Bridenstine Nomination Update

Trump has picked a politician to lead NASA. Is that a good thing?, Science

"Although the Trump administration has proposed stiff cuts to earth science at NASA, the Senate has so far warded them off. [Kelvin Droegemeier, vice president for research at the University of Oklahoma in Norman] does not expect Bridenstine to support slashing the agency's budget, especially given that much of NASA's mission can be framed in terms of collecting data that are as applicable to understanding weather patterns as to understanding climate change. "He won't come in and say we're going to discontinue climate financing and take earth science and trash it," Droegemeier predicts. "He absolutely believes the planet is warming, that [carbon dioxide] is a greenhouse gas, and that it contributes to warming." ...

... "But Bridenstine's political chops could serve the agency well, says Laurie Leshin, the president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, and a former high-ranking NASA official who was set to help lead Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's potential transition. "NASA tends to value people who are geeks like them, in a good way," she says. But NASA often has plenty of technical expertise while lacking political savvy. "Somebody with that background, I think we should give him a chance to be successful."

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