As NASA finalizes it’s next unmanned mission to Mars, others ponder the idea of sending humans there. Veuer's Sam Berman has the full story. Buzz60
WASHINGTON — The White House is standing by their NASA man.
President Trump remains firmly behind his choice of Oklahoma GOP Rep. Jim Bridenstine to be the next administrator of the space agency, even though he does not appear to have the votes for Senate confirmation.
“Senate Democrats should stop their pointless obstruction, and confirm our eminently qualified nominee immediately," said Lindsay Walters, deputy White House press secretary, said in a statement to USA TODAY. "The President looks forward to Rep. Bridenstine’s swift confirmation by the Senate, and is confident he will ensure America is a leader in space exploration once again.”
Bridenstine's critics say NASA should be led by a "space professional" rather than a politician, and it's not just the Senate's 49 Democrats who are blocking the president's pick
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida also has voiced deep misgivings.
The senator and the congressman have a history. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Bridenstine appeared in ads on behalf of Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz that suggested Rubio, then a candidate for the White House, was soft on terror and slammed Rubio’s support of immigration reform.
And with GOP Sen. John McCain back home in Arizona as he battles brain cancer, Republicans are at least one supporter shy of the 50 they need to force a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence to confirm Bridenstine.
The standoff comes as NASA's longest-serving acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot, has announced he'll leave at the end of this month.
That could leave the agency further in leadership limbo as it faces key milestones: the development of commercial transport that can ferry crews to the International Space Station, testing on NASA's rocket system designed to take astronauts to deep space, and the delayed deployment of the multi-billion-dollar successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.
The lack of a permanent chief "increasingly becomes a problem" for NASA, said John Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. The agency "can do what it does but it certainly cannot take any significant initiatives or really make any really hard choices."
If Lightfoot leaves without Bridenstine in place, the job of acting administrator would likely fall to Jeff DeWit, the former Arizona state treasurer who Senate confirmation in a unanimous voice vote last last month as NASA's chief financial officer.
DeWit, who served as the chief operating officer of Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016, has a career in financial management but no space-related experience.
There's been pressure to move forward with the nomination of Bridenstine, a commercial space advocate who has been endorsed by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin. The three-term congressman from Tulsa has twice been approved by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on a party-line vote.
A bipartisan group of House members last month wrote to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, urging them to confirm him given the mounting tasks the agency must confront.
"Now is not the time to leave NASA rudderless," the lawmakers wrote. "We urge the Senate to confirm Jim Bridenstine swiftly and allow him to lead the world’s premier space agency into the next age of space exploration."
On Monday, McConnell expressed frustration with Democrats for blocking a slew of Trump nominees in recent months.
“Qualified nominees stand ready," McConnell said on the Senate floor. "But Senate Democrats are using the procedural playbook to obstruct and delay."
Around the same time, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla,. was reiterating his opposition to Bridenstine's nomination.
"I feel very strongly — and what I've said from Day One — is that the head of NASA ought to be a space professional, not a politician," said Nelson, the top Democrat on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
Logsdon said he'd like to see the Senate take up the confirmation even if Bridenstine doesn't have the votes so that the process of finding a permanent administrator can proceed.
"It's a stupid situation, fundamentally," he said. "You've got a person nominated. He's been voted out of committee, and it should be the Senate's responsibility to act on the nomination."
Support:House lawmakers hammer Senate for not approving NASA nominee
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