Just over 300 days left in this administration. It can’t come soon enough. I hope they take Griffin with him. He sounds like he could use a break. And some counseling.

There is an injunction in place, halting the new background checks.

More at http://hspd12jpl.org

His change in attitude is proof that attempting to convince the people of the importance of your endeavor is the wrong thing to do. It is a free country, people can believe whatever they want to believe, and when your space program is publicly funded, its the people’s money, and therefore you are duty bound to listen and abide by the people’s criticisms. There should be no great crusade for space support or demands that “if people would just realize how important space is,” etc… Such demands are are not within the principles of freedom that this country was founded on.

The most powerful vote is with your wallet. So you love space? Quit tring to convince everyone that you’re right and do something that will make a tangible difference. Invest in private space.

I agree with Griffin that science education isn’t a major NASA responsibility. But since they have the flashy projects that draw in students, education and pointing students toward other resources has to be part of their mission. Maybe the science education community can work on having *obvious* good resources.

I emphasize obvious. There’s a lot of wonderful information out there. I learn so much from Astronomy Cast and Scientific Americans’ 60-Second Science. There are loads of great web sites. But where does a 9-year-old fascinated with the stars go to explore and learn today as well as see a path to follow to become an astrophysicist? It has to involve math. And she needs to hear that very, very early.

You may want to study the composition of long-period comets, but you start off broadly and don’t super-specialize until you’re in grad school. And I think Griffin’s mention on not specializing is a reminder that you don’t forget the basics of planetary geology while you’re chasing comets. It’s a good idea to keep an eye on related fields. That’s good advice for anyone.

Sorry this got so long. Thank you for the reporting and commentary.

Despise not the time of small beginnings.

The emphasis on despecialization almost sounds a little foreboding. Almost every golf tournament today is a 4-person scramble, so you better have someone who is great with driving, great with irons, great from sand, and great with putting. Being the best requires all 4, especially if your putting sucks.

Do we have any idea how this suit is going?

This is bull, honestly. I’ve been a civil servant. I never went through any checks like what has been described.

I’m thrilled to see, finally, more and more people wake up to the Orwellian aspects of the current administration and the entities they’ve created. Perhaps when enough of us wake up and move the current administration and party out of office we can begin dismantling things like “Homeland Security.”

But, I digress…heavily. It’s been that sort of a day.

And up to that point in the posting, so was I. I was actually starting to check back and thinking, “Is this the same guy who was at AAS?”

How did your assessment go toward the end of the talk? Past that point in the posting I would well believe this was the same person that made you mad last month.