Plus ca change (NASA US Election Edition)
Before the US election the dour bunny was of the opinion that at a minimum Columbia University was about to receive a gift of GISS. Whether it would be silly enough to accept the donation was another story. Goddard, Langley, JPL, Ames and Glenn were in deep trouble too, as was the entire agency. In one scenario aeronautics would go to the FAA leaving a rump Confederate Space Exploration Agency centered around Johnson, Kennedy, Marshall and Stennis. Kennedy would be renamed Strom Thurmond Space Center.
The recent election has shuffled the deck. California (Ames and JPL) has Nancy Pelosi and Boxer and Feinstein who are not about to let anyone mess with their Centers, GISS is in New York with two rather powerful senators, but the big winner is Goddard. The main center is in Steny Hoyer's district (new majority leader in the House of Representatives) and Barbara Mikulski in the Senate. She will be the new chair of the subcommittee responsible for NASA appropriations. Outlying labs such as GISS and IV&V (Robert Byrd, Jay Rockerfeller and Allan Mollohan in the House) look to be in good shape. The other Centers (including Johnson, with Bush in the White House and Sheila Jackson Lee in the House, there is an odd couple) appear ok too. NASA may survive. Of course, given the talent displayed by the incumbent we have our questions about the owner operators.
NASA Watch has some other details
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6 comments:
Dano, I think he still needs to recover from venting at that "fool" (professional jealousy can be so undecorous!) Stern to be able to focus on much of anything else.
C'mon guys, I work my ears to the bone coming up with the Confederate Space Agency, and Strom Thurmond Spaceport and all you can talk about is RPJr's hrumphinggg (Swiss for Harrumph). It's not for nothing that this blog is becoming known as the finely fettled Pielke fan club.
The STS (in these budgetary circumstances, it only makes sense to double one's acronym mileage) was indeed a brilliant stroke. We can be confident that had the feds been wise enough to name the facility after that flower of Southern manhood rather than a descendant of "the Negros of Europe," NASA assuredly would have been spared the unpleasant events of the subsequent four decades.
P.S. -- I must confess that I don't get the fan club reference.
HE Taylor used the discription in one of his listings. Eli was taken.
Good luck with everything. Merry cristmas....
Why thank you for the good wishes, and a tip of the ears to you merry azazelo
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