[meteorite-list] Good By Bush - the nightmare is over

From: MeteorHntr at aol.com <MeteorHntr_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:10:46 EST
Message-ID: <c03.2263d4ea.36a7ec36_at_aol.com>

Hey List,

In an effort to pull this topic from the realms of Hate onto some topics
both political AND meteorite related.

Army First, NASA Last, at least that was the order in the Inauguration
Parade.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/inauguration-watch/2009/01/heres_the_order_of_the_parade.html

It seems President Obama wants to add several billion more dollars to the
NASA budget.
http://www.smartbrief.com/news/aia/storyDetails.jsp?issueid=2166D29F-1CEA-460F
-9E54-719B34CB061A&copyid=6C817626-281D-49DE-BC60-F90256CC4D69

It seems President Obama has seen fit to not keep on the Bush appointed
Michael Griffn head of NASA with a new person. It seems Griffin could not
support the direction Obama wanted to agency to go, so he resigned:
http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=f3f1e104-22e2-418a-aed2-cf0b
c6ec1ee0

It will be interesting to see if the new president wants to spend the money
to go to Mars and/or possibly back to the Moon, like Griffin wanted to. Or if
 President Obama will want to use NASA to combat climate change instead, as
some people think NASA should do.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=nasa-and-climate-change

As for the direct relationship to Meteorites, I think if NASA sends people
to the Moon again, or takes astronauts to Mars it would provide more PR in the
news that only helps in generating interest in planetary specimens. If our
exploration in space stops, then I think it only slows down the spread of the
 popularity of meteorite collecting.

With much of NASA being in Texas, it will be interesting how much of the
"extra government spending" will be made there to stimulate the economy, of if
extra government money will go to other areas in more need. Many of the "Big
Oil" companies are in Texas, and it seems their economy is doing much better
than many other places in the country. A case might be made that "stimulus"
spending might be better used elsewhere such as with the big auto makers in
Detroit, rather than with big space ship makers elsewhere.

I noticed that President Obama made the comment something today about
returning science to it's rightful place. So maybe that means more money will be
spent on science, even if it might not mean space travel. Maybe more will be
spent going to Antarctica. Maybe there will be more grant money for
institutions to buy more meteorites.

We can only Hope...

Steve Arnold #1
Arkansas

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Received on Tue 20 Jan 2009 10:10:46 PM PST