Article on supposedly "unprecedented" heights of White House interference at NASA

Re this morning's article:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...eadlines-space

can those of us with more balance and longer memories
help remind this guy of egregious examples of hideous
interference by, say, previous White House occupants
in NASA's public information policies, and even its
major projects, not to say its safety culture?

I found this unpublished
rant in my computer files....

Political correctness at NASA

James Oberg

June 20, 1995



Judging by the public image it tries to put forward, the "new NASA" much
touted

by the White House is a federal agency which knows that political
correctness is

far more important than technical accuracy. At least, that's the message of

recent news releases timed to coincide with the historic Shuttle-Mir linkup.



Celebrating the "centennial" of the one hundredth American astronaut
mission,

NASA scrupulously avoids the time-honored but now offensive term "manned" in

describing its space missions involving astronauts. The "gender police" have

triumphed to the extent that "piloted" missions, or "'occupied" spacecraft,
or

"human space missions", have become the only acceptable verbal way to

express the presence of men (and sometimes women) aboard space vehicles.

For a while, NASA even tried saying "crewed spaceflight" but that came out

sounding "crude" and was abandoned.



The ludicrous extent to which this semantic nonsense can go is exemplified
in a

special NASA poster just issued to commemorate "NASA Milestones". In

discussing the history of the American space program, NASA's modern version

of President Kennedy's 1961 call for the Apollo moon program relates that
JFK

declared that "America would land a human on the Moon before the decade

ends". He called, of course, for landing a "man" on the Moon, but
revisionists

overcame historians to rewrite the speech in accord with current Washington

sensitivities.



So far, fortunately, Neil Armstrong's first words on the Moon remain
accurate:

"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind". But it's easy
to

see where the trend is heading. Someday soon we can expect it to be

"corrected" to read: "That's one small step for a person, one giant leap for

humanity."



Throughout the recent NASA press releases, proper and accurate homage is

paid to various first achievements of a gender, or ethnic, or diplomatic
nature.

But when it comes to reporting accurately the cosmic achievements of "old
white

men", sloppiness and misstatements abound.



For example, NASA newsletters have just published a list of space events
that

has the wrong date for Ed White's 1965 space walk, and the wrong missions
for

the Gemini tests which preceded the first manned (my terminology) flight. It

misspells the last names of two of the most distinguished space shuttle

astronauts, who unfortunately happened to be white men. Four-time shuttle

veteran (and later director of the Kennedy Space Center) Robert Crippen's
name

is given as "Crippin" and former astronaut team commander Dan Brandenstein's

name is given as "Brandstein". Every real space worker in the shuttle
program

knows of these men and how their names are spelled, but not -- apparently --
the

public relations experts at NASA Headquarters.



A summary report by a NASA headquarters historian went so far as to misquote

the Bible when reporting the readings by the Apollo-8 crew in lunar orbit on

Christmas Eve, 1968. As anyone with even the remotest religious background

can recall, the phrase goes "in the beginning, God created the heavens and
the

Earth....". But somehow, the closest that NASA's top expert could get was
"And

God created the heavens and the Earth...." Yet his report accurately listed
first

spaceflight events for United States African-American and Hispanic
astronauts

(although not for Asian-American astronauts, it should be pointed out).



One other long-standing error, however, lies in NASA's overlooking the
flight of

the Cuban pilot Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez aboard a Soviet spacecraft in 1980.

Picked for clearcut propaganda purposes, he was the world's first black
space

traveler, preceding by many years the flights of United States astronauts of
Sub-

Saharan African descent. Also overlooked is the 1985 spaceflight of the
first

person actually born in Sub-Saharan Africa, who happened to be white. Such

awkward facts, inconsistent with NASA's publicity intentions, are not
mentioned



These humorous slip-ups and cover-ups show graphically the kind of public

image that NASA has decided to portray, and the kind of agency it wants to
be

perceived as. Getting the facts right is no longer on the agenda, since they

chose to skip the validation procedures which could easily have caught these

errors. Pandering to the currently in-power pressure groups in Washington

appears to be the main strategy.



If this behavior was only a superficial aberration, it could easily be
dismissed as

the inconsequential posturings of sloppy public relations flacks. But it may

go much deeper, because it has apparently come about by explicit directive
from

the highest levels in the agency, and those directives apply to everyone
else at

NASA (and its contractors) as well. Whether an agency with such distorted

priorities can be counted on to successfully and safely conduct high-risk
and

high-cost space activities is a good question to consider.

"Jim Oberg" wrote in
:

Re this morning's article:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...politics1206fe
b12,0,483151.story?coll=orl-news-headlines-space

can those of us with more balance and longer memories
help remind this guy of egregious examples of hideous
interference by, say, previous White House occupants
in NASA's public information policies, and even its
major projects, not to say its safety culture?

There's plenty of examples in /DragonFly/ and your own /Star-Crossed
Orbits/ of the previous administration suppressing safety concerns about
Shuttle-Mir, and cracking down on any public criticism of the Russians.

Regarding major projects, I recall NASA built an Earth Screensaver
spacecraft because the then-VP had a dream about it.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

Re this morning's article:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...eadlines-space

I can't really add anything. In fact, I was a little surprised by the
number of 18 political appointees in the Clinton administration and 24
now. I had always thought that there were only 2 political positions
in NASA (administrator and I think deputy administrator). In fact,
Dwayne Day has written that if NASA had more political appointees,
maybe they would get along better with the White House.

Perhaps the 2 are the number which are confirmed by the Senate?
I'm not sure how "political appointee" is being defined...

On 12 Feb 2006 12:39:51 -0500, in a place far, far away, Jim Kingdon
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:

Re this morning's article:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...eadlines-space

I can't really add anything. In fact, I was a little surprised by the
number of 18 political appointees in the Clinton administration and 24
now. I had always thought that there were only 2 political positions
in NASA (administrator and I think deputy administrator). In fact,
Dwayne Day has written that if NASA had more political appointees,
maybe they would get along better with the White House.

Perhaps the 2 are the number which are confirmed by the Senate?
I'm not sure how "political appointee" is being defined...

I think that all associate administrators are political appointees, in
the sense that they are vetted by the White House.

Jim Oberg wrote:
Re this morning's article:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...eadlines-space

can those of us with more balance and longer memories
help remind this guy of egregious examples of hideous
interference by, say, previous White House occupants
in NASA's public information policies, and even its
major projects, not to say its safety culture?

Tsk. First, people complain that the White House shows little interest
in NASA. When the White House does show interest, people complain even
more loudly. It reminds me of the old saying, "Be careful what you ask
for. You might get it."

--
Dave Michelson

On Sun, 12 Feb 2006 16:13:58 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Jim
Oberg" made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Re this morning's article:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...eadlines-space

can those of us with more balance and longer memories
help remind this guy of egregious examples of hideous
interference by, say, previous White House occupants
in NASA's public information policies, and even its
major projects, not to say its safety culture?

He wouldn't be interested. It wouldn't fit the standard media
template that the current administration is the worst one in the
history of the Republic, in every aspect.

"Dave Michelson" wrote in message
news:O9LHf.604320$ki.285946@pd7tw2no...

It reminds me of the old saying, "Be careful what you ask
for. You might get it."


Yep. The right wing/Christian Conservative wackos pray for the end of
the World every minute of their misbegotten lives. They are sure to get
their wish before Bush leaves the White House.

In article ,
"Jim Oberg" wrote:

Re this morning's article:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...s1206feb12,0,4
83151.story?coll=orl-news-headlines-space

can those of us with more balance and longer memories
help remind this guy of egregious examples of hideous
interference by, say, previous White House occupants
in NASA's public information policies, and even its
major projects, not to say its safety culture?

Like Ronald Reagan, whose handlers sent Challenger to its doom for the
sake of a feel-good line in the State of the Union address.

"Von Fourche" wrote
Yep. The right wing/Christian Conservative wackos pray for the end of
the World every minute of their misbegotten lives. They are sure to get
their wish before Bush leaves the White House.

OK, let's bet. I'll send you $10 for possession of
all your worldly goods as of January 20, 2009.

For you, it's a free $10, since you're sure (you say)
that it'll all be blown up by then.

$10 not enough? Make me a counter-offer.