Trump’s next NASA administrator is a Republican congressman with no background in science who denies global warming – “I just think it could be devastating for the space program”

Desdemona Despair

By Brian Resnick
19 April 2018

(Vox) – The US Senate on Thursday confirmed Jim Bridenstine, a Republican Congress member from Oklahoma, to be the next administrator of NASA. The post has remained vacant since January 2017, when Charles Bolden, the space agency’s leader under President Barack Obama, stepped down.

Bridenstine, 42, brings some odd qualifications to the job, and some controversy.

Typically, NASA administrators are chosen from within NASA’s ranks, come up through the military, or have a background in science. Bridenstine has none of that. His qualifications: He’s former Navy pilot who once ran the Air and Space Museum in Tulsa. He also sits on the House Committee that oversees NASA. The third-term representative is now the first member of Congress to hold the administrator job.

Even members of Bridenstine’s own party have voiced concerns over what putting a politician in charge could mean for the future of the agency.

As a politician, Bridenstine has hedged on climate change, an issue NASA scientists study and track in many different ways. During his confirmation hearing in November, Bridenstine agreed that humans are the driving force behind climate change, but he would not agree with the assertion that human activity is the primary cause of it. It’s an odd position to hold as the leader of an agency that provides some of the most comprehensive data on climate change in the world.

NASA has a staff of 17,000 and a budget of nearly $19 billion (not to mention the numerous contractors it works with). Bridenstine’s experience of managing a museum in Tulsa pales in comparison to the enormous complexity of NASA. Plus, there are new questions, raised by reporting from the Daily Beast, about whether Bridenstein used funds from the Tulsa Air and Space Museum to prop up a private venture. He reportedly ran the museum into a financial loss.

Bridenstine will also be controversial because he’s been outspoken against LGBTQ rights. In 2013, he called the Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage a “disappointment.” He has also spoken out on the House floor criticizing the Boy Scouts of America’s decision to allowed LGBTQ members. In a speech, he charged that the left wing in the US wants to “reshape organizations like the Boy Scouts into instruments for social change.” […]

NASA is “the one federal mission which has largely been free of politics,” Rubio said in September, echoing the same concerns as his Florida colleague Sen. Bill Nelson, a former astronaut and the top Democrat on the Commerce Committee. “I just think it could be devastating for the space program,” Rubio said.

Rubio ultimately voted Thursday in favor of Bridenstine’s nomination. The day before, he citied concerns that NASA’s acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot, is set to retire at the end of the month. “While I wish the president would have nominated a space professional to run NASA,” Rubio said in a statement, he wanted to avoid “a gaping leadership void.”  [more]

Trump’s next NASA administrator is a Republican congressman with no background in science