You Mean Ted Cruz Is Giving NASA A Headache? There's A New One.

There is no doubt that when Texas Senator Ted Cruz was made the head of the Senate committee on Science, there were those (admittedly, myself included) who were disgusted. After all, Ted Cruz has been a long time foe of science and, more specifically, NASA.

Very particularly, Cruz has issues with NASA's work with global warming, saying that there is not enough evidence to support climate change as a legitimate issue. He then told CNN that he was skeptical of NASA's "so-called scientific theory".

However, there is a heavy amount of evidence showing climate change is a legitimate issue (including rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, oceanic acidity, a 6.7 inch increase in sea levels in the past century, rising temperatures, shrinking ice sheets, a rise in oceanic temperatures, and disappearing glacial caps). Now, of course there are counter arguments to these proposed issues (such as a 50% rise in glacial ice since 2012 and that global warming "stopped" in 1988) however these have rebuttals as well, and so forth and so on. Although this is an important social and scientific topic, it is not my primary topic today. However, if you would like to read more on the issue, I would recommend reading from OSS, who is devoted to speaking pure scientific evidence without a pull from either political perspective.

Regardless, Cruz regularly denies the science behind climate change (while having little education on the matter) by simply pointing at snow.

While Cruz may not be able to directly affect NASA's budget, he can certainly try to apply a significant amount of pressure to the program and push others to change it.

He showed his discontent with the program last week when he held a meeting with NASA's administrator, Charles Bolden. He opened the meeting by asking Bolden what NASA's primary focus was, an obvious shot at NASA's current agenda. Throughout the meeting he regularly spat on the importance of Earth science and stated that NASA had lost its exploration focus.

Asking NASA to continue its primary focus of space exploration and study (which has, no doubt, not been lost i.e. Space Launch System rocket and SpaceX [along with other privatized space exploration programs]) with less than half its 2011 budget and still produce the same results is utter ridiculousness!

Senator John Culberson is a friend of NASA, especially after fighting for their budget on multiple occasions, however even he showed a misplaced fantasy during this meeting about the current direction of the program.

Bolden: "Had we gotten the funding that was requested when I first became the NASA administrator, we would have been all joyously going down to the Kennedy Space Center later this year to watch the first launch of some commercial spacecraft with our crew members on it. That day passed. And I came to this committee and I said over and over, if we don’t fund commercial crew…"

Culberson: "Had NASA not canceled the Constellation program we’d be ready to fly within 12 months."

Bolden: "Mr. Chairman that is not correct … whoever told you that, that is not correct."

This is overwhelmingly aggravating to hear from Culberson, considering the Constellation program was cancelled by President Obama due to it being far behind schedule and far over NASA's budget.

NASA's primary concern will always be space. However, the disgusting bureaucracy that is gridlock, partisan politics is disturbing the process of scientific endeavour. As long as non-scientific people repetitively disturb the march of science, there will be issue for programs such as NASA.

That's all I have to say, but I'll be back tomorrow.

"Nobody remembers who tried to obstruct Galileo, they just remember Galileo." -John Fugelsang