{"id":29227,"date":"2018-04-19T01:28:42","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T01:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29227"},"modified":"2018-04-19T01:37:28","modified_gmt":"2018-04-19T01:37:28","slug":"nasa-boss-lacks-scientific-credentials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29227","title":{"rendered":"NASA boss lacks scientific credentials?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/GettyImages_169189241.0.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-29228\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/GettyImages_169189241.0-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/GettyImages_169189241.0-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/GettyImages_169189241.0-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/GettyImages_169189241.0.jpg 920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I am going to hand it to Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n<p>The president has a knack of selecting the most unusual individuals for key government posts. He told us while running for the office that he would be an &#8220;unconventional&#8221; president.<\/p>\n<p>Get a load of this: The president&#8217;s selection to lead <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2018\/4\/18\/17253560\/nasa-administrator-jim-bridenstine-confirmation\">NASA<\/a> has no science backgound. Jim Bridenstine is a Republican member of Congress. He once flew jets in the Navy and also ran an air and space museum in Tulsa, Okla.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s it. He&#8217;s a lawmaker and is the first member of Congress to be nominated for this key scientific post.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a bit of a pattern. The next veterans affairs secretary is slated to be Dr. Ronny Jackson, who&#8217;s never run a government agency of any size, let alone one as huge as the Department of Veterans Affairs. Trump nominated renowned brain surgeon Dr. Ben Carson to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development.<\/p>\n<p>Bridenstine is now going to administer the agency with the mission of space exploration. The NASA administrator post generally has gone to people from inside the agency or those with vast military experience.<\/p>\n<p>Bridenstine is a politician who has stated doubts about climate change, which NASA has researched extensively for decades.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Senate will\u00a0 vote later this week on Bridenstine&#8217;s nomination. He&#8217;ll likely get confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>As Vox.com has reported: <em>But it was never clear if Bridenstine could clear the 50 Senate votes needed to nab the job. He faced unanimous opposition from Democrats and from a few within his own party. Notably, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was worried about giving the job to a politician.<\/em><\/p>\n<p id=\"rRWfWb\"><em>NASA is \u201cthe one federal mission which has largely been free of politics,\u201d 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. \u201cI just<\/em> <em>think it could be devastating for the space program,\u201d Rubio said.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>My hope is that he doesn&#8217;t run into the ground an agency that is supposed to reach for the stars &#8230; and beyond.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am going to hand it to Donald J. Trump. The president has a knack of selecting the most unusual individuals for key government posts. He told us while running for the office that he would be an &#8220;unconventional&#8221; president. Get a load of this: The president&#8217;s selection to lead NASA has no science backgound. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29227\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">NASA boss lacks scientific credentials?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1424,2207,3182,5077],"class_list":["post-29227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-hud","tag-nasa","tag-va"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29227"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29230,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29227\/revisions\/29230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}