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NASA’s top climate scientist Gavin Schmidt has warned President-Elect Donald Trump that the planet just won’t stand for having a fully-fledged climate denier in the White House. Good luck with that one, Gavin. Or “Toast” as we’ll shortly be calling you… Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), told the Independent: “The point is simple: the climate is changing and you can try to deny it, you can appoint people who don’t care about it into positions of power, but regardless nature has the last vote on this.” Unfortunately, Schmidt doesn’t feel so strongly on the issue...

National Space Society Opposes Senate Gutting of Commercial Crew Program [and investing in Russian economy] The National Space Society (NSS) strongly opposes the Senate Appropriations Committee’s $344 million (27%) cut of the 2015 Commercial Crew budget requested by the Administration. The Senate cuts were $100 million more than those recently passed by the House. NSS stands with NASA administrator Charles Bolden when he said “By gutting this program and turning our backs on U.S. industry, NASA will be forced to continue to rely on Russia to get its astronauts into space – and to continue to invest hundreds of millions...

  In 2014 China made a round trip to the moon with robotic explorers. The Chinese intend to launch a mission to the moon that will return samples back to Earth. They have outlined their ambitious plans for outer space here. IEEE/Spectrum calls China the "Next Space Superpower."“The Chinese have said repeatedly that they are not going to go into space, land on the moon, look around, say, Been there, done that,’ and consider themselves done,” says Johnson-Freese. “They’re going to do stepping-stone infrastructure, and in those terms their space station makes sense.” Where else might Chinese astronauts go? Their...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who just took over leadership of the Senate’s space committee, hosted Buzz Aldrin and other former NASA astronauts on Capitol Hill Tuesday for a discussion on space exploration.Cruz opened Tuesday’s hearing of the subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness by calling for more NASA and commercial space activity. “The year 2015 is just as critical of a time for our national and commercial space programs as was the case a half century ago,” the Texas Republican said. “Future exploration is certain to present hardships. But it also promises high rewards. New resources, frontiers and economic opportunities.”Cruz...

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness, will hold his first hearings on "U.S. Human Exploration Goals and Commercial Space Competitiveness” next week, according to a Thursday story In Space Policy Online. Among the eclectic group of former astronauts, business leaders, and academics that will constitute the witness list will be Apollo moonwalker Buzz Aldrin. The hearings will also serve as an opportunity for Cruz to flesh out his views on the future of the American space program. Cruz has previously stated his desire to return NASA to its core function of...

The new space subcommittee chairman thinks the Obama administration has the agency overly focused on climate change at the expense of exploring the cosmos. If Ted Cruz is NASA's Grim Reaper, he doesn't talk like it. To hear the new chairman of the Senate's Space, Science, and Competitiveness Subcommittee talk about NASA is to hear none of the budget-slashing zeal that comes out when he talks about, say, the IRS. Instead, he talks at length about putting more Americans in space and sending them farther than ever before. He gushes about the agency that has "excited the spirits of every...