Let's look at some basic history.

In the 1950s and 1960s we pushed science and engineering, lots of students
were graduated:

Then came the nuclear test ban treaty - and many high tech businesses
including electrical equipment houses bit the dust.

Then we cancelled Apollo, cancelled the supersonic transport etc and there
was mass uneployment on the technical fields. They even made a movie with
George Kennedy as a surplused engineer called An American Tragedy.

Then there were the students who got advanced degrees in Nuclear
Engineering - only to see the Nuclear energy field close to new designs.

Then there the students who did the graduate work in high energy physics -
only to see Star Wars end.

Then there were the students who did graduate work in particle physics only
to have the supercollider terminated.

The promise of $10 Million shuttle launch costs created illusions of space
power stations, large space structures. nuclear tugs - we hired. we studied,
then the big layoff

There was joke at one time - If your cab driver in San Francisco was wearing
sandles - he had a Phd in high energy physics.

The list goes on and on.

Few of the really high tech projects last form entry in college to exit
with an advanced degree.

We send kids to NASA space Camps, do high school technical programs, but it
ends there - a great empty promise.

We constantly talk about graduating more technical folks - but do nothing to
make the fields stable or that profitable as compared to business degrees.

I'm not saying we need make work jobs to keep the technical folks employed -
but the simple goal of making more technical graduates without knowing how
or if they may be used is insane to say the least.

and the relationship to this thread is - Bolden go entice kids into
technical fields where the enticement usually features manned space as a
centerpiece - and oh by the way shut down manned space and go make the
Muslims feel good about their ancestors.