Heading up NASA

Who’s Next?

Reports tonight (Tuesday, January 13) have it that Retired Air Force Major General Scott Gration has been tapped by the incoming Obama administration to head up NASA.  The report first surfaced on Space.com. The first questions about this man are aimed at his lack of space experience as he is largely unknown to the space community.  He is an experienced fighter pilot and does have some experience with  NASA, working as a White House Fellow for former NASA administrator Hans Mark (in 1982). Will it be enough to head an agency that is facing huge changes in the near future?

This appointment is something of a surprise. Last week at the AAS, speculation about various people was quite fascinating, but there wasn’t a clear “winner” in all the gossip I heard. So, this will be an interesting appointment if it passes muster with Congress and the Senate.

NASA has a number of challenges ahead in the next few years, especially with the space shuttle fleet retiring and no immediate replacement for it. The Constellation program is under heavy scrutiny. NASA will face profound changes due to our shift away from shuttle-based access to space. How will the centers survive? What science will receive priority attention?  What about the many aspects of NASA that look to future exploration?  All of these are questions that the next administrator(s) of NASA will face.  Stay tuned on how this new selection will play out.

NOTE: thanks to Daniel Fischer at Cosmos4U for pointing out that NASA Watch had the first tip on this one. Credit where credit’s due.

Chemicals…. ewww??? Not So Much!

Ad Copy Run Amuck

I was watching TV the other night and the following statement about a product caught my ear:  “It’s natural, not chemical!”

Oh really?

I wondered about the ad copywriters and executives and folks who actually came up with that slogan in some focus-grouped meeting. I wondered if any of them actually listened to what they were saying.  Probably not. They were so taken with the idea of getting across an organic, safe, down-to-earth, whole-grain, new-agey vision for their product that it probably didn’t even occur to them that EVERYTHING is chemical. Of course, what they want you to think is that you’re not putting harmful chemicals or elements on your face or in your belly or wherever.  That’s okay to say — nobody wants to think they’re smearing acid on their skin or drinking melamine. That’s completely understandable.  What the manufacturers should be saying are “Eat the right kind of chemicals.” But even I will admit that that would sound weird. It would be true, though.

Even products that are advertised as being derived from plants — which are, themselves, collections of chemicals bound up in molecules and protein chains and sugar chains and so on — are chemical. Then a company goes and chemically alters and twists and turns them so that they can advertise that they come from nature — and are NOT chemical.  Huh?  They’re still chemicals, no matter where they came from.

Folks, I have news for you — if it exists — it’s chemical.  You’re chemical. I’m chemical. The stuff you eat for breakfast is chemical. The goop you smear on your face is chemical (no matter how many times the manufacturer writes the word “natural” on the bottle).  That’s because we’re all bundles of chemicals strung together in proteins and sugars and all that. Everything is chemical. In fact, it’s natural to be chemical.