won’t reproduce.
Don’t Stare, And Avoid The Big Smile
An interesting article about dating on the autism spectrum. I have some of these problems, but only mildly.
Lori Garver
I’m a little surprised, but not shocked, that she’s leaving NASA. I’m sure it’s been a very frustrating situation for her. What shocks me is this (via an email from her, though many got one):
I will be resigning from my position as NASA Deputy Administrator, effective September 6 and have accepted a new position in the private sector outside the space industry.
My emphasis.
She gave no hint when I talked to her in San Jose a week and a half ago, but that’s no surprise, either. If I had any brains, I’d probably do the same thing. I’ve been beating my head against this wall, and damaging my finances in the process, for over a third of a century now.
The DC-X Anniversary
Both Bill Gaubatz and Henry Vanderbilt remind me via email of this upcoming event in a week and a half. Look like a lot of interesting speakers and discussion.