Poor Charles Bolden. If he does actually become NASA administrator he’ll have a flat budget, the job of retiring the world’s only reusable spaceplane (and a few thousand workers), preside over a divisive review of US human spaceflight plans (more on that in another blog post), sign an expensive Russian deal for US International Space Station crew transport, extend ISS use and end America’s hopes of returning to the Moon by 2020, dash COTS-D dreams, suffer vocal space science lobbying, Congressional pressure about aeronautics under funding and at some point take incoming from certain high profile bloggers; it is a good thing he’s a former US Marine
And that is why Hyperbola thought it so appropriate to copy The Onion’s famous headline from November 2004 when a certain person was elected to be the “leader of the free world”
This is all assuming the various media reports and Senator Nelson’s video announcement are actually correct because the White House website (as of 1010h BST Tuesday 26 May) still has nothing on it as far as I can tell
I was tempted to write Black man given worst job in world, but Bolden was not appointed to the job of England soccer team manager. What on Earth has the English national football team got to do with NASA you may ask?
It is simple. Both jobs come with expectations that are so high from the public and commentators (meaning England must win the World Cup – you know America, that competition that involves the rest of the world and soccer) that no human being could ever match up to them
So, you heard it hear first, it is just a matter of time before Bolden becomes just as “controversial” as his predecessor despite the cacophony of support he is getting now
Go here for spacepolitics.com’s archives for April 2005 when Michael Griffin was everyone’s blue eyed NASA nominee (“Love fest” is Jeff Foust’s description) before he became one of the less popular administrators since, eh, whenever
