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President Trump's controversial nominee for NASA Administrator, passed along party lines last Thursday. It is the first time in NASA's history that such dispute arose and lasted over two years with an Acting Administrator at the helm. Underlining in this point the fact that NASA has been without a permanent leader for more than a year.
Unfortunately this really is nothing new. Every four to eight years a new President is elected, appoints a NASA Administrator that he controls and cancels the program under development from the previous Administration. Consequently, thousands of NASA scientists & engineers spend decades working, with tens of billions of tax dollars, ultimately to have all of it canceled. This cannot continue.
NASA needs to be placed in the hands of a Decadal Survey, a panel of scientist & engineers with a consensus of academia. You don't want the President doing brain surgery on someone, so why do they think they are qualified to lead the Space Program?
I have had the privilege of working for NASA since I was eighteen, serving on eight programs at three NASA Centers. The Space Shuttle Crew Compartment Trainer Resolution!, was the only "other" Shuttle to be amongst the fleet and was my greatest achievement. It too, suffered the same fate as most NASA programs.
Today I stand side-by-side with my NASA brothers & sisters in grief over the way NASA has been handled for the past fifty years.