Scientists Named to President's Science Council

Scientists Named to President’s Science Council

Posted by Sam Churchill on December 22nd, 2008

“The truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry,” said President-elect Obama in his weekly video chat.

President-elect Obama announced his appointment of Dr. John Holdren as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

He also announced Dr. Harold Varmus (Rose Interview) and Dr. Eric Lander (Rose Interview) as the other co-chairs of PCAST, which the President-elect said he hopes will be “a vigorous external advisory council that will shape my thinking on the scientific aspects of my policy priorities.”

Addtionally, he named Dr. Jane Lubchenco as his choice to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Obama’s transition team is planning to scrap NASA’s Ares program, the successor to the Space Shuttle, say NASA advisors. The transition team is investigating whether EELVs such as the Delta IV and Atlas V could be used in place of Ares. NASA [contractors] want a permanent moon base by 2020, followed by a manned mission to Mars; which the agency says require the Ares rocket.

The United States Space program is known for legendary waste, cost overruns and criminality:

• The Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) High program, originally estimated to cost about $4 billion, is at least 400% over its original budget and significantly behind schedule.
• The Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite program (AEHF) went from $6.1 billion to $8.7 billion.
• The NPOESS weather satellites went from from $6.8 billion to $13.8 billion
• The Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, initially a $17B heavy lifter program, has ballooned $14 Billion over budget and counting (GAO Report).
• Boeing’s $5 billion Future Imagery Architecture was killed in September 2005, when cost estimates ran as high as $18 billion. That’s bigger than NASA’s annual $17 billion budget.

The first flight by the United Launch Alliance, which combined the redundant and wildly over budget EELV programs by Boeing and Lockheed, was in December 2006. The classified NROL-21 payload instantly transformed into a multi-billion dollar brick.

source: dailywireless.org