President Obama Selects a Black Man to Run NASA

President Obama select major General Charles Bolden to run NASA. This man's resume is impressive. Bolden is the first black man to head the agency in it's history. He was commander on four shuttle flight missions and is a former military man.

Now President Obama how about the first eminently qualified hispanic or black woman on the Supreme Court.

 

It's About Damn Time!!!

May 23, 2009 10:14 AM PDT
Obama Picks Former Astronaut To Lead NASA

by William Harwood
Nineteen years after helping launch the Hubble Space Telescope, Charles F. Bolden Jr. has been nominated by President Obama to serve as NASA's next administrator.
Bolden, a former combat pilot and Marine Corps major general, is also a veteran space shuttle commander.
Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator for policy and plans and a space policy adviser to the Obama campaign, will serve as Bolden's deputy.
"These talented individuals will help put NASA on course to boldly push the boundaries of science, aeronautics, and exploration in the 21st century and ensure the long-term vibrancy of America's space program," Obama said in a statement Saturday.
Charles F. Bolden Jr. in a NASA space shuttle crew photo.
(Credit: NASA)
Bolden, the third African-American to fly in space, had met with Obama at the White House on Tuesday, the day the Hubble Space Telescope was relaunched from the shuttle Atlantis. The five-spacewalk overhaul marked NASA's fifth and final visit to the storied telescope since Bolden helped launch it in 1990.
An announcement naming Bolden, 62, as Obama's candidate to head the civilian space agency came four months after the departure of former administrator Mike Griffin, a rocket scientist appointed by the Bush administration to oversee the shuttle's 2010 retirement and a planned return to the moon.
"The president could not have made a better choice," Griffin told CBS News. "Charlie Bolden is an accomplished pilot, a veteran astronaut, and an old friend. He has spent his life in the service of his country, and our nation is the better for it. NASA will be in good hands."
The Obama administration struggled to find an acceptable replacement after deciding not to ask Griffin to stay on, reportedly considering several candidates before settling on Bolden.
Insiders pleased
Widely respected within NASA for his engineering judgment, leadership skills, and no-nonsense approach to thorny technical issues, Bolden's appointment was broadly welcomed by space agency insiders.
"I can't imagine anybody that would be a better choice than Charlie," said Jay Honeycutt, former director of the Kennedy Space Center. "He knows the business of flying in space, as well as knows how to navigate his way around Washington. He has a good relationship with Congress, as well as the guys in the administration."
John Logsdon, space policy analyst at George Washington University and a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, called Bolden "an extremely good choice." "First of all, he's not that much of an outsider to Washington. He's been on the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel and the National Academy of Engineering space board, so he's really up to speed with what's going on with the program," Logsdon said.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., flew with Bolden during a 1986 shuttle flight and has been lobbying Obama for weeks to put Bolden in charge of NASA at a particularly critical time in the agency's history.
"In all the problems that are facing the president, it's hard to get attention on this one little agency," he told CBS News. "He certainly hears it from me, but he'll hear it then from his own administration (after Bolden is confirmed). And I believe then we've got a chance of getting us really back into the glory days."
In a statement released Saturday, Nelson said that Bolden will face "budgetary constraints, technical issues, the remaining shuttle launches and the pending retirement of the shuttle program. And, restoring the wonder that space exploration can provide, and to make sure the president's mission is carried out."
"Charlie is the kind of dynamic leader I believe the president was looking for and I know he'll meet these challenges head on," Nelson said.
Challenges ahead
NASA is struggling to complete the International Space Station during the final eight shuttle missions between now and the end of 2010. At the same time, the agency is trying to develop a new rocket system for the Bush administration's Constellation program, which is aimed at resuming moon flights in 2020.
The Constellation architecture, calling for development of a new heavy lift unmanned Ares 5 booster, a lunar lander, and a smaller Ares 1 rocket to boost Orion crew capsules into orbit, has come under fire from critics who claim alternative rocket systems can be developed faster at lower cost.
Complicating the political picture, the Ares 1/Orion system intended to replace the space shuttle will not be available until 2015, forcing NASA to buy seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from the space station. Griffin repeatedly warned Congress about this so-called "gap," but the money needed to accelerate development of Ares 1/Orion never materialized.
The Obama administration's first budget supported the Constellation program in general, endorsing shuttle retirement in 2010 and a return to the moon by 2020. But the administration's 2010 budget, while boosting near-term NASA funding, slashed spending by $3.1 billion between 2011 and 2013. If that money is not restored, Ares 5 development will suffer and landings on the moon will be delayed if not eliminated.
Earlier this month, Obama ordered a 90-day independent review of NASA's manned space program headed. Options for how best to proceed will be presented to the administration later this summer. Depending on what the Augustine commission determines, some or all of the lost money could be restored to NASA's long-range budget.
Or none at all.
Despite the uncertain outlook, Nelson said he doubts Constellation will go away.
"That's just not going to happen," he told CBS. "You're not going to throw away four years of work on the Ares. So I'm not concerned about that. I think the Augustine commission will bless the Ares. The thing I am concerned about is to what extent Ares 5 will be rapidly developed so we can end up doing the lunar lander here and all of that on a target for 2020. And a lot of that's going to come out of the Augustine Commission.
"Even though we've got this concern, that the numbers are lean in the out years, I still have some optimism about us increasing that," Nelson said. "I think politics will play a part of it, because candidate Obama will be a candidate again in 2012 and I think Florida will be important. Florida will be bigger then, it will be 29 electoral votes and I believe...they'll pay attention to us. So I'm concerned, but I'm not panicked about the out years."
Bolden's shuttle history
Bolden's first space flight came when he and six crewmates, including Nelson, took off aboard the shuttle Columbia on January 12, 1986. It was the last successful shuttle mission before Challenger's fatal January 28 launch.
Bolden took off a second time on April 24, 1990, when he served as pilot of the shuttle Discovery to ferry the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit.
It is a given in the astronaut office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston that any flight assignment is a good flight assignment. But the Hubble Space Telescope, one of the most expensive civilian satellites ever built, was in a class by itself, and Bolden clearly relished a chance to play a role in the showcase mission.
"Astronomy captivates everybody," he said in an interview at the time. "A kid in the ghetto, a kid on the farm, everybody at one time or another happens to glance up at the nighttime sky and they see these things we call stars and every once in a while a planet.
"You'd just have to be a non-human being not to go 'what the heck is that?' It has a fascination for everybody."
Bolden flew in space a third time as commander of the shuttle Atlantis for an atmospheric research mission that took off March 24, 1992. His fourth and final space mission was a historic flight as commander of the shuttle Discovery in 1994, a mission that included cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, the first Russian to fly on a space shuttle.
The Russian space program is now critical to NASA, providing the transportation to and from low-Earth orbit while the U.S. agency develops its shuttle replacement.

 

Great news!

 

:smt026

 

slowly but surely

hopefully that will open more doors and offer more opportunities for minorities in general....

no more 'good ol' boy' stuff

Maybe we'll have a space station captain like Sisko from DS:9

that Star Trek iteration alone, was worthy of watching, for the simple fact that their Captain in it was a black dude

 

I don't know how any self-respecting African American would advocate a hispanic in a place of power in this country. Specifically a place that could affect all lives in this country. Like a Latino will look after OUR interests.

See this is what I don't get, black people advocate non-blacks in every way, shape, and form, but do you EVER hear non-blacks (Arabs, non-black Latinos, Koreans, etc) advocate for blacks in any special way???

 

In today's American society, in a big way, not really. You may get some local or regional advocacy, like with the Latino mayor of that town in California, supporting black residents that were coming under attack by latin gangs.

Nationwide however, that load is usually carried with black leaders and organizations such as the NAACP. People like to tease and crack jokes, and take shots at such organizations, but without them, we would probably be worse off, as they are NOT afraid to put small issues under the public microscope, so that we can overcome, and so that our children won't have to repeat whatever we went through.

Doctor King however, was an advocate for everyone, not just blacks, and many people still carry his philosophy. I do get what you are saying tho. It's as if many ethnicities, are just sitting back and waiting for the tough and vocal black man, to set things right, and benefit from that infamous 'trickle-down' effect.

This is just my observation, from living in my city (around here, the NAACP or independent black leader group, usually steps in over racial matters), and watching local and national news coverage. I'm sure there are other views to this matter.

 

Yeah, I remember that the Los Angeles mayor put pressure on the local cops for a cold-blooded shooting of a black teen (they were slacking off, so typical for the LAPD). Only the shooter the arrested though, and he was in a car FILLED with perpatrators. If the races were reversed the ENTIRE gang would have been arrested.

Yeah, and as much as I like the NAACP, they too are advocating some kind of Black-Brown "Coilition", some type of unity between the two groups. While at the same time, gangs like La Raza and MS-13 are shooting and raping innocents blacks althoughout the East and West coasts.... And our Black "leaders" don't say shit about it.
http://www.thesaudavoice.com/the_sauda_voice/2009/05/latino-gang-targeted-blacks-for-violence.html

Exactly. King learned his philosophy from Ghandhi, a man who advocated equal treatment for his OWN people, the Indians, however he was PRO-apartheid, and said MANY times that Indians were "above" black people. King wants equal rights for ALL people, while Ghandhi wanted equal rights for just Indians.

Do the NCAAP chapter in your area speak-out against Latino on Black violence? (if there's a problem with it)

 

well for one thing, there is NO latino/black violence (in the media anyway). I can't remember the last time I heard about a killing associated with such factors, but i'm sure fights break out here and there. I think we have a small latin king presence here too, but for the most part, it's the brothas you gotta worry about. They'll punch you in the eye for no reason. TBH, blacks and latinos get along pretty well in our city. I had a cousin who went with one for years, and I had a girl in HS who was latin.

 

That's a sad commentary right there.:smt009

 

CO SIGN

 

No,you are the sad negro here sir.

 

" Sad negro"? That's a good one.

So, were those fire-hoses heavy back in the 50's & 60s?:mrgreen:

 

A Hispanic appointment will a) help place the Latinos firmly in the Dem camp for years to come and b) add liberal balance to a Supreme Court stacked with conservatives. Smart move all around. Go Obama!!!!!!

 

Why???

Let's hear your take.

 

hopefully the Education secretary will push for more science-heavy curriculums in urban school districts.. I still remember a relative who recruited Guion Buford to speak at some neighborhood events..

http://www.raahistory.com/astro/bluford.htm


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Wow. Really???

I mean, could what you said be any more racist?

 

This is a ad hominem attack.

You better come at me better than that.

Obviously you couldn't give any examples, so my comment stands.

 

So what do you really have against other minorities or someone who is not black? I was under the assumption that we were all in this together, and the term "OUR interests" should not just represent blacks but the American people as a whole.

How about we do something really wacky like you know, just hire the right person for the job regardless of race or gender?:smt120

 

1. IF you really think that all of "us" are in this together, than you are way off base, brotha.

2. If we are REALLY together, than there would be NO need for affirmative action, NAACP, Rainbow Coalition, PUSH, La RAZA, 80-20 Initiative, etc, etc. that are helping THEIR OWN to succeed in America, where is your outcry for the other ethnic groups??

3. Again when was the last time that you see OTHER minorities push for equal rights for ALL???? They are too busy looking after themselves to be worrying about what others think. Black people like you and Blacktiger are too busy pushing for other races, while at the same time those people don't give a fuck about you. If they did, than how come LA RAZA doesn't DENOUNCE Latin GANGS that is exterminating black people??? They all stick together, form coalitions based on common ground, and help EACH OTHER out. Black Americans are too damn divided to do likewise.

4. America is TOO damn diverse and DIVIDED to think we are ALL alike, giving your "fellow" American a helping hand. Most people help themselves, and those who are in common ground with. That's why people IN AMERICA seperate themselves and form relations based on RACE, religion, monetary gains, culture, language, etc.

5. Throughout history Black Americans (and black Westerners in general) were the only group of people that were advocating equal rights for ALL. Black people preach EQUALITY for ALL while they think that they are following MLK's dream. The only other group I can think of that helped us were the Amerindians who fought with us against white opression (5 Civilized Tribes notwithstanding). However black people need to be cautious that the same people we think we are helping and advocating, sometimes, don't give a rat's ass about returning the favor.

6. Our (black) interests are DIFFERENT than what most Latinos think. When I see Latino groups sing Kumbya with black people and the black church, then we're on to something, but until then my thoughts still stand.