…where NASA has never gone before. It’s apparently official that the president has nominated the agency’s first black administrator. But Lori Garver won’t be its first woman deputy administrator — that was Shana Dale.
Of course, they still have to be confirmed by the Senate. And while there were rumors that the administrated wanted “hoopla” associated with the announcement, the first day of a holiday weekend seems like a strange time if that was the goal. I’d have done it at the ISDC in Orlando later this week, with a lot of space-interested attendees present. I wonder if either of them will address the gathering? Lori used to be the executive director of NSS, which puts it on.
What does it mean? Heck if I know. I suspect, though, for good or ill, that neither of them took the job to shut down the NASA human spaceflight program.
And meanwhile, the Hubble-repair crew is stuck in orbit for another day, with continuing much-needed (though not nearly as much needed as it was a week ago) rain and thunderstorms on the Florida east coast. I don’t think they can put off landing past tomorrow, so it’s hoping for good weather at the Cape tomorrow morning, or going to sunny California.
[Update a few minutes later]
“Rocketman” isn’t happy, with what is arguably a slightly racist post (and accompanying comment from an anonymous commenter). I don’t think that either the ATK connection or the fact that he was briefly a “lobbyist” for them are or should be issues (with regard to the latter, the activity wasn’t within the ostensible administration guideline of the past two years). The amount of advocacy seemed to be pretty minimal, and there may even be bad blood there now.
I’m much, much more concerned about the prior (if not current) close relationship with George Abbey. I hope that he won’t be looking there for any advice.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Bobby Block over at the Orlando Sentinel has a story up now. This part concerns me a little:
There has been concern by some in the administration that Bolden would be biased towards human spaceflight and NASA’s current troubled Constellation program to return astronauts to the moon as a first step towards going to Mars later this century.
The Constellation program is wrestling with financial and technical woes and the president has called for a review of the current plans. The White House wanted to make sure Bolden had an open mind before nominating him.
An “open mind” with regard to what? More innovative and affordable means of carrying out the goal? I’m all for it. Or about the goal itself, and turning humanity’s back on space beyond low earth orbit? I hope not.
[Update early afternoon]
For me, the biggest strike against Bolden is that Bill Nelson was such a heavy supporter, and got his way. I should also add that the last time we had an astronaut as administrator (Dick Truly), it was kind of a disaster. He actively lobbied against the Space Exploration Initiative on the Hill in the early nineties, defying his own president. He was fired for his troubles, and replaced by Dan Goldin. But one shouldn’t indulge in the fallacy of hasty generalization and draw any grand conclusions about astronaut administrators in general from a single example.
[Update a few minutes later]
Jeff Foust is rounding up Congressional reaction, from Florida space coast congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas, Florida Senator Bill Nelson, and the chairs of the Science & Technology and Space committees in the House, Democrats all (and the latter, Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, is a former astronaut herself married to an astronaut).
[Update a couple minutes later]
More reaction from Marc Boucher over at NASA Watch:
Ok, it’s now finally official, but what does this mean? NASA’s has some tough budget years ahead of them with Constellation over budget and negative or zero growth budgets coming. President Obama is a science guy and perhaps not so much a human space flight exploration advocate. The reality is that no matter how many speeches he gives where he touts the inspiration of NASA, it takes hard cold cash to make things happen, especially human space flight.
NASA’s fiscal year 2010 budget request of $18.686 billion includes $456M increase for science and $630M increase for Exploration. Some of that increase is because of the one time Recovery Act stimulus money. If you look at projected budgets for fiscal years 2011, 2012, 2013 you see either negative or zero growth. Already sources say Bolden expressed concern at his meeting with President Obama because he was told that further cuts to human spaceflight in future budgets might be needed.
I have no doubt Bolden is a leader, the question is, with the projected budgets he’ll have, can he get Constellation back on track and on schedule? And what effect will the Human Space Flight Review Panel have going forward?
It’s great to see a nominee like Bolden put forward but really how much can he accomplish? Will Bolden be bold in his leadership?
Good questions, all.
” “Rocketman” isn’t happy, with what is arguably a slightly racist post”
Going back to Rocketman’s original post, I hope readers understand that “white smoke” is referring to the papal election process, and “high tar” is comparing General Bolden to a harmful cigarette. Hopefully we won’t have to address the new Administrator as “His Holiness.” 🙂
I usually think Rocketman makes some insightful commentary, and I really hope he’s wrong here. It’s hard to say what General Bolden’s agenda is, and I wouldn’t besmirch him just because Bill Nelson likes him.
There’s already one pleasant difference between General Bolden and Mike Griffin. At least General Bolden knows what it’s like to LEAD a large professional organization, instead of serving as Chief Engineer of the Universe.
‘High Tar’ refers to the ATK SRBs.
The white smoke I understood. The “high tar” comment is much more ambiguous (as his posts often are).
“Rocketman” isn’t happy, with what is arguably a slightly racist post”
I really don’t know what to say. To throw such a charged accusation at someone like that, is just foolish. So the next time you say something on the edge, I take it that it’s cool if I want to call you a racist, or a bigot, or any other thing I’d like. I shouldn’t concern myself too much, since you obviously didn’t concern yourself about this guy.
Good to know.
Rocketman’s blog is great when his writings don’t sound like a rambling schizophrenic. Sometimes his ambiguity is “too too” as they sometimes say.
On a broad level, the Bolden/Garver picks are solid as both are human spaceflight supporters. But the devil’s in the detail, and Bolden’s seems like a human spaceflight supporter in the big gov’t 60s Golden Age mode. My gut says the “debate” will become Ares I vs. DIRECT rather than the much broader, more revolutionary space debate Rand and many others (rightly) championed.
To throw such a charged accusation at someone like that, is just foolish.
What part of “arguably” do you not understand? He made an ambiguous comment that could have that interpretation. He is free to clarify any time, either at his own blog, or here.
If you’re expecting any human spaceflight while Democrats are in charge, dream on.
Lip service and budget elimination.
That’s all you’ll get from any Democrat since Kennedy.
And he was only on board because he didn’t want to lose his throne to the Soviets. To prevent that, he needed better missiles.
It should be noted that Senator Nelson is a big supporter of COTS-D; opposed to at least one of the Republican congress critters – that became clear in this week’s testimony. Maybe there will be motion in that direction with this nomination (although I suspect everything will be sacrificed on the altar of Ares, though)
Gabrille Giffords was not herself an astronaut; she is married to one of the brothers Kelly, though.
“What part of ‘arguably’ do you not understand? He made an ambiguous comment…”
So is “I love chidren” if one wants to accuse someone of being “arguably” a child predator. Decent people wouldn’t assume the worst and chance slurring someone, would they?
But this is wasted on you.
So is “I love chidren” if one wants to accuse someone of being “arguably” a child predator.
No, that would be stupid. And I didn’t accuse him of being a racist.
Decent people wouldn’t assume the worst and chance slurring someone, would they?
I didn’t “assume the worst.” I didn’t “assume” anything. I simply observed that the statement could be interpreted that way, and that he might want to clarify it if it’s not what he meant to imply.
Lori Garver was announced as Deputy Administrator in the same press release. Any tea leaves to read, there?
Garver and Whitesides going “inside” can only be a positive sign for human spaceflight, at least IMHO, even if they are obviously not at the top of the food chain.
Contrary opinions?
Chairman Hussein Obama is “a science guy”, huh? Kind of like he’s a “smart guy”. Hmm, tell me why all the “smart guys” advocate for centrally planned, command and control economies, a.k.a. Marxism?
They’re so smart…..
I’m all in favor of US space exploration and keeping most of it as a US NATIONAL space program, limiting foreign nation participation.
But spare me, with the Marxist-Muslim in the White House, he’s gonna drive our economy into the toilet because he’s anti-business, anti-economic growth. We most likely won’t be able to afford all but a trivial space program anymore.
“President Obama is a science guy.”
How do we know that? What does that even mean?
It means that he believes that the seas are going to rise ten feet in the next fifty years (or were before he became president), and that he’s going to end the “Republican war on science.”
Well, at least he’s paid his taxes. (I hope)
“I simply observed that the statement could be interpreted that way, and that he might want to clarify it if it’s not what he meant to imply.”
Nope.
You said…” with what is arguably a slightly racist post.”
That’s quite stronger than “could be interpreted”, as if you are not but someone might. And where is the “might want to clarify if it’s not what he meant” that you claim you suggested? There is nothing of the sort anywhere in your post or updates. Just the statement about racist post and then you move on.
Why don’t you just do the decent thing and apologize and admit that you jumped too quick to accuse him.
Why don’t you just do the decent thing and apologize and admit that you jumped too quick to accuse him?
Ummmm…because I didn’t accuse him?
Sorry about your problem with reading comprehension.
This is off-topic, but I think anyone (and particularly you, Rand) who is interested in Bolden’s selection would enjoy reading this piece by Alan Stern on why looking at the Earth during a spacewalk is hard for astronauts to describe.
http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001959/
The piece implicitly sets aside any silly human/exploitation vs robot/science arguments and instead tries to get at what the view must be like, and will be like for suborbital tourists. I read it and thought of you, Rand.
Unbelievable.
Sorry about your problem with ethics.
“..with what is arguably a slightly racist post ..”
Well, maybe you better make that argument then, because I read his post and don’t see any racism.
If someone is going to imply such an ugly accusation, they had better back it up. Even if they do it in a weasel-word, plausible-deniable way.
‘Randy Slimberg is a pedophile, arguably’ is an unacceptable statement in a serious adult conversation; even if it is followed by ‘Well, I said arguably and anyhow if Randy objects he’s free to defend himself.’
Well, maybe you better make that argument then, because I read his post and don’t see any racism.
“Despite several months of delay, and the passing over of several exceptional, unfettered, and vetted candidates for the job, white smoke is finally coming out of the chimney on E Street.
Unfortunately, the smoke has a high tar content.”
Emphasis mine.
This, in a post about the nomination of the first black NASA administrator. On my planet, tar is black. Don’t know about the situation on yours. But if the meaning is that he considers it unfortunate that the nominee is black, that sounds racist to me.
‘Randy Slimberg is a pedophile, arguably’ is an unacceptable statement in a serious adult conversation
Of course it is. But no one, including me, accused anyone of being a racist. Once again, as anyone who can read for comprehension (i.e., not you, apparently) my quote that you provided, I merely pointed out that he wrote something that could reasonably be interpreted as racist. Whether or not he meant it that way, or he meant something else, or is really a racist, or just pretending to be one on the Internet, is not for me to judge, and I made no such judgement. And again, he (or she) remains free to clarify, and explain what (s)he actually meant.
Well, I had the common decency to inform Rocket Man of what you were saying about him and asked him for a response.
Here’s what he said:
“Rocket Man said…
For the record, we do not normally respond directly to comments, but felt it important to note that racism is not part of our vocabulary here. The only bias we ever express is technical. Any reading otherwise is mistaken and uninformed.
May 25, 2009 7:17 PM ”
So I guess you can go ahead and stop “point”ing ” out that he wrote something that could reasonably be interpreted as racist. “
So I guess you can go ahead and stop “point”ing ” out that he wrote something that could reasonably be interpreted as racist. “
I “stopped” pointing it out after I put up the initial post. Subsequent discussion was a defense on my part against the repeated false accusations that I had accused him of being a racist. You people are the ones who have kept it alive.
“You people are the ones who have kept it alive.
You people? You people?
That’s a well-known racist catchphrase.
I guess I can now pithily say “Rand Simberg isn’t happy, with what is arguably a slightly racist post ” with as much authority as you.
The difference being, I recognize my pithy saying as bullshit; you apparently believe it.
That’s a well-known racist catchphrase.
<rolling eyes at the inanity>
“”
Yep. And rightly so.
Just like we were rolling our eyes at your inanity, that started this whole discussion.
Over and out.