Trump Mentions NASA on Reddit
Donald Trump addresses NASA and new media in his first Reddit AMA, Tech Crunch
“Asked by the same Redditor the role NASA should “play in helping to Make America Great Again,” he responded with, “Honestly I think NASA is wonderful! America has always led the world in space exploration,” echoing similar comments by Peter Thiel, whose recent Republican Convention address took issue with expenditures on war rather than space exploration, stating, “Instead of going to Mars, we invaded the Middle East.” While unequivocally pro-NASA and America, Trump’s response was decidedly less detailed than Obama’s answer to a similar question on his own AMA.”
That time Trump said “NASA’ on reddit
Maybe it was less detailed but it sure was accurate.
“NASA is wonderful” doesn’t say anything. (edited)
I think he means less detailed as in no details. Wow, that’s really going out a limb there with that policy position.
Whenever any politician who’s seeking an office mentions NASA, I find myself holding my breath. Space should never become a political football, because it’s important, an excellent technology driver (and consumer), and it’s one of the things we do better than anybody else on the planet.
What would be the difference between, say, the ‘importance’ of NASA, and the ‘importance’ of a healthy nation, or the ‘importance’ of infrastructure investment, as two examples? How is NASA sufficiently different as a public enterprise that it shouldn’t be political?
Answer: it isn’t.
Campaigns are deliberately polarizing. I don’t ever want NASA to get caught in that crossfire.
Agreed, once a policy position is publicly proposed by one party, especially during election season, the other will usually take the opposite position, regardless of whether or not it makes any sense. I don’t want either party to end up publicly committed to opposing space exploration just because it was politically expedient.
Exactly my point. No upside, and plenty of downside.
Why is this bad? It’s true that there’s no fairness in the discussions, but still in the end the issue gets a hearing.
While I take your point I think it’s parochial. Democracy is messy. It’s divisive. It’s polarizing.
It’s also about the only way that the will of the voters is reflected- yes, poorly, and only by those who vote, but still.
I’m touchy on this subject: discussions by the Constitution writers wanted to separate Americans into those educated and smart enough to know what’s good and what’s bad, on the one hand, and everybody else, on the other hand.
Isn’t that what happens when we object to NASA being part of the fray? That’s what I mean by NASA being no different than any other program.
This isn’t the place to discuss Constitutional matters, but I’ll just say that election campaigns bring out — as they should — all ranges of opinion in the public.
They are also vituperative, full of cheap rhetoric, phony posturing, and enough straw men to make an army. That’s an environment I’d prefer that space exploration not get dragged into, lest extreme positions be taken which can’t be easily backed down from when heads are cooler.
No hearing no funding…Polarization results in tall and delay is not democracy nor the intent of the Constitution.
It leaves open to one way media to only tell them what they want to hear. Polarization…no funding for Zika….(depots + HLV oxymoron). Absurd.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3…
Since the statement directly contradicts Trump’s previous stance on NASA, we can presumably conclude that it was just pandering to the reddit userbase. For reference, “what [insert politician] think of/will do for NASA” is asked on every politician AMA, so you can expect what answer reddit wants. The answer has almost no value in determining Trump’s policy, (edited)