President Trump wants NASA to get Americans back to the moon in five years. To heighten the urgency, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine — a Trump political appointee — fires William Gerstenmaier, a well-respected 42-year NASA veteran in charge of human space exploration. Will this sudden move light a fire under the bureaucracy, or did we just lose four decades of institutional knowledge jeopardizing our safe return to the lunar surface? Should NASA get our of the business of human space transportation?
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Back to the Moon: Trump Appointee Fires NASA Veteran to Speed Lunar Mission
President Trump wants NASA to get Americans back to the moon in five years. To heighten the urgency, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine — a Trump political appointee — fires William Gerstenmaier, a well-respected 42-year NASA veteran in charge of human space exploration. Will this sudden move light a fire under the bureaucracy, or did we just lose four decades of institutional knowledge jeopardizing our safe return to the lunar surface? Should NASA get our of the business of human space transportation?
18 replies on “Back to the Moon: Trump Appointee Fires NASA Veteran to Speed Lunar Mission”
When adulation is inspiring and not embarrassing: exaltation.
What a great bwn.
Maybe going to the moon is impossible because of regulations. OSHA was created just before the last Apollo flight. It’s kind of fun to speculate what the regulations might be for astronauts under OSHA. It may be enough for a comedy skit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6ckW7uRRNw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVxfJYw59cM
A war where the warheads were people.
A cancer of Tribbles?
It is hard to cry the kickbacks are a problem when you’re not crying you’re being blackmailed.
You keep using that word. I think that actually means what you think it means.
At 18 minutes I was thinking what Bill went on to say at 20 mins… these titans of industry (here the aerospace industry) with their names in giant letters on the outside of the building can say “We are going to!” and the impossible falls aside. Too many companies now are maybe helmed by someone but they don’t OWN it. They don’t want to own the failures so they never own any accomplishments either.
We had Jobs, we still have Musk, but I don’t count Dorsey or Zuckerburg or the other informational types. Bill Gates doesn’t quite make the cut with me as none of what he produced was truly breaking or visionary. It wasn’t something just he did.
I read an interesting opinion piece at the Daily Caller…https://dailycaller.com/2019/07/16/whittington-nasa-moon/
Bill, the guy who owns Boeing is named Dennis A. Muilenburg.
President, Chairman, CEO and majority shareholder. So it is actually owned by one guy. Yes, he has an army of yellow-tied, sycophantic ass-kissers as his executive staff, but it is ultimately his. He can do exactly what you described, but he chooses not to… which is why I am not a fan of his.
Just sayin’.
“Yearning for the sound of American triumph” YES!! Exactly!
Boeing would absolutely do something like that. It’d be 1931 and an XB-17, but yeah, Boeing would do that.
So, the Swamp has become the largest ocean on the planet! Despicable.
Nice line. i may have to borrow it.
The last manned moon landing was 47 years ago. This dude with his 42 years had zippo to do with it.
I love your passion, Bill. I’m a bit to young for the moon landings but your obvious love for the subject peaks my interest. Now I’m off to watch part 2…
It makes me feel good every time Scot thanks us members after every video. I’m only sitting here on my couch, but I still feel like I’m doing something good anyway:)
How powerful was the moment after the boosters landed? So powerful that I’m tearing up again as Bill just describes it.
As I recall manned exploration of space was choked off because of budgetary constraints. The argument was, we can design/build/launch 5 (or whatever it was) probes or satellites for the cost of one manned mission and we’ll get more science out of it.
That was the mistake they made. It’s not all about the science. It’s about the pride of knowing that your nation and your people can do something amazing that no one else on the planet has ever done before. That pride is not definable in a scientific text. It comes from the heart and not the head.
Yeah. I thought it was a mistake at the time. That after they took the romance out of it, people would eventually lose interest in yet another set of pictures from mars or wherever and the whole space program would die out.
Not to sound like the Denier type.
But some of these guys there say stuff like “We don’t have the technology to go to the moon anymore.”
Like, what the eff do you mean? we have more computing power in calculators than apollo 11. We have better materials and industry.
I just. ugh.
The moon stuff frustrates me. I see the point of not going back over and over again cause of cost and ideas such as “why should we?” but..
Yeah, frustration.
We should be on the moon because we should be on the moon. I grew up wondering why we didn’t already have a permanent station, given the predictions and expectations in all the 50s and 60s books I grew up with.
I recently watched 2001 for the first time, and the scene where they’re casually driving out from the base to visit the artifact felt so … natural. Renewed that feeling of “why aren’t we there already?”
I guess the answer is just that it’s taken us a long time to remember as a society that that’s where we want to be.