Backing off

Remember the minor kerfuffle that Congressman John Culberson set off last week when he said that “NASA wastes a vast amount of money”? Last night Culberson apologized for those comments, the Houston Chronicle reported. Culberson, speaking in the latest in his series of online video town hall meetings, said “I let my temper get a little bit away with me and I said something I shouldn’t have” when he made that statement. “Every agency wastes money but NASA itself is not a waste,” he said. “These fine people, the scientists and engineers there at NASA, I certainly owe these folks an apology because that is not what I meant to say.”

Lost in the discussion, though, was a proposal by Culberson to restructure NASA into a more NSF-like organization, “driven by the scientists and the engineers” and free of politics “as much as possible”. The Chronicle article simply noted that Culberson did not mention his proposal during the online town hall meeting.