Bridenstine Edges toward Confirmation as NASA Head
Recently I circulated an email warning of the potential for non-scientist, non-engineer Congressman Jim Bridenstine to be confirmed as NASA chief administrator. This is yet another Trumpian poke in the eye of the science community, and more seriously it would put a tool of the mining industry in a position to prioritize NASA’s missions.
Now, the Washington Post (September 12) reports that Bridenstine’s route to confirmation is being eagerly groomed by industry groups and key members of Congress. See: Bridenstine Advancing, Science in Retreat I recommend you let your Senators know it matters to you that this man not only is lacking in scientific and engineering credentials, but also has an agenda to shift NASA’s priorities away from space exploration and toward space exploitation. To wit:
What Bridenstine Wants: New Kinds of Craters on the Moon
The Post reports Bridenstine as saying, “From the discovery of water ice until this day, the American objective should have been a permanent outpost of rovers and machines. . . .” To what end, pray tell, Congressman? We can get some clues from a report under the aegis of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on “The Lunar Gold Rush: How Moon Mining Could Work.” See: JPL on Mining the Moon
Notice that this report, brimming with enthusiasm over the prospect of scraping “rare earth metals” from our most charismatic satellite, was produced by 911 Metallurgist, a consulting firm for the mining and metallurgical industry, and contains a plug for SpaceX. Not that there’s anything wrong with 911 Metallurgist per se, but how did they get a page on the JPL website, and why see fit to slip the SpaceX brand into it? Might some members of Congress have some influence over that?
Certainly the content was not written by a JPL scientist, who would wince to see water referred to as an “element.” (That’s one of the three “crucial elements” described in the segment with the little stylized rocket on the left. Sure, “elements” was used here in a general sense, but that kind of sense is not something a chemist would be comfortable with, when the other “elements” in the section are actual elements such as the Helium 3 isotope and rare earth metals.)
It is also misleading to use sheer mass (“What Effect Would It Have on the Moon?”) as a measure of impact from resource extraction. Aluminum is a smallish component of the Earth’s mass, but if you hauled all of it off to another planet, civilization as we know it would quickly grind to a halt. The big Moon numbers sound awesome but are essentially meaningless. What is meaningful is the actual abundance of resources that may turn out to be just as scarce on the Moon as on Earth, that might lead to conflicts between governmental and/or commercial entities.
What I’m getting at here is that the content was evidently written not by scientists but by a hack who interviewed some scientists who were probably disgusted with the result—it being something of a disgrace to JPL, and a harbinger of what the JPL website will look like when Bridenstine’s propagandists get hold of it.
Notice also that this report concludes (under “What Will Happen”) with a clear call to—as Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest might have put it—get to the moon firstest with the mostest. That’s because of ambiguities in space law that leave open the possibility that, while nations may not lay claim to ownership of real estate on the moon (due to a pesky United Nations Outer Space Treaty), private enterprises might. Who’s to stop them, once they get a firm foothold, with Bridenstine’s vision realized, of a permanent outpost equipped not just with rovers and drills, but with armaments and a security firm to fend off competitors? It’s the Wild West at a 240,000-mile remove, in the shape of a large satellite with an environment still harsher than the arid plains of the Oklahoma Panhandle, although fortunately with no native denizens to murder, steal from, displace, and marginalize, as there were in 19th Century America.
(If there’s any doubt that the U.S. Metallurgical industry is itching for a fight, the line “until we get there and fight it out, we’ll just have to wait and see” should remove it.)
Therefore, it’s not a great leap to guess what Mr. Bridenstine’s rovers are going to be searching for as they scurry about the lunar landscape—riches measured in dollars and cents, with maybe some scientific advances as a byproduct, but don’t count on it. If the competition gets fierce enough, they might be armored and equipped with guns (joke? I’m not so sure).
Even staunch Republican and reliable industry ally Marco Rubio was troubled by the Bridenstine nomination, on account of the political dimension. Rubio is quoted in the Post article.
Bridenstine’s record illustrates his proclivities toward acquisitiveness, be it campaign contributions from such esteemed institutions as Citizens United, multi-thousand-dollar rugs, or rare metals beckoning from the Moon
If you haven’t already checked out the Wikipedia entry on Mr. Bridenstine, look it up at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bridenstine
Note especially the sections on Campaign Financing and Ethics Investigation. And BTW the trip to Azerbaijan that got him into ethical hot water was nominally to study the feasibility of installing a pipeline in the Caspian Sea.* Yes! The selfsame inland sea that also borders Azerbaijan’s next-door neighbor, Russia! Suggesting either that:
(1) Bridenstine is in cahoots with Russian business connections such as are entangled with Donald Trump’s family and chums, or . . .
(2) Bridenstine sees no problem with stepping on the toes of an adversary whose main source of revenue is fossil fuels, right in its back yard.
Observe Caspian Sea: http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/Caspian-Sea-map.htm
Final note: in researching Bridenstine, I came across several debunkings of 60 Minutes 2015 alarmist report on a crisis in rare earth metals, with China supposedly having a stranglehold on the market. Here’s the most-entertainingly written of the bunch, and another dent in the credibility of 60 Minutes, which I am increasingly coming to view as a questionable news source, particularly in the person of Lesley Stahl on any issue with technical content: Tim Worstall on rare earths non-crisis
* One source says it was a gas pipeline, another says it was an oil pipeline—a distinction without a difference as far as Russia’s revenue stream goes.