An article in the Nevada newspaper Pahrump Valley Times (“Nye County’s Largest Newspaper Circulation”) covers a recent visit by Elizabeth Kucinich, wife of presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. Mrs. Kucinich had this to say about her husband’s priorities with regard to NASA:
Kuchinich said her husband’s 12 point plan includes a Works Green Administration, similar to the Works Public Administration of the Depression years. She talked about an ambitious plan to retrofit American homes with wind turbines and solar panels. Mass transit systems are also desperately needed, she said.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) should be put to work on these projects, instead of sending people to the moon, Kucinich said.
Kucinich’s energy policy backs this up to a degree:
There has to be a renewable energy portfolio of at least 20% by 2010. And that means introducing wind, solar, hydrogen, geothermal, biomass, and all of the options that must be available and need incentivizing… And I’m willing to do that through NASA, which has been of singular importance to our economy by developing technologies for propulsion, for aerospace, for materials, for medicines, and for communication. We need to fund NASA in, among other areas, a mission to planet Earth.
Before human lunar exploration advocates get too perturbed, note that Kucinich’s odds of winning the Democratic nomination are, well, astronomical…
A strange stance to take coming from a man who has admitted to seeing UFOs, likely from the bridge of the same.
I didn’t know NASA was responsible for our energy research…
And installing solar panels!!
With my recent experience with JPL and solar, I have grave doubts about anything related to NASA and terrestrial solar.