Astronauts beware: President Donald Trump picked Congressman James Bridenstine to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Though he still awaits confirmation in the Senate, the Oklahoma Republican with no background in the hard sciences seems an odd choice; Bridenstine's most relevant experience is his tenure as executive director of the Tulsa Air & Space Museum & Planetarium.
What might we expect from Bridenstine as NASA administrator? Bridenstine's politics are fairly in line with most Republicans' nowadays — which is to say, he's a far-right, pro-limited government, climate science skeptic. In a 2016 interview he said the climate “has always changed,” pointing to “periods of time long before the internal combustion engine when the Earth was much warmer than it is today.” He currently serves on the the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, whose GOP chairman has called on Trump to cease all of NASA's climate change studies.
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