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> However, officials stressed that Harris will "put her stamp" on the organization. "Let me flag a couple of things that I think she'll put a particular focus o
by tediousdemise 5y ago
> However, officials stressed that Harris will "put her stamp" on the organization. "Let me flag a couple of things that I think she'll put a particular focus on," one official said, laying out the following priorities:
• Sustainable development of commercial space
• Advancing peaceful norms and responsible behaviors in space
Achieving peaceful exploration objectives with our allies and partners
• Climate change
• STEM education
• Diversity in the workforce
• Enhancing cybersecurity in space systems
Bullets 3, 4, and 5 seem utterly unrelated.
- jfengel 5y agoThey're not unrelated. Why do we have a space program at all? Earth observation is one key mission, and we use it to study climate change. Satellites are a big part of that. We also have a space program to educate people. It keeps the US on the forefront of technology. We develop tech learn new stuff, with spinoffs both in terms of tech and in terms of people who go off to other industries (and bring insights from other industries). That starts with STEM education. Diversity isn't directly related to the point of a space program, but it is a government program that has a long history of excluding anybody except white men. The Russians put a woman in space almost three decades before the US did. The STEM pipeline has been leaky for women and minorities, and the space program's STEM focus makes it a good place to keep an eye on why that's happening. We need as much talent as we can get in the space program, and irrelevant factors like race and gender should not be used to keep people out.