Curtis Croulet wrote:

In fairness -- what was the nature of the sponsorship? Maybe it was just access
to certain lab facilities. Incidentally, as a former herpetologist, I found the
article quite interesting.

I'm a bit of a amateur herpetologist myself (I had a pet Caiman- they
don't react at all well to being petted); the article was interesting,
as I thought the Varanus-Mosasaur-Snake hypothesis was a neat solution
to a vexing problem in evolution. But what I wanted to point out is
that even if NASA's contribution to this research was as limited as you
state (I do note that they got put ahead of the National Science
Foundation in who the research was done by, though) is that the
evolution of snakes is far outside the purview of NASA; and if such
research is to be done, it should be done by some institution- private,
academic, corporate, or governmental- other than NASA; isn't this more
of a job for someone in the areas of evolutionary biology or
paleontology s than for a organization dedicated to aerospace research?
I fear that the ability of NASA to throw a great deal of money (by
science research standards) at things that really have no connection to
their stated mission, in the quest for good publicity and high public
visibility makes them an easy mark for a great deal of funding and
research requests in fields which they should have no interest. Under
Dan Goldin, NASA seemed to spread itself out in many strange and
fruitless directions (Space Camp and robotics submarines zooming around
under ice caps, as well as walking for a few feet down the interior of a
Antarctic volcano immediately come to mind) more like a amusement park
than a government institution. If they want to get back on track
regarding space exploration on a reasonable budget, they need to do some
serious reconsideration and pruning in regards to what they consider
worthy research to work on and fund; and snake evolution isn't a
pressing concern in regards to space exploration.

Pat