Hello. Is there anybody out there? Can anyone hear me there at all?

Any chance of getting an answer to my question BA :

What do you think of Ed Weiler - good for NASA / Science or not? Good bloke or not?

Sorry about the double post there ..
Thought I’d stopped that first draft going through in time..

BadAstronomer : Please! Please! Please, can’t you find a way of letting us edit here?

I) Proper funding - say for example all the amount currently wasted on the needless bloodshed, carnage and counter-productive action in the USA’s invasion & occupation of Iraq.
(Come to think of it even half that amnount would probably suffice to send people to Mars, Luna & a near-Earth asteroid or two wouldn’t it BA?)

II) A proper communicator who can inspire (& inform / educate) the public imagination as happened back in ‘Mercury-7′ & ‘Apollo’ days.

III) A new US President making invading outer space not innocnet nations here on Earth a priority - someone to ‘do a JFK’ and set a firm deadline : “We are going to Mars before this decade is out & we are, for once doing it in peace for the benefit all people ..” Then put the funding, the energy and the real effoirt into achieving that goal.

Whoever runs NASA I’d reckon we need those three connected elements to happen before we’re going to get the first woman on the Moon, the first person on Mars & on an asteroid - or even just to save the dying space programme that you’ve now got ..

Personally, I really hope Obama gets the nod before Bush Jr starts yet another war - which I see as, sadly, all too likely to be the Retardican parties strategy for getting war-mongering old McCain into power.

I think the best hope of the world, quite frankly, is that the US military finally mutinies & launches a coup to stop Bush abusing them further and remove George II from power before he & his neo-Con ideologue puppet-masters do any more damage. I was hoping for impeachment of the neo-con regime - but it seems the Democratic party lack the requisite backbone.
This intelligent observer of the state of the USA is NOT optimistic about its future - or because of it - the planets…
Americans - please prove me wrong!

BTW BA : What do you think of Ed Weiler - good for NASA / Science or not? Good bloke or not?

I) Proper funding - say for example all the amount currently wasted on the needless bloodshed, carnage and counter-productive action in the USA’s invasion & occupation of Iraq.
(Come to think of it even half that amnount would probably suffice to send people to Mars, Luna & a near-Earth asteroid or two wouldn’t it BA?)

II) A proper communicator who can inspire (& inform / educate) the public imagination as happened back in ‘Mercury-7′ & ‘Apollo’ days.

III) A new US President making invading outer space not innocnet nations here on Earth a priority - someone to ‘do a JFK’ and set a firm deadline : “We are going to Mars before this decade is out & we are, for once doing it in peace for the benefit all people ..” Then put the funding, the energy and the real effoirt into achieving that goal.

Whoever runs NASA I’d reckon we need those three connected elements to happen before we’re going to get the first woman on the Moon, the first person on Mars & on an asteroid - or even just to save the dying space programme that you’ve now got ..

Personally, I really hope Obama gets the nod before Bush Jr starts yet another war - which I see as, sadly, all too likely to be the Retardican parties strategy for getting war-mongering old McCain into power.

I think the best hope of the world, quite frankly, is that the US military finally mutinies & launches a coup to stop Bush abusing them further and remove George II from power before he & his neo-Con ideologue puppet-masters do any more damage. I was hoping for impeachment of the neo-con regime - but it seems the Democratic party lack the requisite backbone.
This intelligent observer of the state of the USA is NOT optomistic about its future - or because of it the planets…
Americans - please prove me wrong!

BTW BA : What do you think of Ed Weiler - good for NASA / Science or not? Good bloke or not?

1) Robert Zubrin whose got a human Martian exploaryion plan worked out brilliantly already. He’s given afew talks notably one Iattended inAdelaide that convincedme he’s got tehvisionand guts to do if he gets the funding ..

2) Phil Plait - ’nuff siad!
&

3) Stephen Baxter - a British hard SF writer & the author of ‘Voyage’ (alternative history of how we could’ve gone to Mars in the 1980’s), ‘Titan’ verygrim &scarily accurate story of a human mission to Titan whilst the Earth collapses under the weight of Teh Stoopid.

Course Iweouldn’t mind having acrack at it myself either!

I thought Alan Stern was quite a good choice. However, new leadership in an increasingly (dis~)United States of America is proabably a good idea generally.

Your current mob of fools in charge are a disgrace to your country & its true spirit & better nature - that of JFK, Isaac Asimov and Martin Luther King …