White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden must have misspoken when he told Al Jazeera last month that one of his top priorities is to reach out to Muslim countries.
“That was not his task and that’s not the task of NASA,” Gibbs said.
Bolden, though, said last month in the interview that it was President Obama who gave him that task. He made a similar claim in February.
The White House also backed up Bolden last week when his remarks first stirred controversy. A White House spokesman last Tuesday said Obama wants NASA to engage with the world’s best scientists and that to meet that challenge, NASA must “partner with countries around the world like Russia and Japan, as well as collaboration with Israel and with many Muslim-majority countries.”
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White House backtracks: NASA’s job is not to reach out to Muslims
Astronauts continue to attack Obama’s NASA plan
The New York Times, “Astronauts Attack Obama’s NASA Plan”
by Kenneth Chang
Neil A. Armstrong, the most famous man in the history of NASA and the first man to walk on the moon, on Wednesday sharply criticized President Obama’s plan to cancel the space agency’s program to send astronauts back to the moon.
“If the leadership we have acquired through our investment is allowed simply to fade away, other nations will surely step in where we have faltered,” Mr. Armstrong said in testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. “I do not believe that would be in our best interests.”
Mr. Armstrong; Eugene A. Cernan, the commander of Apollo 17 and the last man to walk on the moon; and James A. Lovell Jr., the commander of Apollo 13, wrote a letter last month that called the proposed changes to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration “devastating.”
The New York Times article continues here.
Armstrong: Obama hurting space effort
Politico Click, “Armstrong: Obama hurting space effort”
by Patrick Gavin
“The United States entered into the challenge of space exploration under President Eisenhower’s first term, however, it was the Soviet Union who excelled in those early years,” the letter begins.”Under the bold vision of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, and with the overwhelming approval of the American people, we rapidly closed the gap in the final third of the 20th century, and became the world leader in space exploration. …
“When President Obama recently released his budget for NASA, he proposed a slight increase in total funding, substantial research and technology development, an extension of the International Space Station operation until 2020, long range planning for a new but undefined heavy lift rocket and significant funding for the development of commercial access to low earth orbit.
“Although some of these proposals have merit, the accompanying decision to cancel the Constellation program, its Ares 1 and Ares V rockets, and the Orion spacecraft, is devastating.
Politico Click article continues here.
Feds enlist NASA to probe Toyota…
Business First, “Feds enlist NASA in Toyota probe”
U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Tuesday that NASA engineers have joined investigators from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to examine the “sudden acceleration” problems reported in some Toyota models.
The National Academy of Sciences will conduct a separate investigation of acceleration and electronic vehicle controls across the entire automotive industry, the department said in a news release.
“We are determined to get to the bottom of unintended acceleration,” LaHood said in a news release. “For the safety of the American driving public, we must do everything possible to understand what is happening.”
Business First article continues here.
NASA and USA Today knew about bogus climate data in 2007
Pajamas Media, “Climategate Stunner: NASA Heads Knew NASA Data Was Poor, Then Used Data from CRU”
by Charlie Martin
Email messages obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute via a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that the climate dataset of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) was considered — by the top climate scientists within NASA itself — to be inferior to the data maintained by the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU).
The NASA scientists also felt that NASA GISS data was inferior to the National Climate Data Center Global Historical Climate Network (NCDC GHCN) database.
These emails, obtained by Christopher Horner, also show that the NASA GISS dataset was not independent of CRU data.
Further, all of this information regarding the accuracy and independence of NASA GISS data was directly communicated to a reporter from USA Today in August 2007.
Pajamas Media article continues here.
Obama’s plans for NASA changes met with harsh criticism
The Washington Post, “Obama’s plans for NASA changes met with harsh criticism”
by Joel Achenbach
Harrison Schmitt’s credentials as a space policy analyst include several days of walking on the moon. The Apollo 17 astronaut, who is also a former U.S. senator, is aghast at what President Obama is doing to the space program.
“It’s bad for the country,” Schmitt said. “This administration really does not believe in American exceptionalism.”
Schmitt’s harsh words are part of a furious blowback to the administration’s new strategy for NASA. The administration has decided to kill NASA’s Constellation program, crafted during the Bush administration with an ambitious goal of putting astronauts back on the moon by 2020. Obama’s 2011 budget request would nix Constellation’s rocket and crew capsule, funnel billions of dollars to new spaceflight technologies, and outsource to commercial firms the task of ferrying astronauts to low-Earth orbit.
The Washington Post article continues here.
Politicians fight to keep America’s moon mission alive
Guardian, “Politicians fight to keep America’s moon mission alive”
by Richard Luscombe
The announcement of an end to immediate ambitions for an American to again reach the moon, on the seventh anniversary of the Columbia space shuttle disaster, sets the stage for a furious battle in Congress over US manned space exploration.
Politicians from Florida, Texas and Alabama, three states that have lost thousands of jobs in the space industry from this year’s planned retirement of the ageing shuttle fleet, promised a fight to keep the moon programme, Constellation, alive.
“They are replacing lost shuttle jobs too slowly, risking US leadership in space to China and Russia, and relying too heavily on unproven companies,” said Bill Nelson, a Democratic Senator for Florida and former astronaut who flew one mission in 1986.
Guardian article continues here.
Obama aims to ax moon mission
Orlando Sentinel, “Obama aims to ax moon mission”
by Robert Block and Mark K. Matthews
NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.
When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.
There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.
Orlando Sentinel article continues here.