The more I head about NASA and its politically correct leadership, the more I wonder if the agency should not be eliminated or overhauled.
Muslim outreach …
It was bad enough that NASA director, Charlie Bolden, thought that NASA’s new mission was an outreach to the Muslim world to make them feel better about their ancient contributions to mathematics and science – even though there are no notable contributions in recent history.
“NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his ‘foremost" mission as the head of America's space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.’”
“Though international diplomacy would seem well outside NASA's orbit, Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeera that strengthening those ties was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.”
"’When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering,’ Bolden said in the interview.”
Global cooling/warming, climate change …
Then there is a climate activism of NASA’s preeminent climate modeler, Dr. James Hansen. Hansen who has apparently taken a substantial amount of money from global warming advocacy groups – in addition to his government pay – has promoted his modeling efforts from studying the Venusian atmosphere, to suggestions of global cooling and later to global warming – all with the suggestion that draconian public policies were required to prevent a planetary catastrophe.
NASA Scientists Predicted a New Ice Age in 1971
“The world could be as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age, a leading atmospheric scientist predicts.”
“The scientist was S.I. Rasool, a colleague of Mr. Hansen's at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The article goes on to say that Mr. Rasool came to his chilling conclusions by resorting in part to a new computer program developed by Mr. Hansen that studied clouds above Venus.”
Effects on the global temperature of large increases in carbon dioxide and aerosol densities in the atmosphere of Earth have been computed. It is found that, although the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does increase the surface temperature, the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
For aerosols, however, the net effect of increase in density is to reduce the surface temperature of Earth. Because of the exponential dependence of the backscattering, the rate of temperature decrease is augmented with increasing aerosol content. An increase by only a factor of 4 in global aerosol background concentration may be sufficient to reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5 ° K.
If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease over the whole globe is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age. <Source> |
Then when the “mini ice age” did not look like it might manifest itself, the computer program suggested that the same carbon dioxide and aerosols would produce “global warming.” Curiously requiring the exact same draconian public policies that were, again, needed to prevent a planetary emergency.
And when it appeared that the remote sensing (satellite) data did not agree with the the computer models, global warming became “global climate change” which renewed the push for public policies to “fix” nature. Unfortunately, through the revelations of Climate-Gate, we have been given an insider look into the corrupt world of climate scientists, where bad assumptions, bad data and the subversion of the scientific peer-review process has produced suspect findings. Even though the natural variability of a cyclic climate masks any real signal of man-made climate disruption, scientists like Hansen still pursue alterations of public policy to pursue their self-interests. Even though the rest of us would be subject to an enlarged government, a permanent climate-related bureacracy, increased taxes and energy charges as the loss of substantial personal freedoms to act as freemen in an increasingly socialist world.
Now comes NASA, further polluting the atmosphere to pursue their political agenda …
“Don’t panic if you see large planes flying unusually low over Maryland roadways next week. It’s all part of a major plan by NASA to help study air pollution over major cities.”
“The study will focus on air pollution over many of Maryland’s major roads, from Baltimore’s beltway, to the 95 corridor, even over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.”
“This is no ordinary plane, it’s a specially fitted NASA aircraft designed with equipment to measure air pollution levels in flight. And starting next week the skies over Maryland will become a pollution detection playground for the plane and for NASA scientists.”
Playground is correct – an expensive playground with little or no scientific value; especially when one considers that pollution levels change from day-to-day depending on the prevailing winds and weather conditions.
“’The public I think is very interested in knowing where air pollution problems are the largest, and then they have the ability to make their own decisions about their own activities and times and places they would like to avoid,’ said Dr. James Crawford, NASA atmospheric scientist.”
Other than a relatively few people afflicted with severe respiratory disease, I do not know anyone who bases their daily lives on whether or not smog is present in the atmosphere. Especially here in Southern California where smog is prevalent on quite a few days.
“On the other hand, NASA satellites already monitor air pollution across the globe, but those readings have their own problems.”
“’But you can’t really tell from the satellite data itself whether that pollution is somewhere higher in the atmosphere or down near the surface,’ said Dr. Kenneth Pickering, NASA atmospheric scientist.”
“That’s where these special planes come in.”
“They’ll fly low over busy roadways collecting data and then fly in spiral patterns over the six ground monitoring stations Maryland already has in place, helping NASA scientists to determine how much air pollution is down where we breathe.”
The craziness of low flying large aircraft over population areas …
“’It’s a challenging mission,’ said Rich Rodgers, NASA research pilot. ‘One of the most challenging because we are doing it over the top of Washington, D.C. and Baltimore this summer.’”
“NASA pilots are now warning Marylanders to be on the lookout as their planes fly as low as 1000 feet off the ground in the coming month.”
It is bad enough that we will need to pay the Russians hundreds of millions in hard currency to hitch a ride to space …
NASA's cost to hitch a ride on Russian rocket rises
“NASA signed a new contract Monday, promising to pay the Russian Federal Space Agency $63 million per astronaut in 2014 and 2015.”
“Six seats on the Soyuz rockets have already been reserved for NASA at just under $56 million pet seat under the old contract, which runs through 2014.”
“Until now, NASA has been able to use both the Soyuz and space shuttles to ferry astronauts back and forth from the International Space Station.”
“But the shuttle option disappears after the planned launch of Atlantis in late June, marking the retirement of the entire shuttle fleet.”
Thinking the worst …
Perhaps I am being unduly paranoid, but I can’t help wondering if the anti-nuke, anti-capitalist, anti-military and anti-America activists have managed to use the Obama Administration to curtail vital space research which is necessary to maintain our military capabilities and to continue to protect a free nation.
Why have they decimated our space program, letting the skills and expertise of experienced scientists, technicians and others degrade into uselessness?
Bottom line …
Rather than call for the disbanding of the current NASA bureaucracy and the repurposing of its assets, I would much rather urge everyone to throw President Barack Obama and his fellow travelers out of office and repurpose the mission and provide new leadership.
We need science and space exploration – but not the type of politically correct, multi-cultural pre-ordained faux science that seems to be driving public policies in the Obama Administration.
Here is to electing “honest brokers” to serve “We the People” in 2012 – constitutional conservatives who will restore integrity to science and government before we find ourselves mired in corrupt and dysfunction European-style socialism.
-- steve