Ted Cruz On NASA, ISS, Star Trek, Bridenstine and "OMB Numbskulls"
Live tweeted on @NASAWatch via a Facebook live feed from the FAA Commercial Space Conference underway in Washington DC
Cruz: said that he re-enacted this scene from #StarTrek and no one in his office knew what he was talking about #FAACST2018 #FAASpace pic.twitter.com/VcDKQcX1b0
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) February 7, 2018
Cruz: every day that Bridenstine not confirmed is harmfull for NASA and our nation. Hope we move to confirm him to have a strong serious leader of #NASA #FAACST2018 #FAASpace
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) February 7, 2018
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Never underestimate the power of a Senator from Texas. Even the least popular Senator.
Lots of people complain about the distributed nature of our space effort. But Johnson had it right; without broad benefit we’d still be planning the first space station.
I would rather have congress people who genuinely see the benefit for space exploration overseeing the appropriations/authorization than folks really just trying to keep work and pork flowing to a space center in their state/district. I bet it would be a much different agency if folks from other states who cared about exploration were calling the shots than Cruz, Nelson, Shelby and the others.
Wishful thinking. I don’t expect that to happen any time soon. Members of Congress get elected more on what’s important to voters in their district.
They will resist, but resistance is futile. When BFR is taking a 100 tourists at a time pass the antique ISS to take pictures of it before spending a weekend in a orbiting hotel the dam will break and NASA will transform, or be replaced.
But then again, governments still fund passenger trains in the jet age so maybe the pork flow will go on for old time’s sake.
If that’s the way you feel, and with apologies to our host for straying, then there’s one thing you can do: support the end of gerrymandering.
Well, there is one thing I can say for another Texas congressman. I can’t see how Mr. Culberson’s backing of Europa missions directs any money into his district or his constituents. Yes, he represents Houston suburbs, but not the one containing JSC, and JSC actually doesn’t get any Europa money worth mentioning. I might not agree with him about a number of things, but, in this case, he’s an exception the “NASA as pork” attitude.
“Background similar to astronauts.” And when was the last time an astronaut Administrator covered himself with glory while in the job?
Arguably, the best Administrator NASA ever had (James Webb) was a lawyer, business executive, and civil servant.
Absolutely! Engineers, pilots, scientists etc. are out there. What is needed however, is a leader who can corral these assets and provide them with the necessary resources.
Webb set the standard for this and I would argue that non of his successors (good intentions not withstanding) have been able to replicate his results.
I think it says more about Cruz and his people that they didn’t get the Star Trek joke.
Cruz told the Star Trek joke. His (young?) staff didn’t get it.
I think many young people will not get the quote from a 30 year old movie based on a 50 year old TV show. A wired mouse, small tubetype monitor with only gray colors? Back then that Mac was the hot setup.
And don’t forget, if you were fortunate enough to be hard wired into the Internet with a modem it was very, very slow.
Frankly, I cannot see that Bridenstine could be any worse than the last 2 Administrators, one of whom was an astronaut, and one of whom had a serious technical education. Neither showed any signs of competent leadership skills, technical or otherwise.
For that matter, we have had a whole lot of high level NASA astronauts, operations managers and bureaucrats leading the NASA show and we have no bona fide strategic plan in human space flight, and the only reason why tactically we seem to be moving towards an improved situation is thanks to non-NASA people like Elon Musk taking the situation into their own hands.
I put no faith in the current or recent NASA leadership and particularly NOT the astronauts and people out of the operations arena. The days of astronauts as national heroes is past.
There are hundreds of people walking around now with the box checked: flew on a Shuttle, flew on a Soyuz, flew on a space station. So what? Some might have been competent pilots, although actually there were not a lot of flying skills involved on any of these vehicles. Some might have been competent scientists and researchers, although in practice that was in the days prior to being an astronaut. Hell, we have someone on board ISS now who apparently was a competent school teacher. So what? Their experience flying in space has little to do with their political acumen, leadership skills or management ability; this has been demonstrated repeatedly.
Competent leadership skills? One does not get to command a Marine Expeditionary Force in combat or an entire Marine Air Wing without competent leadership skills.
You people on here kill me sometimes. The real lack of leadership in on Capitol Hill.
Yep.
There’s one thing, above all else, that the General, or any general, knows how to do: follow orders. He will implement his orders with willful efficiency.
But the orders need to make some sense.
That isn’t really fair, since generals spend as much time giving orders as following them. But the military is a very hierarchical, top-down, management structure. That’s historically been a good way to win wars (mostly, and with exceptions when it’s too inflexibly top-down.) But it isn’t clear the skills involved in that apply to civilian organizations. Especially ones where employees are expected to do creative and innovative work.
I remember when Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home came out – it was a terrific, hopeful film and I was very moved when they paid tribute to the crew of ‘Spaceship Challlenger’.
Well, I’d have to say that movie didn’t age well. The sequence about someone mistaking Kirk’s communicator for a pager wouldn’t make sense to most people under 25. And in a few years, people will expect computers they can talk to.
Actually the software is already out there. My wife uses it on her Apple, but since I started in the days of punch cards I still like the keyboard 🙂
https://www.popsci.com/cont…
How to control your computer with your voice
Siri or Cortana aren’t just for your phone
By David Nield May 2, 2017
Yes, folks have forgotten how important the humble pager was. I use the breakup of AT&T to show my students the power of market competition, but I have to explain about pagers and how in the old wire age you had one phone hard wired into the wall. They sometimes ask how you texted on it without a keyboard 🙂
I wasn’t thinking of when technology would be available. I was thinking of how long it would take before a joke about it’s unavailability would be incomprehensible to most people. The idea that you can conduct a conversation with a device which fits in the palm of your hand (rather than a page saying find a phone and call this number) already predates the memory of many people. Commanding a computer by voice is something we can do today, but it isn’t common and most people remember when it was just science fiction. I’d give that a few more years. (I still want to see one good enough for a scene from _Blade_Runner_, where the image processing software could figure out, “wade ah minit.”)
Staff under 30 don’t find 32 year old pop-culture reference by deathly lame boss funny.
Colour me shocked.