I didn’t see your correction of Dr. Bova in the article comments. Are you going to let it pass? Or do you feel correcting here is enough?”

Other folks have already pointed out the inaccuracy of Bova’s statement on the Naples News website and neither Bova nor the paper have responded. I don’t see much point in signing up for spam from a local newspaper, just so I can post on their website and make the same correction that others have already made (and be just as ignored).

FWIW…

I didn’t see your correction of Dr. Bova in the article comments. Are you going to let it pass? Or do you feel correcting here is enough?

“Well anonymous.space, if your calling is to set the record ‘straight’ on Obama;s [sic] space policy you have your job cut out for you. You may as well start with yesterday’s op-ed by Dr. Ben Bova that is spreading the ‘falsehood” that Obama wants to take $8 billion from NASA for education.”

That statement is a falsehood. The Obama campaign has never stated that it will cut $8 billion from NASA’s budget. With all due respect to Bova, he needs to substantiate his statement with a source. Bova has a PhD in communications — he should know better.

Moreover, why are we taking the unsourced commentary of a science fiction writer over the first-hand written and spoken statements of a Presidential campaign?

“You don’t chew someone out for messing up if you don’t care what about them or their mission.”

There’s no evidence that McCain’s episode with Goldin had anything to do with how much McCain cared about NASA or that it was a military-style dressing-down. McCain has a long history of opposing wasteful government spending, which ~$300 million in lost Mars spacecraft certainly qualifies as. Moreover, McCain has been known for years in Washington as having a very bad temper. See (add http://www):

.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991031/aponline183823_000.htm

.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/27/famed_mccain_temper_is_tamed/

FWIW…

By contrast McCain clearly cares for NASA or why would he demand that NASA, and its Administrator, preform at a level to match its potential? You don’t chew someone out for messing up if you don’t care what about them or their mission.

If you ever read FM 22-100, or took any military leadership training, you’ll realize that there is a heck of a lot more to leadership than just chewing somebody out. In my military experience, yelling at someone was usually just a way for the “leader” to seem like they were doing something, while not actually correcting the problem.

What would you have preferred? That McCain say he “felt Goldin’s pain” and was so sorry that the mission failed? That the indivudals responsible shouldn’t feel bad, mistakes happen…. Its ok, its just a spacecraft.

Have we become such a nation of wimps that its not acceptable to chew someone out for a bonehead mistake under their watch? Try telling that to your drill Sargent next time you screw up

Also I should note there has been no more bonehead mistakes in Mars Missions since the 1999 Mars screwup. Perhaps Goldin passed McCain’s sentiments down his chain of command. Maybe McCain should have given Goldin the same kind of dressing down when the chute door fell off of Columbia on Glenn’s flight.

It also sounds to me like a Navy flight commander chewing out a subordinate for a bonehead mistake. I’ll accept that characterization. (Except Goldin didn’t make the mistake.)

My point in this was just that such behavior might be like a Navy flight commander, but it isn’t like a President. That’s the kind of behavior that can alienate and sow discord, and that’s not what a President is supposed to do. That’s not what leadership looks like. That’s not how successful programs manage mistakes.

I think we’ve drifted way off topic here, so I too will say adieu.

You’d better get to work making sure, as you’ve said, that someone who won’t clear cut America’s space program is elected in the fall. Um, who was that, again?

Guess you were never in the military.

To me it just sounds like a Navy flight commander chewing out a subordinate for a boneheaded mistake that cost the taxpayers an expensive spacecraft. And screwing up the conversion from Metrics to English is a pretty boenheaded mistake.

9 times out of 10 they go with what the President proposes. As for changing NASA, look at how hard its been for Congress to get a little extra money for NASA for Katrina, etc., against the wishes of the White House…