George CHIMPY Bush trying to control NASA for his own political agenda? And this should be a suprise to anyone? DUBYA is the worst president EVER. This moron has got to go.
Also, a vote for Nader is a vote for the CHIMP. Don't waste your vote in November.
Randy
From: Robert Verish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Meteorite-list Meteoritecentral <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
CC: Ron Baalke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [meteorite-list] OT:The White House Coup Against NASA
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 21:07:18 -0800 (PST)
-- Forward Message --
The White House Coup Against NASA
Submitted to Portside
February 20, 2004
THE WHITE HOUSE COUP AGAINST NASA
By Morton H. Frank
A rapid series of events makes evident that the Bush
administration has moved to take direct control of
NASA
in order to serve the administration's own immediate
political goals and perhaps also to support military
objectives in space. Should the effort succeed, grave
damage will be done to the scientific work now going
on
under NASA's auspices. While NASA overall is closely
linked to the military, much significant science is
currently supported under its budget. It is this
civilian component of NASA that has come under attack.
On January 14th at NASA headquarters, George Bush
announced a new vision for space exploration. "We will
build new ships to carry man forward into the
universe,
to gain a new foothold on the moon." "[With] the
experience and knowledge gained on the moon, "we will
take the next steps of space exploration: human
missions
to Mars and to worlds beyond." The refocusing of NASA
for these new tasks was delegated by Bush to the
agency's administrator, Sean O'Keefe, a former White
House budget official. These goals, he indicated, were
to be accomplished on the cheap: All of NASA's
activities are to be subordinated to this new space
program, with $11 billion to be drawn from the
agency's
existing five-year budget and Congress expected to
provide an additional billion in new money. (1, 2)
The next day, O'Keefe announced a reorganization of
NASA
around the new program. (3) Two days later he shocked
the managers of the Hubble space telescope, telling
them
that there would be no further shuttle visits to
maintain it. A shuttle flight planned to install new
scientific instruments and replace gyroscopes and
batteries in 2005 was now canceled. (4) Without it,
the
great telescope, whose findings have revolutionized
our
understanding of the universe and whose sublime
photographs of the heavens have inspired millions, is
expected to deteriorate and have its life cut short.
It
has often been said that the Hubble is the most
significant telescope since Galileo's own instrument
in
1609.
As O'Keefe told it, the cancellation was due to safety
considerations that had come to light after the
shuttle
disaster the year before, and was unrelated to NASA's
reorganization. As shocking as the cancellation itself
was the absence of scientific participation in the
decision.
The evidence indicates that the cancellation of
service
to the Hubble was part and parcel of Bush's vision of
human space exploration. The story of Bush's big plan
has been well told by Andrew Lawler in the pages of
Science magazine, the weekly published by the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. Until
December of last year, the visionary plan was "a
tightly
held set of options" prepared by "a small team of
White
House and federal agency officials." "That team, led
by
the National Security Council," included "O'Keefe as
well as Pentagon and Commerce and State department
officials" (5) and presidential science advisor John
Marburger (6, 7). Its product was "vetted by Vice
President Dick Cheney, Presidential Chief of Staff
Andrew Card, and the president's top political
adviser,
Karl Rove." Here too, there was little or no
scientific
input into the decision to send people to explore
space.
Also, in following these preparations Lawler
recognized
that "any new mission will have to fit into an agency
budget [that is] already strained" (5) At a
hearing
on February 12th, several members of the House Science
Committee also expressed skepticism about NASA's
ability
to support the new project without starving ongoing
programs. (8, 9)
In his January 14th presentation, Bush named Edward
"Pete" Aldridge to chair a commission to think up,
within four months, what should actually be done to
carry out his vision. Aldridge, a onetime astronaut
and
former Secretary of the Air Force, currently serves on
the Board of Directors of the Lockheed Martin Corp.
(10)
On February 11th, Pete Aldridge held a public hearing
of
his hastily assembled commission to try to get some
ideas. Among those attending was Norman Augustine,
retired chairman of Lockheed Martin and leader of a
panel that had once examined the space program for the
elder President Bush. Augustine cited
