{"id":18825,"date":"2017-09-02T23:18:07","date_gmt":"2017-09-02T15:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/trumps-choice-for-nasa-chief-rep-jim-bridenstine-is-likely-to-boost-moonshots\/"},"modified":"2017-09-02T23:18:07","modified_gmt":"2017-09-02T15:18:07","slug":"trumps-choice-for-nasa-chief-rep-jim-bridenstine-is-likely-to-boost-moonshots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/trumps-choice-for-nasa-chief-rep-jim-bridenstine-is-likely-to-boost-moonshots\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s choice for NASA chief, Rep. Jim Bridenstine, is likely to boost moonshots"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_359661\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-359661\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-359661\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/170902-bridenstine3-630x383.jpg\" alt=\"Jim Bridenstine\" width=\"630\" height=\"383\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-359661\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., addresses the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in 2016. (Tom Kimmell Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The White House has confirmed long-running rumors that President Donald Trump\u2019s pick for NASA administrator is U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., an advocate for commercial spaceflight and missions to the moon.<\/p>\n<p>Bridenstine would be the first member of Congress to go on to NASA\u2019s top post, and the fact that a politician could be in charge of the space agency already has sparked controversy.<\/p>\n<p>If Bridenstine follows through on his past record, that\u2019s good news for ventures ranging from Moon Express to Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin. But the news might not be so good for the advocates of dramatic policy initiatives to respond to global climate change.<\/p>\n<p>Word had been circulating for months that Bridenstine was Trump\u2019s favorite for the top NASA job. A couple of weeks ago, NASA Watch reported that the selection would be announced in September.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, the White House finally confirmed that Trump would nominate Bridenstine,&nbsp;a 42-year-old Navy veteran who flew E-2C Hawkeye AWACS planes during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>After Bridenstine left full-time military service, he took on an assortment of aviation-related roles, serving as executive director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum as well as the leader of a team in the short-lived Rocket Racing League.<\/p>\n<p>He was elected to the House seat that includes Tulsa in 2012. One of his claims to fame in Congress is his introduction of the American Space Renaissance Act, a package of legislation that seeks to raise the profile of space policy and leverage commercial approaches to spaceflight for national security goals.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"NASA: Past, Present, and Future\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/B6pi3YQVcgU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Bridenstine championed lunar exploration and settlement last December in a blog post titled \u201cWhy the Moon Matters.\u201d&nbsp;He argued that materials from the moon, particularly water ice, could be converted into rocket fuel and other resources to extend America\u2019s influence into deep space:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cFrom the discovery of water ice on the moon until this day, the American objective should have been a permanent outpost of rovers and machines, with occasional manned missions for science and maintenance, in order to utilize the materials and energy of the moon to drive down the costs and increase the capabilities of American operations in cislunar and interplanetary space.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>That meshes with the views expressed by the privately funded teams pursuing the Google Lunar XPRIZE, including Moon Express. \u201cOur goal is to&nbsp;expand Earth\u2019s social and economic sphere to the moon, our largely unexplored eighth continent,\u201d Moon Express CEO Bob Richards said in January.<\/p>\n<p>It also meshes with Bezos\u2019 view. Blue Origin already has proposed a mission architecture known as Blue Moon, which could deliver payloads to the lunar surface for NASA starting in the early 2020s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s time to go to the moon, but this time to stay,\u201d Bezos said in May.<\/p>\n<p>The House Space Subcommittee, of which Bridenstine is a member, is due to conduct a hearing on private-sector moon missions next Thursday. Richards and Blue Origin\u2019s Brett Alexander are among the scheduled witnesses.<\/p>\n<p>On the climate front, Bridenstine has favored putting more resources into weather forecasting. But global climate change? Not so much. In 2014 he falsely claimed that global mean temperatures had not risen over the past decade, and called on President Barack Obama to apologize for spending so much on climate research.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the evidence documenting climate shifts has come from NASA.<\/p>\n<p>Bridenstine\u2019s selection already has drawn criticism from some in the Senate, which will vote on whether to confirm Trump\u2019s nomination.<\/p>\n<p>Politico quoted Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as saying that he and his Democratic colleague from Florida, Sen. Bill Nelson, had reservations about the choice. Rubio worried that Bridenstine\u2019s \u201cpolitical baggage\u201d could weigh him down in what\u2019s traditionally been a nonpartisan post.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the one federal mission which has largely been free of politics, and it\u2019s at a critical juncture in its history,\u201d Rubio told Politico. \u201cI would hate to see an administrator held up \u2013 on partisanship, political arguments, past votes, or statements made in the past \u2013 because the agency can\u2019t afford it and it can\u2019t afford the controversy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a written statement sent to Politico, Nelson said \u201cthe head of NASA ought to be a space professional, not a politician.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Neither Rubio nor Nelson said they would vote against Bridenstine, however.<\/p>\n<p>Since Trump took office, NASA has been headed by civil servant Robert Lightfoot in a caretaker role. In a statement, Lightfoot said he was pleased to see Bridenstine nominated and vowed to ensure a smooth transition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI look forward to working with a new leadership team, and the administration, on NASA\u2019s ongoing mission of exploration and discovery,\u201d Lightfoot said. \u201cOur history is amazing, and our future is even brighter, as we continue to build on this nation\u2019s incredible global leadership in human exploration, science, aeronautics and technology.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., addresses the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in 2016. (Tom Kimmell Photo) The White House has confirmed long-running rumors that President Donald Trump\u2019s pick for NASA administrator is U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., an advocate for commercial spaceflight and missions to the moon. Bridenstine would be the first member of Congress [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[466,190,4467],"class_list":["post-18825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-jim-bridenstine","tag-nasa","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18825"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}