Let’s Support NASA Science Leadership
Let’s Keep America Great In Space — Grok via NASAWatch.com
Keith’s note: NASA has led space science and “Made America Great In Space” for more than half a century. Let’s not let that science leadership fade. Let’s expand it further. NASA has led the way by:
- touching the sun
- visiting every planet in our solar system
- sending humans to walk on another world
- doing the first offworld search for life
- moving an asteroid
- finding water on the Moon and Mars
- discovering oceans inside icy moons
- sailing across interstellar space
- peering back to the dawn of the universe
- developing a global brand that all nations aspire to
4 responses to “Let’s Support NASA Science Leadership”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
You left off (more than) a few by forgetting to turn your attention from looking out to looking in. NASA also:
– was the first to look at, and take measurements of, the earth (land, ocean, and sky) from space, revolutionizing weather forecasting (and, yes, climate studies) and facilitating (if not outright creating) the field of earth science
– helping to spur the creation of the Montreal Protocol, one of the most successful international treaties (achieving universal world-wide ratification), with the release of the first, and now iconic, image of the ozone hole and subsequent updates over more than half a century. The protocol has been an outright success, with recent measurements (by NASA and others) indicating the size and depth of the hole are now decreasing.
– revolutionizing farming by integrating satellite measurements (such as soil moisture) into software packages that farmers use to determine crop planting, rotation, and preservation
– providing critical satellite derived fire and thermal anomaly information used by fire fighters on the ground to help battle wildfire activity not only in the US and Canada but around the world.
I could go on, but I know you (and others) get the point…
There are only so many words available on a small screen to make a point – to an audience vastly larger than – and outside of – the NASA world – but thanks.
Ok, Keith. I agree that those are all great accomplishments. But those were mostly done by the rank & file, leadership had very little to do with them. Scientists proposed, engineers built; leadership chose winners & fought for continued budgets.
But “leadership” abandoned its workers, not just in the last few months. “Complying in advance” has been the name of the game recently, forcing people back to the office ASAP with no exceptions given despite there being approved alternatives (I’ve seen remote workers fired instead of them being allowed to report to another NASA center, for instance.) but even before that, the continued infrastructure issues (the NASA workforce is the most important asset that NASA has, that’s why you should name the rats that took up residence in your group’s kitchen, that way they’re pets not pests. And don’t drink the water from the water fountains, it’s got lead in it. And don’t mind the peeling paint and broken, rusty window frames, that’s just “character”) made it clear that leadership doesn’t believe that employees are an asset at all.
Leadership involves making hard choices. NASA leaders have been trained to never make a hard choice. And the “Peter principle” is in full display, with technical wizards promoted to management who are lost, often “managing” people with techniques that are examples given in textbooks of what NOT to do.
I will NOT celebrate these so-called “leaders.” They’ve made my life difficult in the best of times; these are no longer the best of times.
I hope they allow NASA to do what NASA does best. How about a $50bil budget instead of half that? Heck, that’s a Wednesday afternoon phone call from Zelenskyy.