White House Was Against Bolden's China Trip Before They Were For It

I think this goes right along with what's going on with NASA and the US Economic outlook for the next few decades. The US is a falling empire and the China visit is an attempt to foster cooperation to prevent China from just flat out whipping America's ass in space.

This is especially true since the U.S. cancelled the Constellation program and thus will not have a human spaceflight program for the rest of this decade.

Charlie is the playing the sacrificial lamb role, he's going along with this ruse in promise of a nicer, more important job down the road.

Keith: I think your "chaos" theory is correct. Spaceflight is a highly visible way of marketing cooperation between the U.S. and China when, in reality, the cooperative possibilities are limited, especially with Human Space Flight. It's difficult to imagine the Chinese giving NASA managers and astronauts access to PLA space facilities in the same way that the Russians grant NASA access to Star City and Baikonur.

I sense a great deal of unhappiness with Mr. B in this forum. He leads the agency, the agency is having problems, he takes heat.

That said, I have noted moments where Mr. B has done some interesting things. I had never gotten so many post about what NASA is doing in my regular email. Many of you know so much more than I do. So for you, those posts are of small value. However those emails give me, a new guy, information I can share with regular folk to explain why NASA is still relevant, what it is doing, and why it is important.

SO Mr. B went to China. He gets panned, he is publicly chided. He is chided by the White House. He is skewered in this forum. Now, the President invites the head of China to the White House. The Nobel Peace Prize winner hosting the head of a country where there is a Nobel Peace Prize winner in prison. Now the White House needs help. What can then do. Well, Mr. B can tell them this is an opportunity to share technology. A visit to NASA centers, reciprocal to the one Mr B made, takes the spotlight off the difficult Nobel question. The White House has to be grateful to Mr. B.

Mr. B may be crazy, but he does seem to have some fox craziness. Just the observations of someone who knows little. From this little man perspective, Mr. B hasn't made the agency look bad at all.