NASA Administrator Michael Griffin was interviewed this morning on NPR's Morning Edition and asked to respond to Gregg Easterbrook's criticism in Wired magazine of the agency's priorities. Easterbrook summarizes NASA's current priorities thusly:
(1) Maintain a pointless space station. (2) Build a pointless Motel 6 on the moon. (3) Increase humanity's store of knowledge by studying the distant universe. (4) Keep money flowing to favored aerospace contractors and congressional districts.
Below the fold, read how Griffin evades these criticisms ...
Easterbrook: Build a pointless Motel 6 on the moon.
In "responding" to Easterbrook's point about the pointlessness of the moon base project initiated by Bush trying desperately to channel JFK while trying not to talk about his Iraq debacle, Griffin responds in a calm voice but disingenuous tone, attempting to reduce Easterbrook's criticism to a matter of word choices. Griffin says that while his critic says "pejoratively" (you think?) that the moon base is a "motel 6," that Griffin himself might just as well characterize it more positively as an "outpost for human kind." Okaaaeee ... so, rather than deal with the issue of the actual scientific usefulness implicit in Easterbrook's quip and broader article, Griffin skirts the issue by turning to a lesson in rhetoric! One wonders if this man is a scientist or a teacher of middle school English -- and if the latter, then we might wonder why is he the administrator of a national space agency?
Easterbrook takes NASA to task for neglecting "the two things that are actually of tangible value to the taxpayers who foot its bills — research relevant to environmental policymaking and asteroid-strike protection."
When asked by NPR to respond directly to the question of Global Warming and Climate Change in general, Griffin did his best Alberto Gonzalez impersonation. He hemmed and hawed, slipping and sliding as no reputable scientist would have done. To his credit he finally sort-of recollected himself and blurted out a set of Bush administration talking points. He acknowledged that Global Warming "exists," but that he is unclear if it is caused by man or if man has the power to change Earth's climate one way or the other. But my favorite reach was his philosophical wondering about which people at which time get to decide what is the most suitable climate for humanity at any point in time, specially right now. Say what?!!! Don't you love when Karl Rove waxes philosophically?