Lyon N. Laap
Member
NASA has really been taking a beating these past few years, and now to top it off they get to be just like the EPA; having an unqualified political appointee call all their decades of worth untrustworthy or political.
I wonder if Trump's actions will put the Green Party in a permanent decline now? It really looks like people who voted for Jill Stein, because Hillary wasn't pure enough, just wasted their votes.
"Some scientists" is already a misrepresentation.
Among actively publishing scientists in the field there is virtually no one who disagrees with the consensus that climate change is real, really bad and man made to a significant degree.
I havent seen peer reviewed academic work coming to a different conclusion in probably 10 years.
This is the ridiculous thing: there is no debate among scientists whether or climate change is real or man made. That questipn has been settled a long time ago.
Its only still a public and political debate because big money interests(fossil fuel coorporations) buy politicians and influence the media narrative to create doubt in people who dont understand science.
And its so wildly successful that theyve been able to suppress truth for decades now. Even though all the information is readily available.
Elections have consequences.
Trump is Homer Simpson, and we are all Frank Grimes.
The next Democrat president is going to have a mile long to-do list of things to reverse or untangle.
This is the ridiculous thing: there is no debate among scientists whether or climate change is real or man made. That questipn has been settled a long time ago.
Its only still a public and political debate because big money interests(fossil fuel coorporations) buy politicians and influence the media narrative to create doubt in people who dont understand science.
And its so wildly successful that theyve been able to suppress truth for decades now. Even though all the information is readily available.
The next Democrat president is going to have a mile long to-do list of things to reverse or untangle.
The sad thing is the Republican argument is that the scientists are all being paid by, apparently, Big Solar or whatever, and the government itself is trying to make itself bigger by forcing its way into the energy industry and regulate everything.
It's literally a fictitious reality they perceive.
Yes, Trump will do a bunch of stuff in 7 more years.
There is no climate in space. Checkmate ecologists.
Climate change and Mars
In 2014, Smith attracted local and eventually national news media attention when he stated during a legislative committee hearing:
As you [Energy and Environment Cabinet official] sit there in your chair with your data, we sit up here in ours with our data and our constituents and stuff behind us. I don't want to get into the debate about climate change, but I will simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There are no factories on Mars that I'm aware of.[5][6][7]
Despite Smith's assertion, the average temperature of Mars is colder than that of Earth by 138 degrees Fahrenheit.[8] At the time of the senator's remarks, the Curiosity rover had last reported a high of −17 °C (1 °F), low −80 °C (−112 °F).[9] The temperature in the capital city of Frankfort, Kentucky ranged from 21 °C (70 °F) to 27 °C (81 °F).[10]
Smith later issued a response from his Twitter account that clarified his statement: "climate shift we see on earth comparable to those occurring on other planets in our solar system".[11]
surely all the NASA workers will just walk out if this doofus gets in? they should all just quit.
Wait. I had no idea that the President can choose who runs NASA.
Doesn't NASA stand for North America - as in Canada as well?
I'm sure they're intelligent enough to realise that would be far more destructive than staying.
How? I mean, if some of them are invited by foreing institues or universities to continue their work I don't see how that could be worst than staying and see their work blocked by a climate change denier.
NASA sucks anyway; thank "god" there's SpaceX.
You know, I figured he wasn't going to do shit. I thought he'd just sit there and be called president, but he seems to be really proactive.
He actively goes out of his way to fuck up every facet of this country. He's determined to leave his stamp in US history.
you gotta up your science game
Republican Brandon Smith of Kentucky
Eh, when it's this government....I'd take a government-run space program over a private corporation any day of the week.
Eh, when it's this government....
It's really amazing how far you can go in life just by being a conservative straight white christian male.
Well, let's hope Congress won't let him pass, though I have my doubts. So much for accountability if they do.Even if it's this government, as at least there is some accountability and balance that makes it in some ways beholden to the general populace. There's only so much damage Trump can do; past a critical point his actions would either be unconstitutional or blocked by Congress. This goes especially for NASA, which is still held as a national symbol of pride (though of course, this does not make NASA invincible). NASA still has the experience and work ethic of its membership, even as their supervisors might go corrupt. It will survive to a newer, hopefully better administration.
Corporations as a rule tend to be beholden to profits, even if they pay lip service to ideals. They are accountable to their shareholders or to the limited perspective/desires of their owners. They have much greater ability to cut corners, pick and choose data, ignore non-illegal issues. They are not necessarily easier to corrupt, but they are easier to divert from working for the common individual.
I would not generally trust power over a public good to a private organization. Though I doubt the feasibility of the idea that space is the common birthright of humanity as a whole, I still see it as an ideal, and the idea of a private corporation dictating the future of exploration to the cosmos is in my opinion anathema to that.
The next Democrat president is going to have a mile long to-do list of things to reverse or untangle.